“So far as I can determine,” I replied, “there are four additional letters following the ones I have already deciphered. Owing to its indistinct condition, the first is almost entirely illegible. The next two, however, are unmistakably O and R. And the final letter, although also badly smudged, may indeed be an F.”

“Why if that don’t prove it,” Crockett declared, “then I’m a Dutchman.”

Captain Russell slapped his notebook shut. “Think of it, gentlemen,” he observed in sombre tones. “Even as she lay there, so grievously wounded, the poor victim must have inscribed her killer’s name upon the wall, using her own dying blood as ink!”

Thus far I had managed, by keeping my attention riveted upon the wall above the bed, to avoid a too-close view of the gruesome corpse which sprawled only inches away from me. Now, I forced myself to look directly at the victim’s hideously mangled throat. The ghasdy sight caused my own throat to clench up, as though it had been seized by an iron grip. A few moments went by before I recovered my power of speech. “I marvel, Captain Russell,” I opined, “that an elderly woman who has suffered a wound of such severity could accomplish the act which you have just described.”

“Mr. Poe,” he replied, “at moments of mortal crisis, even the frailest of people is often capable of feats that would seem, under ordinary circumstances, to be almost superhuman.”

“That’s the gospel truth, Captain,” Crockett averred. “I recollect the time when my mate, Georgie Webster, got hisself shot so full of arrows during a raid on a Cherokee village that he looked like a goldang porky-pine. Even so, he managed to bring down and scalp no less’n six of the unhuman savages afore he succumbed to his fearful injuries.”

“Mr. Poe,” said Captain Russell, extending his right hand, which I clasped in my own. “I am obliged to you for the assistance you have rendered. Your keen powers of observation have proved instrumental in helping us resolve this mystery. Officer Carlton,” he continued, addressing the young officer who had reported his own earlier contretemps with Neuendorf. “I would like you to remain here and stand watch over the corpus delicti until the coroner arrives. In the meantime, Colonel Crockett, Sergeant Donegan, and I will proceed to the harbor and attempt to locate and apprehend the suspect.”

“Yes sir,” replied Carlton.

Taking a step in my direction, Crockett clapped me on the shoulder. “Cricket, you’ve acquitted yourself handsome, and that’s a fact. Maybe you ain’t so all-fired useless as it seems.”

“Your gracious words are precisely the sort of courtesy one would expect of you, Colonel Crockett,” I answered dryly.

“Thankee,” Crockett replied« Then, addressing the portly leader of the police contingent, he declared: “Captain, let’s make tracks to the harbor and take care of that low-down, no-account furriner. My dander is up and I’m feelin’ mighty wrathy.”