Page:Marsh--The seen and the unseen.djvu/108

84 "As I fired a few drops spurted from John Osborn's eye and fell upon a card. See, here they stand as a record unto this day."

He held out to me a card with this horrid memorial upon its back. I tried to close my eyes, but the lids rebelled. I was compelled to look.

"I have often wondered where that first bullet went with which I missed. I was seated there. My wrist was struck up—so! I never heard that it was found. It was not produced against me at the trial It must have gone in this direction. Let us see." He began at a particular place to prod the cushioned back of the seat with the fingers of his right hand. I watched, as a man might be supposed to watch with his mental eye, the horrors of a nightmare. At last he gave an exclamation. "Oh! What have we here?"

Actually, with his finger-nails, he commenced to pick a hole in the cushion. What an officer of the railway company would have thought of the proceedings is more than I can say. I could but look on. With diabolical dexterity he tore a hole in the cushion, and into this hole he inserted his finger and thumb. With these he groped about inside. When he withdrew them he held them up.

"You see, my friend, that it is found. The missing bullet! It is a little shapeless, but I know it well." He pressed it to his lips. He advanced to me. "The first shot which I fired at John Osborn. Take it and keep it, my friend, in memory of me."

It was a nice keepsake to offer to a friend. Conceive a notorious murderer returning to these shades and offering you as a token of his regard and