Jimmie, I was wrong. Within a month a series of narrow escapes from
accidents, any one of which might easily have accomplished my death,
seemed to follow me persistently. I will not take the time now to
enumerate them all--they were so commonplace, so liable to happen to any
one, such for instance as escaping by a hair's-breadth from being run
down by a speeding car swerving, around the corner as I started to cross
the street, or again by an iron tackle falling from a scaffolding where
work was in progress on the building in which, pending the remodelling
of my own house, as you know, I had taken an apartment, that at first I
attached no ulterior significance to them. But finally, as they
persisted, I became convinced that they were deliberate and premeditated
attempts upon my life. I said nothing to you, as I did not wish to
alarm you. And then one night Clarke showed himself.
"Do you remember the colourless liquid, the poison instantaneous in its
action and defying detection by autopsy, which was so favourite a method
of murder with the Crime Club? I had expected to be out for the evening,
and had given the maids permission to go out together.
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