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He extinguished the precious candle-end, and set to work once more with a will and what light the day afforded. Nor was the task much easier than before. Every one of the stones was partly imbedded in the solid of the wall, projecting but a portion of its bulk over the hollow of the stable.

He entered, lit the candle, placed the box and hassock, murdered his victim, washed his hands and knife, took the candle-end from the socket and went downstairs, where he blew out the candle and dropped it into the tray. "The next clue is furnished by the sand on the pillow.

"When I entered the hall," Thorndyke continued, "I noted the following facts: Behind the door was a shelf on which were two china candlesticks. Each was fitted with a candle, and in one was a short candle-end, about an inch long, lying in the tray. On the floor, close to the mat, was a spot of candle-wax and some faint marks of muddy feet.

Hanne was standing in the middle of the room, with open mouth; and was engaged in putting on her fine linen underclothing by the light of a candle-end. Her breath came in short gasps and hung white on the air. "Are you standing there naked in the cold?" said Madam Johnsen reproachfully. "You ought to take a little care of yourself." "Why, mother, I'm so warm! Why, it's summer now!"

But, I suppose, I shall get no dinner in this house, no, not so much as a crust of bread; for while the old gentleman is launching out into such prodigious expenses on a great scale, making heathenish temples, and spoiling the fine old house with his new picture gallery and nonsense, he is so close in small matters, that I warrant not a candle-end escapes him; griping and pinching and squeezing with one hand, and scattering money, as if it were dirt, with the other, and all for that cross, ugly, deformed, little whippersnapper of a son.

And outside the little candle-end sat and guttered by itself, till the wick fell overboard, and the flame kicked itself out, leaving the studio in darkness and solitude to wait for the growings of another dawn.

In one hand he carried the letter, in the other the candle-end stuck in a bottle that was known as a "Ballarat-lantern" for it was a pitchdark night. Trade was slack; in consequence he found the four days that had to pass before he could hope for an answer exceptionally long. After their lapse, he twice spent an hour at the Post Office, in a fruitless attempt to get near the little window.

Miss Terry stooped and picked up something from the floor. It was the bit of candle-end which had escaped the holocaust. "Are the candles still lighted, Norah?" she asked, eyeing the bit of wax in her hand. "Yes'm, some of them," answered the maid. "It is getting late, and a good many have burned out. But some houses are still as bright as ever."

Over the wild-surging chaos, in the leaden air, are only sudden glares of revolutionary lightning; then mere darkness, with philanthropistic phosphorescences, empty meteoric lights; here and there an ecclesiastical luminary still hovering, hanging on to its old quaking fixtures, pretending still to be a Moon or Sun, though visibly it is but a Chinese lantern made of paper mainly, with candle-end foully dying in the heart of it.

Clenching his teeth, he managed somehow to light the candle-end, set it in the candlestick again, and looked about him: near the open casement, with his feet towards the right-hand corner, lay the dead body of Kirillov. The shot had been fired at the right temple and the bullet had come out at the top on the left, shattering the skull. There were splashes of blood and brains.