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passed between the brothers established beyond a doubt Armand's complicity in the murder. Both were convicted and condemned to death, but, as is usual in Belgium, their sentence was commuted into penal servitude for life.

"The murder of M. Bernays," commented The Times in a leading article on December 23rd, 1882, "could only have been committed by men having plenty of time and money and the experience which comes of education and great knowledge of the world." Whether that be so or not, it certainly deserves to be remembered as a highly ingenious crime, the authors of which would probably have remained undetected had not a tradesman, with whom he had dealings eight years before, recognized Léon's handwriting. That possibility should have been foreseen, but owing to his long absence from Belgium the risk was probably considered negligible.

I suppose that the perfect and ideal murder is one that will never be discussed because it will never be discovered. Murderers are the most modest of artists, and alone among the followers of any art are without any vain desire that the world should admire their masterpieces; nay, are often reluctant, as in an excess of Christian humility, to receive the intellectual praises that are their due. In real life the finest achievements are necessarily nameless; not only because the police never discover the murderer, but because they never even discover the murder.

In fiction the same ought to be true, and it may well be maintained that the most mysterious murder of all would be one that remained unknown to the reader—or, perhaps, even to the author. And this in itself opens up a pleasing avenue of fancy. There are a great many natural deaths in novels, and it would be gratifying to reconstruct each of them as a crime committed without even the connivance of the novelist. Somebody said, not without shrewdness, about Mrs. Mackenzie, the Campaigner in The Newcomes," "The truth is she drank. Thackeray didn't know it; but she drank."