The Basement Window

Glasgow, Monday, 23 March 1857. Gaspard Morel, 31, a French clerk at a tea warehouse, died at dawn in his boarding-house room after a whole night of vomiting and cramps.

The landlady says he went out on Sunday evening, well dressed and whistling, and came back before dawn doubled over in pain. The doctor down the street did not hesitate: arsenic.

In his drawer, a box of letters tied with ribbon, all in the same girlish hand, all signed with a single initial.

Three people crossed Gaspard's path on the nights of Glasgow. One of them served him his last cup.

A Glasgow boarding-house room, with an unmade bed and a box of letters tied with red ribbon.