A Study in Scarlet (Serial Edition Cover) — page 171: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A STUDY IN SCARLET. 165 held Lucy’s marriage-ring in front of his eyes. It was but for a moment, for the action of the alkaloid ts rapid. A spasm of pain contorted his features; he threw his hands out in front of him, staggered, and then, with a hoarse cry, fell heavily upon the floor. I turned him over with my foot and placed my hand upon his heart. There was no movement. He was dead! “The blood had been streaming from my nose, but I had taken no notice of it. I don’t know what it was that put it into my head to write upon the wall with it. Perhaps it was some mischievous idea of setting the police upon a wrong track, for I felt light-hearted and cheerful. I remembered a German being found in New York with RACHE written up above him, and it was argued at the time in the newspapers that the secret so- cieties must have done it. I guessed that what puzzled the New Yorkers would puzzle the Londoners, so I dipped my finger in my own blood and printed it on a convenient place on the wall. Then I walked down to my cab and found that there was nobody about, and that the night was still very wild. I had driven some distance, when I put my hand into the pocket in which I usually kept Lucy’s ring, and found that it was not there. I was thunder-struck at this, for it was the only . memento that I had of her. Thinking that I might have dropped it when I stooped over Drebber’s body, I drove back, and leaving my cab in a side street, I went CORNIELOO SS (C@