With all his throat and lung troubles actively renewed, Stevenson
fled to Davos again in October. This time he and his wife and stepson
occupied a small house by themselves, the Chalet am Stein, near the
Buol Hotel. The election to the Edinburgh Professorship was still
pending, and the following note to his father shows that he thought
for a moment of giving the electors a specimen of his qualifications
in the shape of a magazine article on the Appin murder--a theme
afterwards turned to more vital account in the tales of _Kidnapped_
and _Catriona_.
[_Chalet am Stein, Davos, October 1881._]