had uttered these concluding words yet lingered on
his lips, lighting up features of a mould too suggestive of command to
be associated readily with guilt. That the impression thus produced was
favourable, was evident from the tone of the Inspector's reply:

"We have said nothing about prosecution, Mr. Brotherson. We hope to
avoid any such extreme measures, and that we may the more readily do
so, we have given you this opportunity to make such explanations as the
situation, which you yourself have characterised as remarkable, seems to
call for."

"I am ready. But what am I called upon to explain? I really cannot see,
sir. Knowing nothing more about either case than you do, I fear that I
shall not add much to your enlightenment."

"You can tell us why with your seeming culture and obvious means, you
choose to spend so much time in a second-rate tenement like the one in
Hicks Street."

Again that chill smile preceding the quiet answer:

"Have you seen my room there? It is piled to the ceiling with books.
When I was a poor man, I chose the abode suited to my purse and my
passion for first-rate reading. As I grew better off, my time became
daily more valuable. I have never seen the hour when I felt like moving
that precious collection. Besides, I am a man of the people. I like the
working class, and am willing to be thought one of them. I can find time
to talk to a hard-pushed mechanic as easily as to such members of the
moneyed class as I encounter on stray evenings at the Hotel Clermont. I
have led--I may say that I am leading--a double life; but of neither am
I ashamed, nor have I cause to be. Love drove me to ape the gentleman
in the halls of the Clermont; a broad human interest in the work of the
world, to live as a fellow among the mechanics of Hicks Street."

"But why make use of one name as a gentleman of leisure and quite a
different one as the honest workman?"

"Ah, there you touch upon my real secret. I have a reason for keeping my
identity quiet till my invention is completed."

"A reason connected with your anarchistic tendencies?"

"Possibly." But the word was uttered in a way to carry little
conviction. "I am not much of an anarchist," he now took the trouble to
declare, with a careless lift of his shoulders. "I like fair play, but
I shall never give you much trouble by my manner of insuring it. I have
too much at stake. My invention is dearer to me than the overthrow of
present institutions. Nothi