s of the world, that I live from day to day with the
risk of ignominious detection always hovering about me--do you think
that I do this and am yet unprepared to run the final risks of life and
death? Have you ever talked with a murderer, Mr. Dunster? Has curiosity
ever taken you within the walls of Sing Sing? Have you sat within the
cell of a doomed man and felt the thrill of his touch, of his close
presence? Well, I will not ask you those questions. I will simply tell
you that you are talking to one now."

Mr. Dunster had forgotten his extinct cigar. He found it difficult to
remove his eyes from Mr. Fentolin's face. He was half fascinated, half
stirred with a vague, mysterious fear. Underneath these wild words ran
always that hard note of truth.

"You seem to be in earnest," he muttered.

"I am," Mr. Fentolin assured him quietly. "I have more than once been
instrumental in bringing about the death of those who have crossed my
purposes. I plead guilty to the weakness of Nero. Suffering and death
are things of joy to me. There!"

"I am not sure," Mr. Dunster said slowly, "that I ought not to wring
your neck."

Mr. Fentolin smiled. His chair receded an inch or two. There was never a
time when his expression had seemed more seraphic.

"There is no emergency of that sort," he remarked, "for which I am not
prepared."

His little revolver gleamed for a minute beneath his cuff. He backed his
chair slowly and with wonderful skill towards the door.

"We will fix the period of your probation, Mr. Dunster, at--say,
twenty-four hours," he decided. "Please make yourself until then
entirely at home. My cook, my cellar, my cigar cabinets, are at your
disposal. If some happy impulse," he concluded, "should show you the
only reasonable course by dinnertime, it would give me the utmost
pleasure to have you join us at that meal. I can promise you a cheque
beneath your plate which even you might think worth considering, wine
in your glass which kings might sigh for, cigars by your side which even
your Mr. Pierpont Morgan could not buy. Au revoir!"

The door opened and closed. Mr. Dunster sat staring into the open space
like a man still a little dazed.

CHAPTER XVIII

The beautiful but somewhat austere front of St. David's Hall seemed, in
a sense, transformed, as Hamel and his companion climbed the worn grey
steps which led on to the broad sweep of terrace. Evidently visitors had
recently arrived. A dark, rather good-lo