e question startled me. In the first place, it was an extraordinary
one to ask under the circumstances, and in the next, it was not an easy
one to answer.

"May I inquire," I said, "why you put this question?"

"Because I wish to know."

"For what purpose?"

"That you will discover presently."

The man had evidently an object in view, so I thought I would humour
him.

"I have taken great interest in the subject," I said, "and have studied
it in books and newspapers and in the courts of justice, and have also
derived a good deal of information from persons who have come in contact
with criminals."

"Ah! you know nothing of it from personal experience?"

"How do you mean?"

"You never, for instance, saw a murderer?"

"Only in the dock."

"Would you _like_ to see a murderer?"

"Well," I replied, with a nervous laugh, "'like' is hardly the word. If
I happened to come across such an individual, I should feel interested,
no doubt."

"No doubt," this strangest of strangers echoed, adding, after a pause,
"and you never saw a murder done?"

"Never."

"Would you _like_ to see a murder done?"

This gruesome question almost startled me out of my chair.

"Good gracious!" I exclaimed, "certainly not."

"And yet you write about such things."

"That is quite a different matter. But you must excuse me for saying
that I do not understand the object of these questions. May I ask who
you are?"

"I am a murderer."

[Illustration: "I AM A MURDERER."]

My visitor said this in the calmest way, as though he were only calling
himself a clerk or a carpenter.

"A murderer?" I gasped rather than asked.

"A murderer in intention only at present. I am going to do a murder, and
I want you to witness it."

Good heavens! I looked at the stranger; I met his terrible wild eyes,
and in a moment it flashed upon me that I was in the presence of a
madman.

I started from my chair, and was about to rush to the bell and call for
help, but the stranger put his left hand on my shoulder and kept me in
my seat, while he drew his right hand from his coat pocket, and
something glittered in the lamplight. Oh, horror! a bright, new, large,
six-chambered revolver!

"Be still, be silent," he said, almost in a whisper, "or you are a dead
man."

[Illustration: "SOMETHING GLITTERED IN THE LAMPLIGHT."]

I need hardly say that I was quiet enough after this, and sat grasping
my chair arms with both hands, and staring at the stranger, p