he color so peculiar that I took it to the window
and examined it with a lens.

[Footnote 1: The narrative seems to have been written in 1890.--L.W.]

"The result was a most startling discovery. It was ringed hair. The gray
appearance was due, not to the usual mingling of white and dark hairs,
but to the fact that each separate hair was marked by alternate rings of
black and white. Now, variegated hairs are common enough in the lower
animals which have a pattern on the fur. The tabby cat furnishes a
familiar example. But in man the condition is infinitely rare; whence it
was obvious that, with these hairs and the finger-prints, I had the
means of infallible identification. But identification involves
possession of the person to be identified. There was the difficulty. How
was it to be overcome?

"Criminals are vermin. They have the typical characters of vermin;
unproductive activity combined with disproportionate destructiveness.
Just as a rat will gnaw his way through a Holbein panel, or shred up the
Vatican Codex to make a nest, so the professional criminal will melt
down priceless medieval plate to sell in lumps for a few shillings. The
analogy is perfect.

"Now, how do we deal with vermin--with the rat, for instance?

"Do we go down his burrow and reason with him? Do we strive to elevate
his moral outlook? Not at all. We induce him to come out. And when he
has come out, we see to it that he doesn't go back. In short, we set a
trap. And if the rat that we catch is not the one that we wanted, we set
it again.

"Precisely. That was the method.

"My housemaid had absconded at the time of the murder; she was evidently
an accomplice of the murderer. My cook had left on the same day, having
conceived a not unnatural horror of the house. Since then I had made
shift with a charwoman. But I should want a housemaid and a cook, and
if I acted judiciously in the matter of references, I might get the sort
of persons who would help my plans. For there are female rats as well as
male.

"But there were certain preliminary measures to be taken. My physical
condition had to be attended to. As a young man I was a first-class
athlete, and even now I was strong and exceedingly active. But I must
get into training and brush up my wrestling and boxing. Then I must fit
up some burglar alarms, lay in a few little necessaries and provide
myself with a suitable appliance for dealing with the 'catch.'

"This latter I proceeded with a