ose and vigilant guard. It
wanted four hours yet until train time and inside the living-room the
inspector, Slavin, and Yorke were beguiling the interval in low-voiced
conversation.

"Strange thing, Sergeant," remarked Kilbride musingly, "I can't place him
now, but I'll swear I've seen this man, Gully, before; somewhere back of
beyond, I guess. I've been in some queer holes and corners on this globe
in my time--long before I ever took on the Force. Seems he has, too,
from what you and Yorke have told me. D----d strange! . . . I've got a
fairly good memory for faces but--"

He broke off and looked enquiringly at McSporran, who had silently
entered just then. "What is it, McSporran?"

"Gully, Sirr!" responded the constable, saluting. "He wad wish tu speak
wi' ye, Sirr."

The inspector's face hardened, and his steely eyes glittered strangely as
he heard the news. For a brief space he remained, chin in hand, in deep
thought; then rising, he sauntered slowly over to the prisoner's cell.

"What is it you want, Gully?" he said quietly.

"Kilbride--Inspector!" came the great rumbling bass through the bars.
"If you keep me cooped up in this pen much longer . . . I tell
you! . . . you'll have me slinging loose in the head--altogether!" He
uttered a mirthless, wolf-like bark of a laugh. "My ears are keener than
your memory--I heard you speaking just now. Listen!--" a curiously
wistful note crept into his deep tones, for the inspector had made an
angry, impatient gesture--"Listen, Kilbride! . . . I'm gone up--I know
it--therefore, if I sing my 'swan song' now or later, it can matter
little one way or the other; and I would rather sing it to you and Slavin
and Yorke there than to anyone else. Before I am through, you all
may--shall we say--p'raps judge me a trifle less harshly than you do now.
Regard this as . . . practically the last request of a man who is as good
as dying . . . that--I be allowed to sit amongst you once more . . . and
talk, and talk, and ta--"

His voice broke, and he left the sentence unfinished. For some few
seconds the inspector remained motionless, with bent head, just
looking--and looking--in deep, reflective silence at the doomed man who
importuned him.

"Am I to understand that you wish to make a statement, Gully?" he said,
in even, passionless tones. "Remember!--you've been charged and warned,
man--whatever you say'll be used in evidence against you at your trial."

The other, h