, "I was
right enough when I said all these people were good. They are heroes;
they are saints. Now and then they may perhaps steal a spoon or two;
they may beat a wife or two with the poker. But they are saints all the
same; they are angels; they are robed in white; they are clad with wings
and haloes--at any rate compared to that man."

"Which man?" I cried again, and then my eye caught the figure at which
Basil's bull's eyes were glaring.

He was a slim, smooth person, passing very quickly among the quickly
passing crowd, but though there was nothing about him sufficient to
attract a startled notice, there was quite enough to demand a curious
consideration when once that notice was attracted. He wore a black
top-hat, but there was enough in it of those strange curves whereby the
decadent artist of the eighties tried to turn the top-hat into something
as rhythmic as an Etruscan vase. His hair, which was largely grey, was
curled with the instinct of one who appreciated the gradual beauty of
grey and silver. The rest of his face was oval and, I thought, rather
Oriental; he had two black tufts of moustache.

"What has he done?" I asked.

"I am not sure of the details," said Grant, "but his besetting sin is
a desire to intrigue to the disadvantage of others. Probably he has
adopted some imposture or other to effect his plan."

"What plan?" I asked. "If you know all about him, why don't you tell me
why he is the wickedest man in England? What is his name?"

Basil Grant stared at me for some moments.

"I think you've made a mistake in my meaning," he said. "I don't know
his name. I never saw him before in my life."

"Never saw him before!" I cried, with a kind of anger; "then what in
heaven's name do you mean by saying that he is the wickedest man in
England?"

"I meant what I said," said Basil Grant calmly. "The moment I saw
that man, I saw all these people stricken with a sudden and splendid
innocence. I saw that while all ordinary poor men in the streets were
being themselves, he was not being himself. I saw that all the men in
these slums, cadgers, pickpockets, hooligans, are all, in the deepest
sense, trying to be good. And I saw that that man was trying to be
evil."

"But if you never saw him before--" I began.

"In God's name, look at his face," cried out Basil in a voice that
startled the driver. "Look at the eyebrows. They mean that infernal
pride which made Satan so proud that he sneered even at heav