wn calmly, though my pulses still throb with the
recollection of it.

I found him standing before the fire, with that look upon his face
which I had seen only once or twice in our acquaintance--a look which I
may call an absolute concatenation of inductive and deductive
ratiocination--from which all that was human, tender, or sympathetic
was absolutely discharged. He was simply an icy algebraic symbol!
Indeed, his whole being was concentrated to that extent that his
clothes fitted loosely, and his head was absolutely so much reduced in
size by his mental compression that his hat tipped back from his
forehead and literally hung on his massive ears.

After I had entered he locked the doors, fastened the windows, and even
placed a chair before the chimney. As I watched these significant
precautions with absorbing interest, he suddenly drew a revolver and,
presenting it to my temple, said in low, icy tones:

"Hand over that cigar case!"

Even in my bewilderment my reply was truthful, spontaneous, and
involuntary. "I haven't got it," I said.

He smiled bitterly, and threw down his revolver. "I expected that
reply! Then let me now confront you with something more awful, more
deadly, more relentless and convincing than that mere lethal
weapon,--the damning inductive and deductive proofs of your guilt!" He
drew from his pocket a roll of paper and a note-book.

"But surely," I gasped, "you are joking! You could not for a moment
believe"--

"Silence! Sit down!" I obeyed.

"You have condemned yourself," he went on pitilessly. "Condemned
yourself on my processes,--processes familiar to you, applauded by you,
accepted by you for years! We will go back to the time when you first
saw the cigar case. Your expressions," he said in cold, deliberate
tones, consulting his paper, "were, 'How beautiful! I wish it were
mine.' This was your first step in crime--and my first indication.
From 'I WISH it were mine' to 'I WILL have it mine,' and the mere
detail, 'HOW CAN I make it mine?' the advance was obvious. Silence!
But as in my methods it was necessary that there should be an
overwhelming inducement to the crime, that unholy admiration of yours
for the mere trinket itself was not enough. You are a smoker of
cigars."

"But," I burst out passionately, "I told you I had given up smoking
cigars."

"Fool!" he said coldly, "that is the SECOND time you have committed
yourself. Of course you told me! What more natural