se, Colonel Moran began
to go wrong. Without any open scandal, he still made India too hot to
hold him. He retired, came to London, and again acquired an evil name.
It was at this time that he was sought out by Professor Moriarty,
to whom for a time he was chief of the staff. Moriarty supplied him
liberally with money and used him only in one or two very high-class
jobs which no ordinary criminal could have undertaken. You may have
some recollection of the death of Mrs. Stewart, of Lauder, in 1887.
Not? Well, I am sure Moran was at the bottom of it; but nothing could
be proved. So cleverly was the Colonel concealed that even when the
Moriarty gang was broken up we could not incriminate him. You remember
at that date, when I called upon you in your rooms, how I put up the
shutters for fear of air-guns? No doubt you thought me fanciful. I knew
exactly what I was doing, for I knew of the existence of this remarkable
gun, and I knew also that one of the best shots in the world would be
behind it. When we were in Switzerland he followed us with Moriarty,
and it was undoubtedly he who gave me that evil five minutes on the
Reichenbach ledge.

"You may think that I read the papers with some attention during my
sojourn in France, on the look-out for any chance of laying him by the
heels. So long as he was free in London my life would really not have
been worth living. Night and day the shadow would have been over me, and
sooner or later his chance must have come. What could I do? I could not
shoot him at sight, or I should myself be in the dock. There was no use
appealing to a magistrate. They cannot interfere on the strength of what
would appear to them to be a wild suspicion. So I could do nothing. But
I watched the criminal news, knowing that sooner or later I should get
him. Then came the death of this Ronald Adair. My chance had come at
last! Knowing what I did, was it not certain that Colonel Moran had done
it? He had played cards with the lad; he had followed him home from the
club; he had shot him through the open window. There was not a doubt of
it. The bullets alone are enough to put his head in a noose. I came
over at once. I was seen by the sentinel, who would, I knew, direct
the Colonel's attention to my presence. He could not fail to connect my
sudden return with his crime and to be terribly alarmed. I was sure that
he would make an attempt to get me out of the way AT ONCE, and would
bring round his murderous weapo