erhaps with
my hair standing on end.

"I don't want to hurt you," the dreadful man went on, "unless I can get
nobody better to kill. But I mean to kill someone to-night, and I want
you to see me do it. You must come with me out into the streets, and go
about with me until we find somebody worth killing. You must keep very
quiet, utter no cry, give no alarm, excite no suspicion. Otherwise I
shall shoot you dead on the spot. I would not mind killing you, the
author of so many stories of crime, but I would rather slay someone of
higher social position, and leave you to live and record the deed."

I reflected that I should prefer this arrangement myself, but, still
better, I would rather get out of the whole horrible business
altogether. But the madman, as I regarded him, was imperative.

"Put on your hat and coat and come with me quietly," he said. "Make no
noise or I fire."

It was a frightful situation, such as I had never conceived even in my
wildest dreams, but what was I to do? In silence I attired myself for
this terrible expedition. My companion made me precede him to the street
door, opened it himself, and closed it quietly behind us.

Side by side in silence we walked, the maniac keeping half a step in my
rear, and I knew all the while that he had his right hand in his side
pocket. Now and then he indicated the way we should go, and then he led
me across the Regent's Park, and so through street after street till we
reached Hyde Park Corner. We passed several policemen by the way, but,
unfortunately, none of them suspected or even particularly noticed us. I
dared not give an alarm or attract attention, for did I not know that
that dreadful hand was still in that dreadful side pocket?

Presently my companion paused, and said, as though speaking to himself:

"A member of the Royal Family would be best."

I was rather glad to hear this, because if he intended that an
illustrious personage should be his victim he was likely to be
disappointed. Royal Highnesses are not usually found walking about in
the neighbourhood of their palaces at two o'clock in the morning.

Thus we rambled to and fro near Buckingham and St. James's Palaces and
Marlborough House, need I say with no result? Not a single Prince was to
be seen anywhere, and my companion seemed slightly disgusted.

"Hum!" he muttered. "They are hiding. Let us go now to Downing Street."

He evidently thought that, failing Royalty, his next best course would