life had
not departed wholly as yet. Facing the only gas-lamp yawned the cavern
of a second-hand furniture dealer, where, deep in the gloom of a sort of
narrow avenue winding through a bizarre forest of wardrobes, with an
undergrowth tangle of table legs, a tall pier-glass glimmered like a pool
of water in a wood. An unhappy, homeless couch, accompanied by two
unrelated chairs, stood in the open. The only human being making use of
the alley besides the Professor, coming stalwart and erect from the
opposite direction, checked his swinging pace suddenly.

"Hallo!" he said, and stood a little on one side watchfully.

The Professor had already stopped, with a ready half turn which brought
his shoulders very near the other wall. His right hand fell lightly on
the back of the outcast couch, the left remained purposefully plunged
deep in the trousers pocket, and the roundness of the heavy rimmed
spectacles imparted an owlish character to his moody, unperturbed face.

It was like a meeting in a side corridor of a mansion full of life. The
stalwart man was buttoned up in a dark overcoat, and carried an umbrella.
His hat, tilted back, uncovered a good deal of forehead, which appeared
very white in the dusk. In the dark patches of the orbits the eyeballs
glimmered piercingly. Long, drooping moustaches, the colour of ripe
corn, framed with their points the square block of his shaved chin.

"I am not looking for you," he said curtly.

The Professor did not stir an inch. The blended noises of the enormous
town sank down to an inarticulate low murmur. Chief Inspector Heat of
the Special Crimes Department changed his tone.

"Not in a hurry to get home?" he asked, with mocking simplicity.

The unwholesome-looking little moral agent of destruction exulted
silently in the possession of personal prestige, keeping in check this
man armed with the defensive mandate of a menaced society. More
fortunate than Caligula, who wished that the Roman Senate had only one
head for the better satisfaction of his cruel lust, he beheld in that one
man all the forces he had set at defiance: the force of law, property,
oppression, and injustice. He beheld all his enemies, and fearlessly
confronted them all in a supreme satisfaction of his vanity. They stood
perplexed before him as if before a dreadful portent. He gloated
inwardly over the chance of this meeting affirming his superiority over
all the multitude of mankind.

It was in real