I proposed to do so
in such a manner that society would find it impossible to associate
me with the crimes. We devoted many hours to the project, for my
wife was, of course, at one with me in my determination. She hated
her family, as only relations can hate; and she had her own ground
of grievance, in that her legacy of twenty thousand pounds was
withheld pending the deliberations of Albert Redmayne. The money
interested Jenny more than myself; but she pointed out that her
grandfather's fortune, representing considerably over a hundred
thousand pounds, was left entirely to her uncles and herself, and
that as they were all three bachelors, she might reasonably hope to
inherit in fulness of time.

To that end we identified ourselves with war work and expected
presently to secure the trust and good-will of the brothers before
they were banished off the earth. At Princetown we adopted that
strenuous, simple-minded attitude to life most calculated to satisfy
those among whom our toil now threw us. We pretended an enthusiasm
for the work and an affection for Dartmoor which were alike
illusory. As an example of our far-reaching methods I may relate how
we returned to the wilderness after the war was done and actually
began to build a bungalow upon it, which, needless to say, we never
had the least intention of occupying. But the seed was sown and we
had created in many minds the impression of a devoted and simple
pair--conventional, narrow-minded, ingenuous and therefore
attractive to the many.

I now come to my confession and must admit at the outset how
circumstance served to modify detail and improve the original plan.
My own greatness gradually increases to any intelligent,
unprejudiced critic when my adaptability is considered, for that
play of blind chance, in which ninety and nine men out of a hundred
find themselves entangled throughout their lives, was to me an added
inspiration and opportunity. I tamed Chance and put a bit in its
jaws, a bridle on its fiery neck. Chance immensely altered my
original schemes; but it was powerless to modify my genius; it
became the Slave of the Ring, to serve an adamant purpose superior
to itself.

The war left the three brothers alive; and I had designed first to
destroy Bendigo and Albert Redmayne, who had never seen me, and
finally deal with my old friend, Robert; but it was he who came at
the critical moment as a lamb to the slaughter and so inspired the
superb conception n