rrelevant and
idiotic embryo of a pun dangled itself for an instant in my brain. What
other horrible thing would come out of the bag? Perhaps some gleaming
instrument?... He closed the bag with a snap, laid it beside him. He
took off his top-hat, laid that beside him. I was surprised (I know not
why) to see that he was bald. There was a gleaming high light on his
bald, round head. The limp, black thing was a cap, which he slowly
adjusted with both hands, drawing it down over the brow and behind the
ears. It seemed to me as though he were, after all, hooding the lamp;
in my feverish fancy the compartment grew darker when the orb of his
head was hidden. The shadow of another simile for his action came
surging up... He had put on the cap so gravely, so judicially. Yes,
that was it: he had assumed the black cap, that decent symbol which
indemnifies the taker of a life; and might the Lord have mercy on my
soul... Already he was addressing me... What had he said? I asked him
to repeat it. My voice sounded even further away than his. He repeated
that he thought we had met before. I heard my voice saying politely,
somewhere in the distance, that I thought not. He suggested that I had
been staying at some hotel in Colchester six years ago. My voice,
drawing a little nearer to me, explained that I had never in my life
been at Colchester. He begged my pardon and hoped no offence would be
taken where none had been meant. My voice, coming right back to its own
quarters, reassured him that of course I had taken no offence at all,
adding that I myself very often mistook one face for another. He
replied, rather inconsequently, that the world was a small place.

Evidently he must have prepared this remark to follow my expected
admission that I had been at that hotel in Colchester six years ago,
and have thought it too striking a remark to be thrown away. A
guileless creature evidently, and not a criminal at all. Then I
reflected that most of the successful criminals succeed rather through
the incomparable guilelessness of the police than through any devilish
cunning in themselves. Besides, this man looked the very incarnation of
ruthless cunning. Surely, he must but have dissembled. My suspicions of
him resurged. But somehow, I was no longer afraid of him. Whatever
crimes he might have been committing, and be going to commit, I felt
that he meant no harm to me. After all, why should I have imagined
myself to be in danger? Meanwhile, I w