ce, the source of their
clothing and, in fact, everything which it was necessary to know in
order to achieve their deaths with certainty and with absolute safety to
the murderer."

"How deeply gratified and flattered those great personages would have
felt," I remarked, "if they had known how much attention they were
receiving."

"Yes; I suppose it would have been somewhat startling, to the Prime
Minister, for instance, to have learned that he was being watched and
studied by an attentive observer and that the arrangements for his
decease had been completed down to the minutest detail. But, of course,
the application of the method to a particular case was the essential
thing, for it brought into view all the incidental difficulties, in
meeting which all the really interesting and instructive details were
involved. Well, the particulars of these crimes I wrote out at length,
in my private shorthand, in a journal which I kept for the purpose--and
which, I need not say, I locked up securely in my safe when I was not
using it. After completing each case, it was my custom to change sides
and play the game over again from the opposite side of the board; that
is to say, I added, as an appendix to each case, an analysis with a
complete scheme for the detection of the crime. I have in my safe at the
present moment six volumes of cases, fully indexed; and I can assure you
that they are not only highly instructive reading, but are really
valuable as works of reference."

"That I can readily believe," I replied, laughing heartily,
nevertheless, at the grotesqueness of the whole proceeding, "though they
might have proved rather incriminating documents if they had passed out
of your possession."

"They would never have been read," rejoined Thorndyke. "My shorthand is,
I think, quite undecipherable; it has been so made intentionally with a
view to secrecy."

"And have any of your theoretical cases ever turned up in real life?"

"Several of them have, though very imperfectly planned and carried out
as a rule. The poisoned cigar is one of them, though, of course I
should never have adopted such a conspicuous device for presenting it;
and the incident of the other night is a modification--for the worse--of
another. In fact, most of the intricate and artistic crimes with which I
have had to deal professionally have had their more complete and
elaborate prototypes in my journals."

I was silent for some time, reflecting on the stra