She became aware that Morini was looking at her curiously, although he never descended to the Mecklenian coarseness of a stare, and when she had finished she sat back and returned his gaze inquiringly. For answer, he smiled again and extended a gold cigarette case. "Thank you." She helped herself, and accepted the proffered match. "The last gasper before execution, Morini?" "It is rather like it," he admitted coolly, and glanced round the tiny room. "Condemned cell and all--except that real condemned cells are cleaner. I wonder if you will die to-day?" He posed the contingency with a speculative air that was terrifyingly humorous. "Last night you were cursing Mecklen for not killing me," she remarked. "Why haven't you rectified the omission?" He twisted his mouth. "You'd better see the Chief first, now you're here. He's due to arrive at any minute." He was preoccupied, as though some big problem filled his mind, and she saw that it was useless to attempt to discover what plans had been made for her disposal. He picked up the tray and left her. A strange unreality had overcast everything with a haze which prevented her from working things out collectedly. This dispassionate discussion of murder jarred against all canons of actuality. Even in a court of law there was some emotion about a death sentence--one couldn't, somehow, flurry up any panic about a threat delivered in such a matter-of-fact tone.... Morini was back in a quarter of an hour, and his face was woodenly expressionless. "The Chief's arrived," he said. "He wants to see you. Come along, please." As in a dream she followed him. He took her through the hall, and she saw little mounds of dry earth untidily swept up into the corners. Halfway down he opened a door, and she had a glimpse of luxurious velvet hangings which had something familiar about them: royal purple with golden arabesques. Suddenly she realised where it was she had first seen those exotic decorations--the sawmill at Billingsgate! So, somehow, the conceit of the madman had made him take the enormous risk of stealing his gorgeous trappings away from a place over which the police still kept watch. He had carted away the earth that had filled the house in Buckingham Gate, packing it in crates and removing it in lorries at dead of night, to be dumped in the deserted quarries around Purley, simply to gratify the vanity of his megalomaniac mind. The method of his accomplishing the feat, of course, she could not know, but the completed fact gave her yet another queer sidelight on his weird mentality. Morini slipped into the room, leaving the door slightly ajar, and she heard the brief conversation which passed between him and the man who sat in the room. "Here she is, Chief." "Bring her in, then."