"It seems pretty certain that this last atrocity must be ranked with the others. Committed with the same startling rapidity, with the same disheartening absence of traceable clues, this latest crime was probably perpetrated by the same scoundrel or maniac as the one who horrified and puzzled the world last year. The murderer goes about his work with much deliberation, and effects his escape with great skill, and even takes time and trouble in pinning the cabalistic sign of the seal to the breast of his victim. The meaning of that sign it is impossible to tell. We have steadily asserted, before and after the occurrence of these murders, that the police force of London is not adequate in numbers to the duties imposed upon it. It is the business of the police, if it cannot prevent crime, at least to detect it." It was the eighth murder, and still the authorities were as far off bringing the guilty one to justice as they were when the first victim was discovered. After eagerly reading the report I placed the newspaper aside and sat in silent meditation. There was something so curious, almost supernatural, in these crimes, that I could not reflect without a shudder upon the horrors of that night a few months before when I was instrumental in bringing the previous work of the mysterious, assassin to light. Every detail of that terrible crime surged through my brain as plainly as if it were but yesterday, and the face of the man who left the house, and whom I followed I could see as vividly as if he were still before me, for his features were graven too deeply upon my memory to be ever effaced. I sat utterly dumbfounded. The problem was growing even more complicated, for it struck me as something more than a strange coincidence that the Bedford Place murder should have been committed immediately before I left London, and that the murderer should have thought fit not to add another victim to his ghastly list until immediately upon my return. Somehow I could not help feeling convinced there must be some occult reason in this. On the former occasion I had carefully studied the theories put forward, especially that urged by an eminent medical man, that the murderer was a homicidal maniac. This, I felt assured, was totally wrong. The man the doctor had in his mind was a type well-known to those who have made a special study of murder-madness. But such a man does not work with the skill displayed by this assassin--he does not arrange his entrance, his "picture," his exit, so carefully. Misdirected enthusiasm may prompt to murder, but it does not run side by side with cunning deliberation and desire for effect. No! I maintained in my own mind that when, if ever, the author of the murders was arrested, he would be found to be a man who was perfectly sane, and who had gloated over the extraordinary skill with which he had thrown the London detective force off the scent.