Their wedding was fixed for a day in Christmas week. It was now October. I had therefore not much time to lose. Of course, neither of them was young, and it was improbable that they would have any children, but it was possible. I had so managed to make everything in my mind subservient to my main object that the prospect of Catherine Goodsall’s disappointment only raised a momentary pang. I racked my brains by day and night, trying to devise some new and entirely original way of starting Ughtred Gascoyne on his way to a happier world. Being known as a friend of his, it would not do to use poison. Pistols and daggers, although they have their uses, both in melodrama and out of it, did not commend themselves. They suggested danger, blood, and noise. I had early grasped the cardinal principles of my undertaking; firstly, that I must be absolutely relentless; and, secondly, that the word horror must be eliminated from my vocabulary. As I lay awake one night in my room in St. James’s thinking the matter over, I heard the cry of fire, the galloping of horses, and the jingle of the engine as it swayed along Piccadilly. I have always been fond of fires: even as a small boy they possessed a weird fascination for me. I lay debating whether I should not get up and see the fun. It was evidently not far off, for I could hear the hiss of the water as it shot through the air, and the shouts of men. Suddenly an idea came into my head. Fire was apparently used as a rule in the clumsiest way by murderers. How often may it not have been used successfully and with complete secrecy? It was important to keep in mind that successful crimes do not as a rule come to light. Arson to the average mind always conveys a sensation of horror that is perhaps wanting in all other crimes. Suffocation or burning were neither of them pleasant methods, but I was not to be deterred by a sentiment. The idea, once in my brain, became fixed. I found it impossible to dislodge it. I should have liked to go to the British Museum and read up all the details I could obtain of crime by arson, but this would have been a risky proceeding, and might in the never-to-be-forgotten contingency of my falling under suspicion be exceedingly damning.