Considering all of these circumstances, and understanding the character of the fiend and his paternity, it is evident that in his brain, constantly weakening under drugs, became fixed a sinister purpose to work out some scheme of revenge on Swanson for driving him from a rich home and a cozy living, with ample funds and opportunity for a secret indulgence in his weakness. As it subsequently appeared, Thorne did not originally plan murder. Some abortive scheme of blackmail had but half formed in his crazy brain. He lured Swanson with a cunning letter, full of explicit directions, to the Palace Hotel by writing that he was seriously ill there. He begged that Mrs. Swanson be not informed until after Swanson had seen him. He wanted an opportunity to redeem himself, he wrote; and Swanson, as warm-hearted as his wife, and not caring evidently to worry her needlessly about the condition of one of her charges until he had made an investigation, set out on his errand of humanity, never to return. He wore his ulster, obviously so that he would not be recognised going alone into the Palace Hotel. In the subcellar he had met Thorne. There was a prolonged talk, and Swanson made the mistake of chiding the fiend on his habits. Desire coming upon him strongly, Thorne finally exhibited himself in all his ugly weakness, and the spectacle was too much for the eyes of Swanson, unaccustomed to such sights. He was stooping his way out of the little room after sternly refusing Thorne’s appeal for money, when the long, lean fingers of the half-insane man, with some congenital strain outcropping perhaps of that vagabond, dissolute father, found an easy goal in a man already half-suffocated in the thick air of the place. Alarmed, when his fit had passed, at what he had done, and fearing to rob the body, Thorne had quakingly slipped into Swanson’s ulster and made his way in terror to his own room. First he had journeyed to the foot of Powell Street, weighted the coat with a rock, and cast it into the water of the bay. It was subsequently recovered and served as the single bit of incriminating evidence to substantiate his confession. His letter to Swanson, in Swanson’s pocket, he had taken with him to destroy by tearing into fine bits. Such were the salient features of a most extraordinary crime as ultimately established. But to return to Mrs. Swanson’s drawing-room, where Lanagan is speaking: “Charles Thorne does not know, then, that you are his mother?” “He does not know.” “Who does know?” “No living person save myself and you gentlemen.” “In that case, then, Mrs. Swanson,” said Lanagan simply, “your secret will die with us.” She choked in attempting to speak, and, tears streaming from her eyes, bade us each adieu. For my part I confess I was blinking like a boy. The outer doors closed behind us. Then: