"So far all is well. Now comes the criminal part of the story. No sooner did I see my little Verrocchio on its easel in the National Gallery--in the most honoured place--than I realized that I could not live without it. I had not known what a spell I was under or I would have stayed away. It had always been in my living-room in my old life, and I found that I belonged to it still. I used to go day after day to Trafalgar Square to worship it--nothing less. I became known to the attendants. After closing hours I would plot how to get possession of it again. I could not go to the Director and say who I was and insist on a return of the picture until I died in earnest. For one thing he would not have believed me, and to make him believe me would have meant an endless and merciless raking up of the past: more than that, a return to my old identity, which was unbearable: men shaking hands with me, newspaper comment, and all the rest of it. Again, there was the risk that he might think me a dangerous lunatic and forbid me the Gallery. Think of that! "I had therefore to consider how to get the picture secretly, and at last I managed it--at noon, of course, for that is the true time for successful theft, and by means of a big cloak on copying day. I had carefully noted the times when vigilance was relaxed, and waited my chance. It came; I removed the picture, passed quietly into the street, and found my way here unobserved." He paused again. "You will, of course, remember the incident," he went on. "The world rang with it. 'Theft of the famous Verrocchio.' I had very little fear of being discovered and, naturally, no remorse; but I must admit to a little self-consciousness on my next visit to Trafalgar Square--for, of course, I was not so foolish as to discontinue my old habits. But I was cunning. I went to the Director and offered to give £5000 as a reward for the detection of the thief--on the condition that the donor's name was not published. I was able also to discuss the theft with the officials quite calmly. My one regret was that the custodian of the room in which my little masterpiece was kept was discharged, but I have seen to it, always anonymously, that he has not lost financially. "I now began to be almost happy. I had my picture and, the National Gallery being negligible, I was again able to look in at Christie's whenever I wished and mix again in this ocean we call London. I bought no more; I had the best; but I saw everything that was good, and became an amateur expert at the service of any of my dealer acquaintances. My one disappointment was that being so exceptional a picture thief I was not and am not able to enter into the feelings of the more typical kind. For naturally the one thing above all others that I want to know is who took the Louvre Leonardo, and why, and where it is. The motive could not have been identical with mine, but it might be akin. But this I shall never know, because I am going to die."