"I know. He lives five doors down the street. But fancy your knowing him. It seems so strange." He made a little movement with his hands. "In this world it is the strange things which happen." "That is true." As I sat there, looking at him, I realised how true it was with a vividness of which he probably had no notion. This man was a study for the gods. His attitude of perfect unconcern was not acting, it was nature. I felt that, having gone so far, I must go farther. "Do you think he's guilty?" "It seems almost incredible. He always struck me as being one of the pleasantest and most inoffensive little chaps alive." "Every one seems to think he's guilty." He smiled. "Every one's an ass." "Suppose he were to be found guilty, and was hanged, and all the time he was innocent; how dreadful it would be." Another little movement with his hands. "It's the way of the world. The innocent are always being hung. Half the time we guilty ones go free." This was a man. I went still further. "Do you know that we met each other, for the first time, on the night which the murder happened?" "Am I likely to forget it?" "Thank you. It's very kind of you to say so. But do you know that we must have met each other quite close to what they call the scene of the tragedy." "I believe that we were within half a mile of it." "And it must just have happened." "Probably within twenty minutes of our meeting. By all of which you will perceive that our acquaintance in the beginning was cemented with blood." What did he mean? What kind of creature was he? I really began to wonder. We went in to dinner, for which, by the way, he already had given me an appetite. I had seen a good deal of men--of all sorts and conditions of men!--but I never saw a man who came within measurable distance of Mr. Reginald Townsend in the exercise of that very rare, and wholly indescribable gift, the gift of fascination. I should say that he would have been a favourite alike with men and women--I will stake my bottom dollar, as poor, dear Daniel would have said, that he would have been popular with every woman. To me the average "fascinating man" is a monstrosity. He so obviously bears his honours thick upon his brow. He so plainly tries his hardest to live up to them. There was nothing of that sort about Mr. Townsend. The charm was in him; it would come out of him whether he would or he would not. He was not conscious of it. There was no sign of effort. There was no effort. He was always natural, always completely at his ease. He could not help but give you pleasure. You yourself did not notice the glamour of his manner and his presence till, as it were, it had compassed you about. Nor were his powers of fascination decreased by the fact that he was the best bred, the best dressed, the most graceful, and the handsomest man I ever saw.