Dollar went for the book, and read a few extracts aloud. They appeared to afford him extraordinary enjoyment; they were altogether over the bullet head on the pillow. Croucher could only gather that some people seemed to imagine it was good sport to commit a murder. Funny fools! Let them try a fortnight in the condemned cell, for one they never did commit, and see how they took to that! But he could understand them that knew nothing about it writing a lot of rot like this; what beat him was that the crime doctor, of all people, and with all his uncanny knowledge of the subject, that even he was able to view the worst of crimes in a light which would never have dawned on the independent intellect of Alfred Croucher. It seemed to him a more lurid light than any in which he himself, at his worst, had ever seen such things; horrible, to his mind, that one who ran every risk of being murdered should sit there gloating over "the shades of merit" in one murder, and over others as "the sublimest and most entire in their excellence that ever were committed." What was more horrible, however, was the hollow note of Mr. Croucher's own laughter, and the furtive gleaming of his restless eyes, while his body twitched between the sheets. He asked for the book when Dollar rose to go; and was discovered, in due course, bathed in a perspiration which he made less effort to conceal. "It ain't all like them funny bits," he assured the doctor, with an open shudder. "There's a bit I struck about a servant gal, on one side of a door, an' a bloke wot's done the 'ole bloomin' family in on the other. My cripes! I 'ad to 'old me breff over that, and it's made me sweat like a pig." "On which side of the door were you?" "Wot's that?" "In your mind's eye, my good fellow!" Mr. Croucher had seldom found it easier to tell the truth, and he made the most of his opportunity. "I felt as if I was the gal," said he. "Shouldn't wonder if I dreamt I was 'er to-night!" "Ah! I always find myself on the inside," said Dollar, with extraordinary gusto. "I'd much rather have been the girl. She had the open street behind her, and the street-lamps; he had only his own handiwork in the dark, and hardly room enough to step out of the way of it. She got away, too, whereas he had to make away with himself. But I always would rather be the victim; he doesn't know what's coming; and it's not a thousandth part as bad as--the other thing--when it does come.... I'm sorry, Croucher! You shouldn't have asked me to leave you the book; but there's nothing like looking at a thing from all sides, and it may console you to know that you've perspired over the best description of a murder ever written."