“Half drawn curtains,” De Medici mused. “Meyerson stages it well. The drama of mystery lends a tantalizing value to the objects under his hammer. The talk is low-pitched. Eyes glance furtively around. Yes, this is the sort of thing that appeals to the normal imagination. Melodrama—the melodrama of externals. They look and see a conventional room, conventional walls, drapes and ceiling. Commonplace things in an uncommonplace light ... the familiar decks in a lurid symbolism. And they thrill at the thought that murder and mystery lurk behind the uninteresting masks of convention. “Fear,” he continued to himself, “is the most seductive of the emotions. It prostrates itself deliciously before all unknown things. In its grip one rises to mysticism. And these people shiver and revel in the thought that they are part of something more enigmatic than the transparent routine of commerce and society ... part of a melodrama which tiptoes gaudily in the corners of this dimly lighted room.” De Medici’s eyes were fixed on the large table at the end of the room, behind which Meyerson and two assistants had taken their places. His thoughts assumed a practical air. “They would come here,” he began in a new vein. “Curiosity would bring them.” He was thinking of the strange life Ballau had led, of the curious folk whom he had known in his wanderings as actor, dilettante and collector. “There should be something to seize on here,” he stood musing. “Not that I have any faith in so-called criminal psychology ... the criminal returning to the scene of his crime. Poppycock! And yet there is something in the notion. A desire to boast. A desire to test one’s immunity to detection by mingling with people under the noses of the very police looking for one. Also a feeling of insecurity. Yes, a criminal would feel the suspense of insecurity, and in order to make certain that he was as yet not suspected he might seek out the presence of his pursuers. As for the scene of the crime idea itself, a crime which created a sense of satisfaction in its perpetrator might lure him to enjoy its memory more vividly by a return to the scene. If he still felt the original exultation which the murder aroused in him, the sense of freedom and sudden quiet which such an act would undoubtedly bring to his inner self, he would return just as a drug addict is unable to keep away from the cabinet containing his favorite drug.