“I don’t know if this is a trick which you have got up between you, and which you think you can play off on me; but, anyhow, who do you say the dead man is?” Lawrence chose to take the question as addressed to him. He chuckled; there was something in the chuckle which suggested the maniac more vividly than anything which had gone before. “Who’s the dead man? Ah! there’s the puzzle--and the joke! The dead man must be me. It’s in the papers--in people’s mouths--it’s the talk of the town. The police are searching for the wretch that slew me--the coroner and his jury have viewed my body. It’s plain the dead man must be me. And yet, although it’s very odd, he isn’t. It’s the rarest jest that ever yet was played--and all hers.” He pointed with his thumb along the passage. “It’s all her doing, conception and execution, both. And how she has enjoyed it! Ever since she has done nothing else but laugh. Can’t you hear her? She’s laughing now!” There did seem to come, through the door which was at the end of the passage, the sound of a woman’s laughter. We all heard it. The lady drew closer to me; I gritted my teeth; the inspector, with whom, as yet, it had no uncomfortable associations, treated it as though it were nothing out of the way. “Who’s it you’ve got in there?” Lawrence raised his hands as if they had been notes of exclamation. “A goddess! Such an one!--a pearl of the pantheon! A demon!--out of the very heart of hell!” He fingered his shirt-collar as if it were tight about his neck. “That’s why she relished her humorous conception more than I have. The qualities which go to the complete enjoyment of the jokes she plays, I lack. The laughter she compels has characteristics which I do not find altogether to my taste. It gets upon my brain; steals my sleep; nips my heart; fills the world with--faces; grinning faces, all of them--like his. And so I’m resolved to tell the joke, and I promise that it shan’t be spoilt in telling.” This with a smile upon his lips, a something elusive in his eyes, which, to my mind, again betrayed the lunatic. He threw out his arms with a burst of sudden wildness. “Let them all come in--the whole street--the city-ful! So that as many as may be may be gathered together for the enjoyment of the joke!” Symonds and I exchanged glances. I spoke to him in an undertone. “If you take my advice, you will listen to what he has to say. Before he’s finished, the whole story will have come out.” All the time there had been knockings at the door. Now some one without made himself prominent above the others. A shout came through the panels. “Symonds! Is that you in there? Shall we break down the door?” The voice was Hume’s. I proffered a suggestion to the inspector. “There is no reason why Dr. Hume should not come in. He will be able to resolve your doubts as to whether or not this is Mr. Edwin Lawrence. Your men I should advise you to keep outside. They will be close at hand if they are wanted.”