"A pretty scene!" He shrugged his shoulders, then grimaced and whistled. "I'm her father's murderer, it seems!" He stretched out his arms and yawned. "But she's not responsible, poor thing--grief demented. The two consulting physicians heartily sympathised with me. They knew how I had worked, you see, and Sir Philip Lang himself suggested morphia. They've signed a paper giving me control of her--under their directions I'm trustee of the estate under the will besides. Lang thinks she may recover--ultimately, but it is evident that she must be confined. She raved of mummies, and spirits, and dead men come to life from the sleep of ages, and so forth. It impressed Lang, vastly. He tapped his sage old head and muttered 'Too much learning.' He has a fad that woman's brains are nurtured best on pap, and I had the tact to humour him. Oh! I'm a devilish clever fellow, Pinsent. What do you think?" "There is little doubt of it," I said politely, very politely, indeed, for I wished to get as much information from him as I could and also something to eat and drink. "With your brains you might do anything. I suspect I have hitherto misjudged you. Still, I wonder that you are not an archbishop. It seems to me the Church would give you the proper cloak you need to exercise your talents in." "Gad!" he cried. "There's point in that remark. But between ourselves, Pinsent, I aim at higher game than spiritual power." "Temporal," I suggested. "The highest," he answered, sitting up. "And what's to prevent me?" he asked defiantly. "No man's life is safe from me." I was puzzled. "You'd not make yourself eligible for kingship by killing kings," I said. "Kingship be damned," he sneered. "My father was an earl's bastard, but as for me, I'm a pure democrat. No, no, I'm going to abolish royalty. It has served its turn." "But where do you come in?" "The pleasure of the game is mine, the knowledge and the ecstasy of power unlimited to make and break." "Oh! oh! my tiger, having tasted blood already, once at least, the thirst grows on you." "Once at least--bah!" he jeered, grinning like a fiend. "Pardon my ignorance," I entreated. "Who was your latest victim." "Navarro," he answered, grinning still. "The scamp is a true clairvoyant and had to be shut up. He leaped from London Bridge the night you came here and stepped like a poor rabbit into the trap I laid for you." "Well," said I, in tones husky with throat dryness and apparent admiration, "that makes two--Weldon and Navarro?" "There is a third still," he answered, fairly snapping at the bait. "My old grandfather, the Earl of Havelock." "And why did you murder him?" "For his snobbish refusal to receive me as his kin ten years ago." "Might one ask how?"