“Wait a minute,” said Hopkins; “you can’t go into the Chamber of Horrors just yet. But you won’t have to wait more than four or five minutes, Mrs. Bunting. It’s this way, you see; our boss is in there, showing a party round.” He lowered his voice. “It’s Sir John Burney—I suppose you know who Sir John Burney is?” “No,” she answered indifferently, “I don’t know that I ever heard of him.” She felt slightly—oh, very sightly—uneasy about Daisy. She would have liked her stepdaughter to keep well within sight and sound, but Mr. Sleuth was now taking the girl down to the other end of the room. “Well, I hope you never _will_ know him—not in any personal sense, Mrs. Bunting.” The man chuckled. “He’s the Commissioner of Police—the new one—that’s what Sir John Burney is. One of the gentlemen he’s showing round our place is the Paris Police boss—whose job is on all fours, so to speak, with Sir John’s. The Frenchy has brought his daughter with him, and there are several other ladies. Ladies always likes horrors, Mrs. Bunting; that’s our experience here. ‘Oh, take me to the Chamber of Horrors’—that’s what they say the minute they gets into this here building!” Mrs. Bunting looked at him thoughtfully. It occurred to Mr. Hopkins that she was very wan and tired; she used to look better in the old days, when she was still in service, before Bunting married her. “Yes,” she said; “that’s just what my stepdaughter said just now. ‘Oh, take me to the Chamber of Horrors’—that’s exactly what she did say when we got upstairs.” A group of people, all talking and laughing together; were advancing, from within the wooden barrier, toward the turnstile. Mrs. Bunting stared at them nervously. She wondered which of them was the gentleman with whom Mr. Hopkins had hoped she would never be brought into personal contact; she thought she could pick him out among the others. He was a tall, powerful, handsome gentleman, with a military appearance. Just now he was smiling down into the face of a young lady. “Monsieur Barberoux is quite right,” he was saying in a loud, cheerful voice, “our English law is too kind to the criminal, especially to the murderer. If we conducted our trials in the French fashion, the place we have just left would be very much fuller than it is to-day. A man of whose guilt we are absolutely assured is oftener than not acquitted, and then the public taunt us with ‘another undiscovered crime!’” “D’you mean, Sir John, that murderers sometimes escape scot-free? Take the man who has been committing all these awful murders this last month? I suppose there’s no doubt _he’ll_ be hanged—if he’s ever caught, that is!” Her girlish voice rang out, and Mrs. Bunting could hear every word that was said. The whole party gathered round, listening eagerly. “Well, no.” He spoke very deliberately. “I doubt if that particular murderer ever will be hanged.” “You mean that you’ll never catch him?” the girl spoke with a touch of airy impertinence in her clear voice.