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Jones was reticence itself. I told him simply of the strange intrusion, but he only laughed.
    Later, when I rose to go, he looked at me playfully. “If you were a married man,” he said, “I would advise you not to go home until you had brushed your sleeve. There are a few short, brown sealskin hairs on the inner side of the fore-arm—just where they would have adhered if your arm had encircled a sealskin sacque with some pressure!”
    “For once you are at fault,” I said triumphantly, “the hair is my own as you will perceive; I had just had it cut at the hair-dressers, and no doubt this arm projected beyond the apron.”
    He frowned slightly, yet nevertheless, on my turning to go he embraced me warmly—a rare exhibition in that man of ice. He even helped me on with my overcoat and pulled out and smoothed down the flaps of my pockets. He was particular, too, in fitting my arm in my overcoat sleeve, shaking the sleeve down from the armhole to the cuff with his deft fingers. “Come again soon!” he said, clapping me on the back.
    “At any and all times,” I said enthusiastically. “I only ask ten minutes twice a day to eat a crust at my office and four hours sleep at night, and the rest of my time is devoted to you always—as you know.”
    “It is, indeed,” he said, with his impenetrable smile.
    Nevertheless I did not find him at home when I next called. One afternoon, when nearing my own home I met him in one of his favourite disguises—a long, blue, swallow-tailed coat, striped cotton trousers, large turn-over collar, blacked face, and white hat, carrying atambourine. Of course to others the disguise was perfect, although it was known to myself, and I passed him—according to an old understanding between us—without the slightest recognition, trusting to a later explanation. At another time, as I was making a professional visit to the wife of a publican at the East End, I saw him in the disguise of a broken down artisan looking into the window of an adjacent pawnshop. I was delighted to see that he was evidently following my suggestions, and in my joy I ventured to tip him a wink; it was abstractedly returned.
    Two days later I received a note appointing a meeting at his lodgings that night. That meeting, alas! was the one memorable occurrence of my life, and the last meeting I ever had with Hemlock Jones! I will try to set it down calmly, though my pulses still throb with the recollection of it.
    I found him standing before the fire with that look upon his face which I had seen only once or twice in our acquaintance—a look which I may call an absolute concatenation of inductive and deductive ratiocination—from which all that was human, tender, or sympathetic, was absolutely discharged. He was simply an icy algebraic symbol! Indeed his whole being was concentrated to that extent that his clothes fitted loosely, and his head was absolutely so much reduced in size by his mental compression that his hat tipped back from his forehead and literally hung on his massive ears.
    After I had entered, he locked the doors, fastened the windows, and even placed a chair before the chimney. As I watched those significant precautions with absorbing interest, he suddenly drew a revolver and presenting it to my temple, said in low, icy tones:
    “Hand over that cigar-case!”
    Even in my bewilderment, my reply was truthful, spontaneous, and involuntary. “I haven’t got it,” I said.
    He smiled bitterly, and threw down his revolver. “I expected that reply! Then let me now confront you with something more awful, more deadly, more relentless and convincing than that mere lethal weapon—the damning inductive and deductive proofs of your guilt!” He drew from his pocket a roll of paper and a note-book.
    “But surely,” I gasped, “you are joking! You could not for a moment believe—”
    “Silence!” he roared. “Sit down!”
    I obeyed.
    “You have condemned yourself,” he went on pitilessly. “Condemned