from his own mind, and from that of his auditors, he went on:

"Four murders of the kind were committed eight years ago--two in
Leipsic, the others, just afterwards, in Liverpool,--and there were
certain peculiarities connected with the crimes which made it clear
they were committed by the same hand. The perpetrator was caught,
fortunately for us, red-handed, just as he was leaving the house of
his last victim, for in Liverpool the murder was committed in a
house. I myself saw the unhappy man--I say unhappy, for there is
no doubt at all that he was mad"--he hesitated, and added in a
lower tone--"suffering from an acute form of religious mania.
I myself saw him, as I say, at some length. But now comes the really
interesting point. I have just been informed that a month ago this
criminal lunatic, as we must of course regard him, made his escape
from the asylum where he was confined. He arranged the whole
thing with extraordinary cunning and intelligence, and we should
probably have caught him long ago, were it not that he managed, when
on his way out of the place, to annex a considerable sum of money
in gold, with which the wages of the asylum staff were about to be
paid. It is owing to that fact that his escape was, very wrongly,
concealed--"

He stopped abruptly, as if sorry he had said so much, and a moment
later the party were walking in Indian file through the turnstile,
Sir John Burney leading the way.

Mrs. Bunting looked straight before her. She felt--so she
expressed it to her husband later--as if she had been turned to
stone.