One afternoon I called a little later than usual, and when the housemaid
opened the door I asked her how he was.

"He isn't any better, sir," she answered. "He's getting most awful fat,
sir; about the head I mean."

"Where is he now?" I asked.

"He's in the dining-room, sir; I think he's gone to sleep."

I entered the room quietly and found him resting by the table. He was
wrapped up in his rugs and his head rested on his beloved monograph. I
walked up to him and spoke his name softly, but he did not rouse. I
leaned over him and listened, but no sound or movement of breathing was
perceptible. The housemaid was right. He had gone to sleep; or, in his
own phrase, he had passed out of the domain of sorrow.




II

"NUMBER ONE"


It was more than a week after the funeral of my poor friend Humphrey
Challoner that I paid my first regular visit of inspection to his house.
I had been the only intimate friend of this lonely, self-contained man
and he had made me not only his sole executor but his principal legatee.
With the exception of a sum of money to endow an Institute of Criminal