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! Sit down!" I obeyed.

"You have condemned yourself," he went on pitilessly. "Condemned
yourself on my processes,--processes familiar to you, applauded by
you, accepted by you for years! We will go back to the time when
you first saw the cigar case. Your expressions," he said in cold,
deliberate tones, consulting his paper, were, 'How beautiful! I
wish it were mine.' This was your first step in crime--and my
first indication. From 'I WISH it were mine' to 'I WILL have it
mine,' and the mere detail, 'HOW CAN I make it mine?' the advance
was obvious. Silence! But as in my methods it was necessary that
there should be an overwhelming inducement to the crime, that
unholy admiration of yours for the mere trinket itself was not
enough. You are a smoker of cigars."

"But," I burst out passionately, "I told you I had given up smoking
cigars."

"Fool!" he said coldly, "that is the SECOND time you have committed
yourself. Of course you told me! What more natural than for you