"It's very good of you to say that; but--I've placed myself as well as
you in a false position. I ask you to believe that I'm not the sort of man
who is 'wanted' or ever was 'wanted' by the police. I should be bowed out
of any police-station at which I gave myself up. I'm not a murderer in
any bald sense of the word. No."

My face must have perceptibly brightened, for, "Ah," he said, "don't
imagine I'm not a murderer at all. Morally, I am." He looked at the
clock. I pointed out that the night was young. He assured me that his
story was not a long one. I assured him that I hoped it was. He said I
was very kind. I denied this. He warned me that what he had to tell
might rather tend to stiffen my unwilling faith in palmistry, and to shake
my opposite and cherished faith in free will. I said, "Never mind." He
stretched his hands pensively toward the fire. I settled myself back in my
chair.

"My hands," he said, staring at the backs of them, "are the hands of
a very weak man. I dare say you know enough of palmistry to see that
for yourself. You notice the slightness of the thumbs and of he two 'little'
fingers. They are the hands of a weak and over-sensitive man--a man
without confidence, a man who would certainly waver in an emergency.
Rather Hamletish hands," he mused. "And I'm like Hamlet in other respects,
too: I'm no fool, and I've rather a noble disposition, and I'm unlucky.
But Hamlet was luckier than I in one thing: he was a murderer by accident,
whereas the murders that I committed one day fourteen years ago--for I must
tell you it wasn't one murder, but many murders that I committed--were all
of them due to the wretched inherent weakness of my own wretched self.

"I was twenty-six--no, twenty-seven years old, and rather a