events which had led to his present awkward situation. In any case, he
would not have been believed.

"We need not go into that," the cripple said. "It is all by the way. You
came here alone; and, I take it, when you left your home, you had not the
slightest intention of coming here. To make my meaning a little more
clear, if you disappeared from this moment, and your friends never saw
you again, the police would not have the slightest clue to your
whereabouts."

Gurdon laughed just a little uneasily; he began to entertain the idea
that he was face to face with some dangerous lunatic, some man whose
dreadful troubles and misfortunes had turned him against the world.
Evidently, it would be the right policy to humor him.

"That is quite correct," he said. "Nobody has the least idea where I am;
and if the unpleasant contingency you allude to happened to me, I should
go down to posterity as one of the victims of the mysterious type of
crime that startles London now and again."

"I should think," said the stranger, in a thin, dry tone, that caused
Gurdon's pulses to beat a little faster--"I should think that your
prophecy is in a fair way to turn out correct. I don't ask you why you
came here, because you would not tell me if I did. But you must have been
spying on the place, or you would not have had the misfortune to tread on
a damaged grating, and finish your adventure ignominiously in the cellar.
As I told you just now, I have enemies who are absolutely unscrupulous,
and who would give much for a chance of murdering me if the thing could
be done with impunity. Common sense prompts me to take it for granted
that you are in some wry connected with the foes to whom I have alluded."