At seven o'clock on a fine evening in April the gas had just been lighted in a room on the first floor of a house in York Road, Lambeth.

A man, recently washed and brushed, stood on the hearthrug before a pier glass, arranging a white necktie, part of his evening dress.

He was about thirty, well grown, and fully developed muscularly.

There was no cloud of vice or trouble upon him: he was concentrated and calm, making no tentative movements of any sort (even a white tie did not puzzle him into fumbling), but acting with a certainty of aim and consequent economy of force, dreadful to the irresolute.

His face was brown, but his auburn hair classed him as a fair man.
The apartment, a drawing-room with two windows, was dusty and untidy.
The paint and wall paper had not been renewed for years; nor did the pianette, which stood near the fireplace, seem to have been closed during that time; for the interior was dusty, and the inner end of every key begrimed.