As the two men continued to rehearse the details of Crockett’s putative adventure—whose manifest improbability seemed in no wise to tax the credulity of the wonderstruck pair—my attention detached itself from their conversation and turned to the shocking intelligence of which I had just been apprised. That a cold-blooded murder had occurred on these very premises appeared nothing short of uncanny—the terrible fulfillment of the dark premonition that had gripped me when the black cat crossed my path. Surely something more than mere coincidence was involved in this awful circumstance! A dark fatality seemed to be at work, drawing me with the obscure yet inexorable pull of necessity into a situation whose outcome I could neither evade nor foresee.

Abandoning myself to the dim, if undeniable, forces of destiny, I proceeded to make my way towards the entranceway of the house. “I beg your pardon,” I proclaimed as I advanced through the assemblage. “I am here on a matter of urgent business with Colonel Crockett.”

My invocation of the idolatrized frontiersman had the desired effect. The crowd parted before me with awed murmurs of respect. A moment later, I ascended the wooden portico and passed across the threshold so recently traversed by that ghastly visitor whose unanticipated calling is, of all earthly misfortunes, the object of the deepest mortal dread. I refer, of course, to that grim intruder—sudden, violent Death!

The interior of the house was likewise full of people, many of whom—judging by their negligent state of dress—were lodgers who had been roused from their apartments by the untimely disturbance. Indeed, more than a few of them were standing about in their nightclothes, their faces taut with anxiety and dismay, I pressed my way through the crowd toward the far end of the main corridor, where, before an open doorway, a sombre group had gathered in a knot, straining to peer within.

“Allow me to pass, if you please. I must see Colonel Crockett.” By this expedient I soon reached the portal in question and entered that chamber of gloom.

A trio of police officers occupied the center of the apartment, engaged in an urgent consultation. Beside them stood Crockett, looking much the same as he had the previous afternoon, albeit a good deal more dishevelled—as though his ceremonial dinner had degenerated into a night of bibulous revelry. As I stepped inside the apartment, he glanced in my direction, his dark eyes dilating with surprise.

“Cricket!” he exclaimed in evident befuddlement. “What in tarnation …?” Suddenly, a gleam of recognition suffused his features. “Why I’ll be hanged if I didn’t plumb forgit about our little app’intment in all this-here hullabaloo.”

One of the police officers, a portly fellow with a prodigious moustache, turned a curious gaze upon me. “Is this gentleman a friend of yours, Colonel Crockett?”