"Seeing you have not been here before," said Pharos, "I might explain that this is the most typical thieves' gambling hell in London. There is not a man or woman in this room at the present moment who is not a hardened criminal in every sense of the word. The fellow at the end narrowly escaped the gallows, the man on his right has but lately emerged from seven years' penal servitude for burglary. The three sitting together next the banker are at the present moment badly wanted by the police, while the old woman who admitted us, and who was once not only a celebrated variety actress, but an exceedingly beautiful woman, is the mother of that sickly youth drinking gin beside the fireplace, who assisted in the murder of an old man in Shaftesbury Avenue a fortnight or so ago, and will certainly be captured and brought within measurable distance of the gallows before many more weeks have passed over his head. Have you seen enough of this to satisfy you?"
"More than enough," I answered truthfully.
"Then let us leave. It will soon be daylight, and there are still many places for us to visit before we return home."
We accordingly bade the occupants of the room good-night, and, when we had been escorted to the door by the old woman who had admitted us, left the house.
From the neighbourhood of Seven Dials Pharos carried me off to other equally sad and disreputable quarters of the city. We visited Salvation Army Shelters, the cheapest of cheap lodging-houses, doss-houses in comparison to which a workhouse would be a palace; dark railway arches, where we found homeless men, women, and children endeavouring to snatch intervals of rest between the visits of patrolling policemen; the public parks, where the grass was dotted with recumbent forms, and every seat was occupied; and then, turning homewards, reached Park Lane just as the clocks were striking seven, as far as I was concerned sick to the heart, not only of the sorrow and the sin of London, but of the callous indifference to it displayed by Pharos.
When I woke next morning the feeling I had had in my heart the evening before, that something terrible was about to happen, had not left me. With a shudder of intense disgust I recalled the events of the previous night. Never, since I had known him, with the exception of that one occasion on the Embankment, had Pharos appeared so loathsome to me. I remembered the mocking voice in which he had pointed out to me the follies and frailties of our great city, the cruel look in his eyes as he watched those about him in the different places we had visited. For the life of me I could not comprehend what his object had been in taking me to them. While I dressed I debated the subject with myself, but though I had a very shrewd suspicion that the vengeance to which he alluded, and which he had declared to be so imminent, was the plague, yet I could not see how he was able to speak with such authority upon the subject. On the other hand, I had to remember that I had never yet known him fail, either in what he had predicted, or anything he had set himself to do. Having got so far in my calculations I stopped, as another thought occurred to me, and with my brushes still in either hand stared at the wall before me. From the fact that he had informed me of the existence of the plague in London it was certain that he knew of it, though the authorities did not. Could it be possible, therefore, that he had simply crossed from the Continent to London in order to be able to gloat over the misery that was to come?