The Man with the Black Feather

By Gaston Leroux. One evening last year I perceived in the waiting-room of my newspaper, _Le Matin_, a man dressed in black, his face heavy with the darkest despair, whose dry, dead eyes seemed to receive the images of things like unmoving mirrors. He was seated; and there rested on his knees a sandalwood box inlaid with polished steel. An office-boy told me that he had sat there motionless, silent, awaiting my coming, for three mortal hours. I invited this figure of despair into my office and offered him a chair