"Not necessarily. Do you remember that when I was telling you about these two houses, I told you that I had had the other one wired thoroughly for electricity?"
"Yes. What has that to do with it?"
"I will tell you. When I thought of using these houses, I naturally remember that fact about the wiring, for it has just been done. When I reemerge that, it reminded me of something that I did years ago, in my house in New York."
"What was that?"
"There was a band of thirteen men who had formed together and taken a some oath to do me up; to murder me, in short. well, I got onto their schemes, and I managed to find out what night had been fixed upon when they intended to visit my house in a body, storm it, and either kill me, or take me prisoner to kill me afterward. I and just had that house fitted with electricity at the time, and I went to the power-house and induced them to help me-with the result that I bagged the whole lot of them with electricity. Caught every last one of them"
"By shocking them do you mean?"
"Yes."
"And is that what you have fixed up here?"
"Something very like it-as you shall see."