The prison Chaplain entered the condemned's cell for the last time, to
give such consolation as he might.
"The only consolation I crave for," said the condemned, "is to tell my
story in its entirety to some one who will at least give it a respectful
hearing."
"We must not be too long over it," said the Chaplain, looking at his
watch.
The condemned repressed a shiver and commenced.
"Most people will be of opinion that I am paying the penalty of my own
violent deeds. In reality I am a victim to a lack of specialisation in
my education and character."
"Lack of specialisation!" said the Chaplain.
"Yes. If I had been known as one of the few men in England familiar with
the fauna of the Outer Hebrides, or able to repeat stanzas of Camoens'
poetry in the original, I should have had no difficulty in proving my
identity in the crisis when my identity became a matter of life and death
for me. But my education was merely a moderately good one, and my
temperament was of the general order that avoids specialisation. I know
a little in a general way about gardening and history and old masters,
but I could never tell you off-hand whether 'Stella van der Loopen' was a
chrysanthemum or a heroine of the American War of Independence, or
something by Romney in the Louvre."
The Chaplain shifted uneasily in his seat. Now that the alternatives had
been suggested they all seemed dreadfully possible.
"I fell in love, or thought I did, with the local doctor's wife,"
continued the condemned. "Why I should have done so, I cannot say, for I
do not remember that she possessed any particular attractions of mind or
body. On looking back at past events if seems to me that she must have
been distinctly ordinary, but I suppose the doctor had fallen in love
with her once, and what man had done man can do. She appeared to be
pleased with the attentions which I paid her, and to that extent I
suppose I might say she encouraged me, but I think she was honestly
unaware that I meant anything more than a little neighbourly interest.
When one is face to face with Death one wishes to be just."
The Chaplain murmured approval. "At any rate, she was genuinely
horrified when I took advantage of the doctor's absence one evening to
declare what I believed to be my passion. She begged me to pass out of
her life, and I could scarcely do otherwise than agree, though I hadn't
the dimmest idea of how it was to be done. In novels and plays I knew it
was a regular occurrence, and if you mistook a lady's sentiments or
intentions you went off to India and did things on the frontier as a
matter of course. As I stumbled along the doctor's carriage-drive I had
no very clear idea as to what my line of action was to be, but I had a
vague feeling that I must look at the _Times_ Atlas before going to bed.
Then, on the dark and lonely highway, I came suddenly on a dead body."
The Chaplain's interest in the story visibly quickened.
"Judging by the clothes it wore, the corpse was that of a Salvation Army
captain. Some shocking accident seemed to have struck him down, and the
head was crushed and battered out of all human semblance. Probably, I
thought, a motor-car fatality; and then, with a sudden overmastering
insistence, came another thought, that here was a remarkable opportunity
for losing my identity and passing out of the life of the doctor's wife
for ever. No tiresome and risky voyage to distant lands, but a mere
exchange of clothes and identity with the unknown victim of an
unwitnessed accident. With considerable difficulty I undressed the
corpse, and clothed it anew in my own garments. Any one who has valeted
a dead Salvation Army captain in an uncertain light will appreciate the
difficulty. With the idea, presumably, of inducing the doctor's wife to
leave her husband's roof-tree for some habitation which would be run at
my expense, I had crammed my pockets with a store of banknotes, which
represented a good deal of my immediate worldly wealth. When, therefore,
I stole away into the world in the guise of a nameless Salvationist, I
was not without resources which would easily support so humble a role for
a considerable period. I tramped to a neighbouring market-town, and,
late as the hour was, the production of a few shillings procured me
supper and a night's lodging in a cheap coffee-house. The next day I
started forth on an aimless course of wandering from one small town to
another. I was already somewhat disgusted with the upshot of my sudden
freak; in a few hours' time I was considerably more so. In the
contents-bill of a local news sheet I read the announcement of my own
murder at the hands of some person unknown; on buying a copy of the paper
for a detailed account of the tragedy, which at first had aroused in me a
certain grim amusement, I found that the deed ascribed to a wandering
Salvationist of doubtful antecedents, who had been seen lurking in the
roadway near the scene of the crime. I was no longer amused. The matter
promised to be embarrassing. What I had mistaken for a motor accident
was evidently a case of savage assault and murder, and, until the real
culprit was found, I should have much difficulty in explaining my
intrusion into the affair. Of course I could establish my own identity;
but how, without disagreeably involving the doctor's wife, could I give
any adequate reason for changing clothes with the murdered man? While my
brain worked feverishly at this problem, I subconsciously obeyed a
secondary instinct--to get as far away as possible from the scene of the
crime, and to get rid at all costs of my incriminating uniform. There I
found a difficulty. I tried two or three obscure clothes shops, but my
entrance invariably aroused an attitude of hostile suspicion in the
proprietors, and on one excuse or another they avoided serving me with
the now ardently desired change of clothing. The uniform that I had so
thoughtlessly donned seemed as difficult to get out of as the fatal shirt
of--You know, I forget the creature's name."
"Yes, yes," said the Chaplain hurriedly. "Go on with your story."
"Somehow, until I could get out of those compromising garments, I felt it
would not be safe to surrender myself to the police. The thing that
puzzled me was why no attempt was made to arrest me, since there was no
question as to the suspicion which followed me, like an inseparable
shadow, wherever I went. Stares, nudgings, whisperings, and even
loud-spoken remarks of 'that's 'im' greeted my every appearance, and the
meanest and most deserted eating-house that I patronised soon became
filled with a crowd of furtively watching customers. I began to
sympathise with the feeling of Royal personages trying to do a little
private shopping under the unsparing scrutiny of an irrepressible public.
And still, with all this inarticulate shadowing, which weighed on my
nerves almost worse than open hostility would have done, no attempt was
made to interfere with my liberty. Later on I discovered the reason. At
the time of the murder on the lonely highway a series of important
bloodhound trials had been taking place in the near neighbourhood, and
some dozen and a half couples of trained animals had been put on the
track of the supposed murderer--on my track. One of our most
public-spirited London dailies had offered a princely prize to the owner
of the pair that should first track me down, and betting on the chances
of the respective competitors became rife throughout the land. The dogs
ranged far and wide over about thirteen counties, and though my own
movements had become by this time perfectly well-known to police and
public alike, the sporting instincts of the nation stepped in to prevent
my premature arrest. "Give the dogs a chance," was the prevailing
sentiment, whenever some ambitious local constable wished to put an end
to my drawn-out evasion of justice. My final capture by the winning pair
was not a very dramatic episode, in fact, I'm not sure that they would
have taken any notice of me if I hadn't spoken to them and patted them,
but the event gave rise to an extraordinary amount of partisan
excitement. The owner of the pair who were next nearest up at the finish
was an American, and he lodged a protest on the ground that an otterhound
had married into the family of the winning pair six generations ago, and
that the prize had been offered to the first pair of bloodhounds to
capture the murderer, and that a dog that had 1/64th part of otterhound
blood in it couldn't technically be considered a bloodhound. I forget
how the matter was ultimately settled, but it aroused a tremendous amount
of acrimonious discussion on both sides of the Atlantic. My own
contribution to the controversy consisted in pointing out that the whole
dispute was beside the mark, as the actual murderer had not yet been
captured; but I soon discovered that on this point there was not the
least divergence of public or expert opinion. I had looked forward
apprehensively to the proving of my identity and the establishment of my
motives as a disagreeable necessity; I speedily found out that the most
disagreeable part of the business was that it couldn't be done. When I
saw in the glass the haggard and hunted expression which the experiences
of the past few weeks had stamped on my erstwhile placid countenance, I
could scarcely feel surprised that the few friends and relations I
possessed refused to recognise me in my altered guise, and persisted in
their obstinate but widely shared belief that it was I who had been done
to death on the highway. To make matters worse, infinitely worse, an
aunt of the really murdered man, an appalling female of an obviously low
order of intelligence, identified me as her nephew, and gave the
authorities a lurid account of my depraved youth and of her laudable but
unavailing efforts to spank me into a better way. I believe it was even
proposed to search me for fingerprints."
"But," said the Chaplain, "surely your educational attainments--"
"That was just the crucial point," said the condemned; "that was where my
lack of specialisation told so fatally against me. The dead
Salvationist, whose identity I had so lightly and so disastrously
adopted, had possessed a veneer of cheap modern education. It should
have been easy to demonstrate that my learning was on altogether another
plane to his, but in my nervousness I bungled miserably over test after
test that was put to me. The little French I had ever known deserted me;
I could not render a simple phrase about the gooseberry of the gardener
into that language, because I had forgotten the French for gooseberry."
The Chaplain again wriggled uneasily in his seat. "And then," resumed
the condemned, "came the final discomfiture. In our village we had a
modest little debating club, and I remembered having promised, chiefly, I
suppose, to please and impress the doctor's wife, to give a sketchy kind
of lecture on the Balkan Crisis. I had relied on being able to get up my
facts from one or two standard works, and the back-numbers of certain
periodicals. The prosecution had made a careful note of the circumstance
that the man whom I claimed to be--and actually was--had posed locally as
some sort of second-hand authority on Balkan affairs, and, in the midst
of a string of questions on indifferent topics, the examining counsel
asked me with a diabolical suddenness if I could tell the Court the
whereabouts of Novibazar. I felt the question to be a crucial one;
something told me that the answer was St. Petersburg or Baker Street. I
hesitated, looked helplessly round at the sea of tensely expectant faces,
pulled myself together, and chose Baker Street. And then I knew that
everything was lost. The prosecution had no difficulty in demonstrating
that an individual, even moderately versed in the affairs of the Near
East, could never have so unceremoniously dislocated Novibazar from its
accustomed corner of the map. It was an answer which the Salvation Army
captain might conceivably have made--and I made it. The circumstantial
evidence connecting the Salvationist with the crime was overwhelmingly
convincing, and I had inextricably identified myself with the
Salvationist. And thus it comes to pass that in ten minutes' time I
shall be hanged by the neck until I am dead in expiation of the murder of
myself, which murder never took place, and of which, in any case, I am
innocent."
* * * * *
When the Chaplain returned to his quarters some fifteen minutes later,
the black flag was floating over the prison tower. Breakfast was waiting
for him in the dining-room, but he first passed into his library, and,
taking up the _Times_ Atlas, consulted a map of the Balkan Peninsula. "A
thing like that," he observed, closing the volume with a snap, "might
happen to any one."