THE EYES OF MAX CARRADOS
ERNEST BRAMAH
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_By the Same Author_
THE WALLET OF KAI LUNG
KAI LUNG’S GOLDEN HOURS
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THE EYES OF
MAX CARRADOS
BY
ERNEST BRAMAH
NEW [GHD] YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
------------------------------------------------------------------------
COPYRIGHT, 1924,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
[GHD]
THE EYES OF MAX CARRADOS
--A--
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION vii
CHAPTER
I THE VIRGINIOLA FRAUD 33
II THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MARIE SEVERE 66
III THE SECRET OF DUNSTAN’S TOWER 106
IV THE MYSTERY OF THE POISONED DISH OF MUSHROOMS 138
V THE GHOST AT MASSINGHAM MANSIONS 179
VI THE MISSING ACTRESS SENSATION 215
VII THE INGENIOUS MR SPINOLA 250
VIII THE KINGSMOUTH SPY CASE 284
IX THE EASTERN MYSTERY 321
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INTRODUCTION
In offering a series of stories which continue the adventures of a group
of characters already introduced to the reading public, a writer is
inevitably at a certain disadvantage. In contriving their first
appearance he has been able to select both the occasion and the moment
which lend themselves most effectively to his plan. He has begun at the
beginning--or, at least, at what, so far as you and he and the tale he
has to tell are concerned, must be accepted as the beginning.
Buttonholing you at the intersection of these three lines of destiny he
has, in effect, exclaimed: My dear Reader! the very man I wished to see.
I want to introduce rather a remarkable character to you--Max Carrados,
whom you see approaching. You will notice that he is blind--quite blind;
but so far from that crippling his interests in life or his energies, it
has merely impelled him to develop those senses which in most of us lie
half dormant and practically unused. Thus you will understand that while
he may be at a disadvantage when you are at an advantage, he is at an
advantage when you are at a disadvantage. The alert, slightly spoffish
gentleman with the knowing look, who accompanies him, is his friend
Carlyle. He has a private inquiry business now; formerly he was a
solicitor, but ... (here the voice becomes discreetly inaudible) ... and
having run up across Carrados again.... And so on.
This is well enough once, but it should not be repeated. One cannot
begin at the beginning twice. In any case, it does not dispose of an
obvious dilemma: those among prospective readers who are acquainted with
the first book do not need to be informed of the how, when and wherefore
of Carrados and his associates; those who are not so acquainted
(possibly even a larger class) do need to be informed, and may resent
the omission. In the circumstances a word of explanation where it can
conveniently be avoided seems to offer the least harmful course.
_Max Carrados_ was published in the spring of 1914. It consisted of
eight tales, each separate and complete in itself, but connected (as are
the nine of the present volume) by the central figure of Carrados. The
first story, “The Coin of Dionysius,” cleared the necessary ground.
Carlyle, a private inquiry agent, who has descended in the social scale
owing to an irregularity--an indiscretion rather than a crime--is very
desirous one evening of testing the genuineness of a certain rare and
valuable Sicilian tetradrachm, for upon its authenticity an immediate
arrest depends. It is too late at night for him to get in touch with
expert professional opinion, but finally he is referred to a certain
gifted amateur, a Mr Max Carrados, who lives at Richmond. To Richmond he
accordingly proceeds, and is at once recognized by Carrados as a former
friend, Calling by name. The recognition is not at first mutual, for
Carrados has also changed his name--he was formerly Max Wynn--in order
to qualify for a considerable fortune, and he, like Carlyle, has altered
in appearance with passing years. More to the point, he has become
blind: “Literally ... I was riding along a bridle-path through a wood
about a dozen years ago with a friend. He was in front. At one point a
twig sprang back--you know how easily a thing like that happens. It just
flicked my eye--nothing to think twice about.... It is called
amaurosis.”
Carlyle fails to recognise Carrados because the latter is an altered
personality, with a different name, and living in unexpected
circumstances, but to the blind man the change in Carlyle is negligible
against the identity of a remembered voice. They talk of old times and
of present times. Carlyle explains his business, and Carrados confesses
that the idea of criminal investigation has always attracted him. Even
yet, he thinks, he might not be entirely out at it, for blindness has
unexpected compensations: “A new world to explore, new experiences, new
powers awakening; strange new perceptions; life in the fourth
dimension.”
Not regarding the suggestion of co-operation seriously, Carlyle puts the
offer aside, but, later, Carrados returns to it again. Then the private
detective remembers the object of his visit, the meanwhile forgotten
coin, and to settle the matter, and to demonstrate to Carrados his
helplessness (for the idea of the blind man being an expert must, of
course, have been someone’s blunder), he slyly offers to put his friend
on the track of a mystery. “Yes,” he accordingly replied, with crisp
deliberation, as he recrossed the room; “yes, I will, Max. Here is the
clue to what seems to be a rather remarkable fraud.” He put the
tetradrachm into his host’s hand. “What do you make of it?”
For a few seconds Carrados handled the piece with the delicate
manipulation of his finger-tips, while Carlyle looked on with a
self-appreciative grin. Then with equal gravity the blind man weighed
the coin in the balance of his hand. Finally he touched it with his
tongue.
“Well?” demanded the other.
“Of course I have not much to go on, and if I was more fully in your
confidence I might come to another conclusion----”
“Yes, yes,” interposed Carlyle, with amused encouragement.
“Then I should advise you to arrest the parlour-maid, Nina Brun,
communicate with the police authorities of Padua for particulars of the
career of Helene Brunesi, and suggest to Lord Seastoke that he should
return to London to see what further depredations have been made in his
cabinet.”
Mr Carlyle’s groping hand sought and found a chair, on which he dropped
blankly. His eyes were unable to detach themselves for a single moment
from the very ordinary spectacle of Mr Carrados’s mildly benevolent
face, while the sterilised ghost of his now forgotten amusement still
lingered about his features.
“Good heavens!” he managed to articulate, “how do you know?”
“Isn’t that what you wanted of me?” asked Carrados suavely.
“Don’t humbug, Max,” said Carlyle severely. “This is no joke.” An
undefined mistrust of his own powers suddenly possessed him in the
presence of this mystery. “How do you come to know of Nina Brun and Lord
Seastoke?”
“You are a detective, Louis,” replied Carrados. “How does one know these
things?”
The bottom having been thus knocked out of his objection, Carlyle has no
option but to promise Carrados the reversion of “the next murder” that
comes his way. Actually, it is a case involving thirty-five murders that
redeems this pledge.
But in spite of every device of Carrados’s perspicuity there is still
the cardinal deficiency that he cannot _see_. Whatever remains outside
the range of four super-trained senses, aided by that subtle and elusive
perception (every man in odd moments has surprised his own mind in the
act of throwing out faint-spun and wholly forgotten tentacles of search
towards it) called in vague ignorance the “sixth sense”--all beyond
these must be for ever a _terra incognita_ to his knowledge. To remedy
this he has a personal attendant called Parkinson. Carlyle ingenuously
falls into a proposed test that Carrados suggests--his powers of
observation against those of Parkinson. When it comes to actual
specified details the visitor finds that he only has a loose and general
idea of the appearance of the man who has admitted him. On the other
hand, when Parkinson is called up he is able to run off a precise and
categorical description of Mr Carlyle--although his period of
observation had certainly not been the more favorable--from the size and
material of the caller’s boots, with a button missing from the left
foot, to the fashion and fabric of his watch-chain. A very ordinary man
of strictly limited ability, he has, in fact, trained this one faculty
of detailed observation and retention to supply his master’s need.
These three men--Carrados, Carlyle and Parkinson--are the only
characters of any prominence who are carried over from the first book to
the second. An Inspector Beedel makes an occasional and unimportant
appearance in both. In the story called “The Mystery of the Poisoned
Dish of Mushrooms” a Mrs Bellmark (niece to Carlyle) will be met; she is
the lady whose acquaintance Carrados formed in “The Comedy at Fountain
Cottage,” when a very opportune buried treasure was unearthed in her
suburban garden.
* * * * *
Every generation not unnaturally “fancies itself,” and whatever is
happening is therefore somewhat more wonderful than anything that has
ever happened before. But for this present age there is, of course, a
special reason why the exploits of the sightless obtain prominence, and
why every inch won in the narrowing of the gulf between the seeing and
the blind is hailed almost with the satisfaction of a martial victory.
That the general condition of the blind is being raised, that they are,
in the mass, more capable and infinitely less dependent than at any
period of the past, is undeniable, and these things are plainly to the
good; but when we think that blind men individually do more surprising
feats and carry themselves more confidently in their blindness than has
ever been done before, we deceive ourselves, in the superficiality that
is common to the times. The higher capacity under blindness is a form of
genius and, like other kinds of genius, it is not the prerogative of any
century or of any system. Judged by this standard, Max Carrados is by no
means a super-blind-man, and although for convenience the qualities of
more than one blind prototype may have been collected within a single
frame, on the other hand literary licence must be judged to have its
limits, and many of the realities of fact have been deemed too
improbable to be transferred to fiction. Carrados’s opening exploit,
that of accurately deciding an antique coin to be a forgery, by the
sense of touch, is far from being unprecedented.
The curious and the incredulous may be referred to a little book, first
published in 1820. This is entitled _Biography of the Blind, or the
Lives of such as have distinguished themselves as Poets, Philosophers,
Artists, &c._, and it is by JAMES WILSON, “Who has been Blind from his
Infancy.” From the authorities given (they are stated in every case), it
is obvious that these lives and anecdotes are available elsewhere, but
probably in no other single volume is so much that is informing and
entertaining on this one subject brought together.
The coin incident finds its warrant in the biography of NICHOLAS
SAUNDERSON, LL.D., F.R.S., who was born in Yorkshire in the year 1682.
When about twelve months old he lost not only his sight but the eyes
themselves from an attack of small-pox. In 1707 he proceeded to
Cambridge, where he appears to have made some stir; at all events he was
given his M.A. in 1711 by a special process and immediately afterwards
elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. Of his lighter qualities
Wilson says: “He could with great nicety and exactness perceive the
smallest degree of roughness, or defect of polish, on a surface; thus,
in a set of Roman medals he distinguished the genuine from the false,
though they had been counterfeited with such exactness as to deceive a
connoisseur who had judged from the eye. By the sense of touch also he
distinguished the least variation; and he has been seen in a garden,
when observations were making on the sun, to take notice of every cloud
that interrupted the observation, almost as justly as others could see
it. He could also tell when anything was held near his face, or when he
passed by a tree at no great distance merely from the different impulse
of the air on his face. His ear was also equally exact; he could readily
distinguish the fourth part of a note by the quickness of this sense;
and could judge of the size of a room, and of his distance from the
wall. And if he ever walked over a pavement in courts or piazzas which
reflected sound, and was afterwards conducted thither again, he could
tell in what part of the walk he had stood, merely by the note it
sounded.”
Another victim to small-pox during infancy was DR HENRY MOYES, a native
of Fifeshire, born during the middle of the eighteenth century. “He was
the first blind man who had proposed to lecture on chemistry, and as a
lecturer he acquired great reputation; his address was easy and
pleasing, his language correct, and he performed his experiments in a
manner which always gave great pleasure to his auditors.... Being of a
restless disposition, and fond of traveling, he, in 1785, visited
America.... The following paragraph respecting him appeared in one of
the American newspapers of that day:--‘The celebrated Dr Moyes, though
blind, delivered a lecture upon optics, in which he delineated the
properties of light and shade, and also gave an astonishing illustration
of the power of touch. A highly polished plate of steel was presented to
him with the stroke of an etching tool so minutely engraved on it that
it was invisible to the naked eye, and only discoverable by a powerful
magnifying glass; with his fingers, however, he discovered the extent,
and measured the length of the line. Dr Moyes informed us that being
overturned in a stage-coach one dark rainy evening in England, and the
carriage and four horses thrown into a ditch, the passengers and
drivers, with two eyes apiece, were obliged to apply to him, who had no
eyes, for assistance in extricating the horses. “As for me,” said he, “I
was quite at home in the dark ditch ... now directing eight persons to
pull here, and haul there with all the dexterity and activity of a
man-of-war’s boatswain.”’”
THOMAS WILSON, “the blind bell-ringer of Dumfries,” also owed his
affliction to small-pox in childhood. At the mature age of twelve he was
promoted to be chief ringer of Dumfries. Says our biographer: “He
moreover excelled in the culinary art, cooking his victuals with the
greatest nicety; and priding himself on the architectural skill he
displayed in erecting a good ingle or fire. In his domestic economy he
neither had nor required an assistant. He fetched his own water, made
his own bed, cooked his own victuals, planted and raised his own
potatoes; and, what is more strange still, cut his own peats, and was
allowed by all to keep as clean a house as the most particular spinster
in the town. Among a hundred rows of potatoes he easily found the way to
his own; and when turning peats walked as carefully among the hags of
lochar moss as those who were in possession of all their faculties. At
raising potatoes, or any other odd job, he was ever ready to bear a
hand; and when a neighbour became groggy on a Saturday night, it was by
no means an uncommon spectacle to see Tom conducting him home to his
wife and children.... At another time, returning home one evening a
little after ten o’clock, he heard a gentleman, who had just alighted
from the mail, inquiring the way to Colin, and Tom instantly offered to
conduct him thither. His services were gladly accepted, and he acted his
part so well that, although Colin is three miles from Dumfries, the
stranger did not discover his guide was blind until they reached the end
of their journey.”
Music, indeed, in some form, would seem to be the natural refuge of the
blind. Among the many who have made it their profession, JOHN STANLEY
was one of the most eminent. Born in 1713, he lost his sight at the age
of two, not from disease, but by falling on a marble hearth, with a
china basin in his hand. At eleven he became organist of All-Hallows’,
Bread Street; at thirteen he was chosen from among many candidates to
fill a similar position at St Andrew’s, Holborn. Eight years later “the
Benchers of the Honorable Society of the Inner Temple elected him one of
their organists.” The following was written by one of Stanley’s old
pupils:--“It was common, just as the service of St Andrew’s Church, or
the Temple, was ended, to see forty or fifty organists at the altar,
waiting to hear his last voluntary; and even Handel himself I have
frequently seen at both of those places. In short, it must be confessed
that his extempore voluntaries were inimitable, and his taste in
composition wonderful. I was his apprentice, and I remember, the first
year I went to him, his occasionally playing (for his amusement only) at
billiards, mississipie, shuffle-board, and skittles, at which games he
constantly beat his competitors. To avoid prolixity I shall only mention
his showing me the way, both on horseback and on foot, through the
private streets in Westminster, the intricate passages of the city, and
the adjacent villages, places at which I had never been before. I
remember also his playing very correctly all Corelli’s and Geminiani’s
twelve solos on the violin. He had so correct an ear that he never
forgot the voice of any person he had once heard speak, and I myself
have divers times been a witness of this. In April, 1779, as he and I
were going to Pall Mall, to the late Dr Boyce’s auction, a gentleman met
us who had been in Jamaica twenty years, and in a feigned voice said,
‘How do you do, Mr Stanley?’ when he, after pausing a little, said, ‘God
bless me, Mr Smith, how long have you been in England?’ If twenty people
were seated at a table near him, he would address them all in regular
order, without their situations being previously announced to him.
Riding on horseback was one of his favorite exercises; and towards the
conclusion of his life, when he lived at Epping Forest, and wished to
give his friends an airing, he would often take them the pleasantest
road and point out the most agreeable prospects.”
All the preceding, it will be noticed, became blind early in life, and
this would generally seem to be a necessary condition towards the
subject acquiring an exceptional mastery over his affliction. At all
events, of the twenty-six biographies (including his own) in which
Wilson provides the necessary data, only six lose their sight later than
youth, and several of these--as MILTON and EULER, for instance--are
included for their eminence pure and simple and not because they are
remarkable as blind men. Perhaps even HUBER must be included in this
category, for his marvellous research work among bees (he it was who
solved the mystery of the queen bee’s aerial “nuptial flight”) seems to
have been almost entirely conducted through the eyes of his wife, his
son, and a trained attendant, and not to depend in any marked way on the
compensatory development of other senses. Of the twenty youthful
victims, the cause of blindness is stated in fourteen cases, and of
these fourteen no fewer than ten owe the calamity to small-pox.
To this general rule of youthful initiation Dr HUGH JAMES provides an
exception. He was born at St Bees in 1771, and had already been
practising for several years when he became totally blind at the age of
thirty-five. In spite of this, he continued his ordinary work as a
physician, even with increased success. If Dr James’s record under this
handicap is less showy than that of many others, it is remarkable for
the mature age at which he successfully adapted himself to a new life.
He died at forty-five, still practising; indeed he died of a disease
contracted at the bedside of a needy patient.
But for energy, resource and sheer bravado under blindness, no age and
no country can show anything to excel the record of JOHN METCALF--“Blind
Jack of Knaresborough” (1717-1810). At six he lost his sight through
small-pox, at nine he could get on pretty well unaided, at fourteen he
announced his intention of disregarding his affliction thenceforward and
of behaving in every respect as a normal human being. It is true that
immediately on this brave resolve he fell into a gravel pit and received
a serious hurt while escaping, under pursuit, from an orchard he was
robbing, but fortunately this did not affect his self-reliance. At
twenty he had made a reputation as a pugilist.
Metcalf’s exploits are too many and diverse to be more than briefly
touched upon. In boyhood he became an expert swimmer, diver, horse-rider
and, indeed, an adept in country sports generally. While yet a boy he
was engaged to find the bodies of two men who had been drowned in a
local river and swept away into its treacherous depths; he succeeded in
recovering one. He followed the hounds regularly, won some races, and
had at that time an ambition to become a jockey. He was also a very good
card-player (for stakes), a professional violinist, and a trainer of
fighting-cocks. All through life there was a streak of jocosity, even of
devilment, in his nature. Twenty-one found him very robust, just under
six feet two high, and as ready with his tongue as with his hands and
feet. The following year he learned that his sweetheart was being
married by her parents to a more eligible rival. Metcalf eloped with her
on the night before the wedding and married her himself the next day.
From Knaresborough, where they set up house, he walked to London and
back, beating the coach on the return journey.
On the outbreak of the ’45 he started recruiting for the King and in two
days had enlisted one hundred and forty men. 64 of these, Metcalf
playing at their head, marched into Newcastle, where they were drafted
into Pulteney’s regiment. With them Metcalf took part in the battle of
Falkirk, and in other engagements down to Culloden. After Culloden he
returned to Knaresborough and became horse-dealer, cotton and worsted
merchant, and general smuggler. A little later he did well in army
contract work, and then started to run a stage-coach between York and
Knaresborough, driving it himself both summer and winter.
His extensive journeyings and his coach work had made the blind man
familiar, in a very special way, with the roads and the land between
them, and in 1765, at the age of forty-eight, he came into his true
vocation--that of road construction. It is unnecessary to follow his
career in this development; it is enough to say that during the next
twenty-seven years he constructed some one hundred and eighty miles of
road. Much of it was over very difficult country, some of it, indeed,
over country which up to that time had been deemed impossible, but all
of it was well made. His plans did not always commend themselves in
advance to the authorities. For such a contingency Metcalf had a very
reasonable proposal, “Let me make the road my way, and if it is not
perfectly satisfactory when finished I will pull it all to pieces and,
without extra charge, make it your way.” He had been over the ground in
his very special way; of this a Dr Bew, who knew him, wrote: “With the
assistance only of a long staff, I have several times met this man
traversing roads, ascending steep and rugged heights, exploring valleys
and investigating their extent, form and situation so as to answer his
designs in the best manner.... He was alone as usual.”
Remarkable to the end, John Metcalf reached his ninety-fourth year and
left behind him ninety great-grandchildren.
* * * * *
It would be easy to multiply appropriate instances from Wilson’s book,
but bulk is not the object. Nor can his _Anecdotes of the Blind_ be
materially drawn upon, although it is impossible to resist alluding to
two delightful cases where blind men detected blindness in horses after
the animals had been examined and passed by ordinary experts. In one
instance suspicion arose from the sound of the horse’s step in walking,
“which implied a peculiar and unusual caution in the manner of putting
down his feet.” In the other case the blind man, relying solely on his
touch, “felt the one eye to be colder than the other.” These two
anecdotes are credited to Dr Abercrombie; Scott, in a note to _Peveril
of the Peak_ (“Mute Vassals”), recounts a similar case, where the blind
man discovered the imperfection by touching the horse’s eyes sharply
with one hand, while he placed the other over its heart and observed
that there was no increase of pulsation.
One point in the capacity of the blind is frequently in dispute--the
power to distinguish color. Even so ingenious a man as the Nicholas
Saunderson already mentioned not only could gain no perception of color
himself, but used to say that “it was pretending to impossibilities.” Mr
J. A. Macy, who edited Miss Helen Keller’s book, _The Story of my
Life_--an experience that ought surely to have effaced the word
“impossible” from his mind in connection with the blind--makes the bold
statement: “No blind person can tell colour.”
Three instances of those for whom this power has been claimed are all
that can be included here. The reader must attach so much credibility to
them as he thinks fit:
1. From Wilson’s _Biography_, as _ante_:
“The late family tailor (MACGUIRE) of Mr M‘Donald, of Clanronald, in
Inverness-shire, lost his sight fifteen years before his death, yet he
still continued to work for the family as before, not indeed with the
same expedition, but with equal correctness. It is well known how
difficult it is to make a tartan dress, because every stripe and colour
(of which there are many) must fit each other with mathematical
exactness; hence even very few tailors who enjoy their sight are capable
of executing that task.... It is said that Macguire could, by the sense
of touch, distinguish all the colours of the tartan.”
2. From the _Dictionary of National Biography_:
“M‘AVOY, MARGARET (1800-1820), blind lady, was born at Liverpool of
respectable parentage on 28 June 1800. She was of a sickly constitution,
and became totally blind in June 1816. Her case attracted considerable
attention from the readiness with which she could distinguish by her
touch the colours of cloth, silk, and stained glass; she could
accurately describe, too, the height, dress, bearing, and other
characteristics of her visitors; and she could even decipher the forms
of letters in a printed book or clearly written manuscript with her
fingers’ ends, so as to be able to read with tolerable facility. Her
needlework was remarkable for its extreme neatness. Within a few days of
her death she wrote a letter to her executor. She died at Liverpool on
18 August 1820.”
3. From _The Daily Telegraph_, 29th April 1922:
“American scientists are deeply interested in the discovery of a young
girl of seventeen, WILLETTA HUGGINS, who, although totally blind and
deaf, can ‘see and hear’ perfectly through a supernormal sense of smell
and touch. Miss Huggins, who has been quite deaf since she was ten years
old, and totally blind since she was fifteen, demonstrated to the
satisfaction of physicians and scientists that she can hear perfectly
over the telephone by placing her finger-tips upon the receiver and
listening to conversation with friends by placing her fingers on the
speakers’ cheeks. She attends lectures and concerts, and hears by
holding a thin sheet of paper between her fingers directed broadside
towards the volume of sound, and reads newspaper headlines by running
her finger-tips over large type. She discerns colours by odours, and
before the Chicago Medical Society recently she separated several skeins
of wool correctly and declared their colours by smelling them, and also
recognised the various colours in a neck-tie.”
* * * * *
The case of Miss HELEN KELLER has already been referred to. In America
that case has become classic; indeed in its way the life of Miss Keller
is almost as remarkable as that of John Metcalf, but, needless to say
the way is a very different one. Her book, _The Story of My Life_, is a
very full and engrossing account of her education (in this instance
“life” and “education” are interchangeable) from “the earliest time”
until shortly after her entry into Radcliffe College in 1900, she then
being in her twenty-first year. The book consists of three parts: (1)
her autobiography; (2) her letters; (3) her biography from external
sources, chiefly by the account of Miss Sullivan, who trained her.
The difficulty here was not merely blindness. When less than two years
old not only sight, but hearing, and with hearing speech, were all lost.
Her people were well-to-do, and skilled advice was frequently obtained,
but no improvement came. As the months and the years went on,
intelligent communication between the child and the world grew less,
while a naturally impulsive nature deepened into sullenness and passion
in the face of a dimly realised “difference,” and of her inability to
understand and to be understood. When Miss Sullivan came to live with
the Kellers in 1887, on a rather forlorn hope of being able to do
something with Helen, the child was six, and relapsing into primitive
savagery. The first--and in the event the one and only--problem was that
of opening up communication with the stunted mind, of raising or
piercing the black veil that had settled around it four years before.
A month after her arrival Miss Sullivan wrote as follows:--“I must write
you a line this morning because something very important has happened.
Helen has taken the second great step in her education. She has learned
that _everything has a name, and that the manual alphabet is the key to
everything she wants to know_.
“In a previous letter I think I wrote you that ‘mug’ and ‘milk’ had
given Helen more trouble than all the rest. She confused the nouns with
the verb ‘drink.’ She didn’t know the word for ‘drink,’ but went through
the pantomime of drinking whenever she spelled ‘mug’ or ‘milk.’ This
morning, while she was washing, she wanted to know the name for ‘water.’
When she wants to know the name of anything, she points to it and pats
my hand. I spelled ‘w-a-t-e-r’ and thought no more about it until after
breakfast. Then it occurred to me that with the help of this new word I
might succeed in straightening out the ‘mug-milk’ difficulty. We went
out to the pump-house, and I made Helen hold her mug under the spout
while I pumped. As the cold water gushed forth, filling the mug, I
spelled ‘w-a-t-e-r’ in Helen’s free hand. The word coming so close upon
the sensation of cold water rushing over her hand seemed to startle her.
She dropped the mug and stood as one transfixed. A new light came into
her face. She spelled ‘water’ several times. Then she dropped on the
ground and asked for its name and pointed to the pump and the trellis,
and suddenly turning round she asked for my name. I spelled ‘teacher.’
Just then the nurse brought Helen’s little sister into the pump-house,
and Helen spelled ‘baby’ and pointed to the nurse. All the way back to
the house she was highly excited, and learned the name of every object
she touched, so that in a few hours she had added thirty new words to
her vocabulary. Here are some of them: door, open, shut, give, go, come,
and a great many more.
“_P.S._--I didn’t finish my letter in time to get it posted last night,
so I shall add a line. Helen got up this morning like a radiant fairy.
She has flitted from object to object, asking the name of everything and
kissing me for very gladness. Last night when I got in bed, she stole
into my arms of her own accord and kissed me for the first time, and I
thought my heart would burst, so full was it of joy.”
Seven months later we have this characteristic sketch. It may not be
very much to the point here, but it would be difficult to excel its
peculiar quality: “We took Helen to the circus, and had ‘the time of our
lives!’ The circus people were much interested in Helen, and did
everything they could to make her first circus a memorable event. They
let her feel the animals whenever it was safe. She fed the elephants,
and was allowed to climb up on the back of the largest, and sit in the
lap of the ‘Oriental Princess’ while the elephant marched majestically
around the ring. She felt some young lions. They were as gentle as
kittens; but I told her they would get wild and fierce as they grew
older. She said to the keeper: ‘I will take the baby lions home and
teach them to be mild.’ The keeper of the bears made one big black
fellow stand on his hind legs and hold out his great paw to us, which
Helen shook politely. She was greatly delighted with the monkeys and
kept her hand on the star performer while he went through his tricks,
and laughed heartily when he took off his hat to the audience. One cute
little fellow stole her hair-ribbon, and another tried to snatch the
flowers out of her hat. I don’t know who had the best time, the monkeys,
Helen, or the spectators. One of the leopards licked her hands, and the
man in charge of the giraffes lifted her up in his arms so that she
could feel their ears and see how tall they were. She also felt a Greek
chariot, and the charioteer would have liked to take her round the ring;
but she was afraid of ‘many swift horses.’ The riders and clowns and
rope-walkers were all glad to let the little blind girl feel their
costumes and follow their motions whenever it was possible, and she
kissed them all, to show her gratitude. Some of them cried, and the Wild
Man of Borneo shrank from her sweet little face in terror. She has
talked about nothing but the circus ever since.”
So far there is nothing in this case very material to the purpose of
this Introduction. The story of Helen Keller is really the story of the
triumph of Miss Sullivan, showing how, with infinite patience and
resource, she presently brought a naturally keen and versatile mind out
of bondage and finally led it, despite all obstacles, to the full
attainment of its originally endowed powers. But the last resort of the
blind--some of them--is the undeterminate quality to which the
expression “sixth sense” has often been applied. On this subject, Helen
being about seven years old at this time, Miss Sullivan writes: “On
another occasion while walking with me she seemed conscious of the
presence of her brother, although we were distant from him. She spelled
his name repeatedly and started in the direction in which he was coming.
“When walking or riding she often gives the names of the people we meet
almost as soon as we recognise them.”
And a year later:
“I mentioned several instances where she seemed to have called into use
an inexplicable mental faculty; but it now seems to me, after carefully
considering the matter, that this power may be explained by her perfect
familiarity with the muscular variations of those with whom she comes
into contact, caused by their emotions.... One day, while she was
walking out with her mother and Mr Anagnos, a boy threw a torpedo, which
startled Mrs Keller. Helen felt the change in her mother’s movements
instantly, and asked, ‘What are we afraid of?’ On one occasion, while
walking on the Common with her, I saw a police officer taking a man to
the station-house. The agitation which I felt evidently produced a
perceptible physical change; for Helen asked excitedly, ‘What do you
see?’
“A striking illustration of this strange power was recently shown while
her ears were being examined by the aurists in Cincinnati. Several
experiments were tried, to determine positively whether or not she had
any perception of sound. All present were astonished when she appeared
not only to hear a whistle, but also an ordinary tone of voice. She
would turn her head, smile, and act as though she had heard what was
said. I was then standing beside her, holding her hand. Thinking that
she was receiving impressions from me, I put her hands upon the table,
and withdrew to the opposite side of the room. The aurists then tried
their experiments with quite different results. Helen remained
motionless through them all, not once showing the least sign that she
realised what was going on. At my suggestion, one of the gentlemen took
her hand, and the tests were repeated. This time her countenance changed
whenever she was spoken to, but there was not such a decided lighting up
of the features as when I held her hand.
“In the account of Helen last year it was stated that she knew nothing
about death, or the burial of the body; yet on entering a cemetery for
the first time in her life she showed signs of emotion--her eyes
actually filling with tears....
“While making a visit at Brewster, Massachusetts, she one day
accompanied my friend and me through the graveyard. She examined one
stone after another, and seemed pleased when she could decipher a name.
She smelt of the flowers, but showed no desire to pluck them; and, when
I gathered a few for her, she refused to have them pinned on her dress.
When her attention was drawn to a marble slab inscribed with the name
FLORENCE in relief, she dropped upon the ground as though looking for
something, then turned to me with a face full of trouble, and asked,
‘Where is poor little Florence?’ I evaded the question, but she
persisted. Turning to my friend, she asked, ‘Did you cry loud for poor
little Florence?’ Then she added: ‘I think she is very dead. Who put her
in big hole?’ As she continued to ask these distressing questions, we
left the cemetery. Florence was the daughter of my friend, and was a
young lady at the time of her death; but Helen had been told nothing
about her, nor did she even know that my friend had had a daughter.
Helen had been given a bed and carriage for her dolls, which she had
received and used like any other gift. On her return to the house after
her visit to the cemetery, she ran to the closet where these toys were
kept, and carried them to my friend, saying, ‘They are poor little
Florence’s.’ This was true, although we were at a loss to understand how
she guessed it.”
“Muscular variation” would rather seem to be capable of explaining away
most of the occult phenomena if this is it. But at all events the latest
intelligence of Miss Keller is quite tangible and undeniably “in the
picture.” According to _Who’s Who in America_, she “Appears in moving
picture-play, _Deliverance_, based on her autobiography.” This,
doubtless, is another record in the achievements of the blind: Miss
Keller has become a “movie.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE EYES OF
MAX CARRADOS
I
The Virginiola Fraud
If there was one thing more than another about Max Carrados that came as
a continual surprise, even a mild shock, to his acquaintances, it was
the wide and unrestricted scope of his amusements. Had the blind man
displayed a pensive interest in chamber music, starred by an occasional
visit to the opera, taken a daily walk in the park on his attendant’s
arm, and found his normal recreation in chess or in being read to, the
routine would have seemed an eminently fit and proper one. But to call
at The Turrets and learn that Carrados was out on the river punting, or
to find him in his gymnasium, probably with the gloves on, outraged
one’s sense of values. The only extraordinary thing in fact about his
recreations was their ordinariness. He frequently spent an afternoon at
Lord’s when there was the prospect of a good game being put up; he
played golf, bowls, croquet and cards; fished in all waters, and
admitted that he had never missed the University Boat Race since the
great finish of ’91. When he walked about the streets anywhere within
two miles of his house he was quite independent of any guidance, and on
one occasion he had saved a mesmerized girl’s life on Richmond Bridge by
dragging her into one of the recesses just in time to escape an
uncontrollable dray that had jumped the kerb.
This prelude is by way of explaining the attitude of a certain Mr
Marrable whom Carrados knew, as he knew a hundred strange and useful
people. Marrable had chambers in the neighbourhood of Piccadilly which
he furnished and decorated on a lavish and expensive scale. His
bric-à-brac, pictures, books and appointments, indeed, constituted the
man’s means of living, for he was one of the best all-round judges of
art and the antique in London, and with a nonchalant air of indifference
he very pleasantly and profitably lounged his way through life on the
honey extracted from one facile transaction after another. Living on his
wits in a strictly legitimate sense, he enjoyed all the advantages of
being a dealer without the necessity of maintaining a place of business.
It was not even necessary for him to find “bargains” in the general
sense, for buying in the ordinary market and selling in a very special
and restricted one disclosed a substantial margin. This commercial
system, less rare than one might imagine, involved no misrepresentation:
his wealthy and exclusive clients were quite willing to pay the
difference for the _cachet_ of Mr Marrable’s connoisseurship and also,
perhaps, for the amiable reluctance with which he carried on his
operations.
The business that took Carrados to the amateur dealer’s rooms one day in
April has nothing to do with this particular incident. It was quite
friendly and satisfactory on both sides, but it was not until Carrados
rose to leave that the tangent of the visit touched the circle of the
_Virginiola_.
“I am due at Gurnard’s at about three-thirty,” remarked Marrable,
glancing at a Louis XVI. ormolu clock for which he had marked off a
certain musical comedy countess at two hundred and fifty guineas. “Your
way at all?”
“Gurnard & Lane’s--the auctioneers?”
“Yes. They have a book sale on this afternoon.”
“I hope I haven’t been keeping you,” apologised Carrados.
“Oh, not at all. There is nothing I want among the earlier lots.” He
picked up a catalogue from a satinwood desk in which Mademoiselle Mars
had once kept her play-bills and glanced down the pages. “No. 191 is the
first I have marked: _An Account of the Newly Discovered Islands of Sir
George Sommers, called ‘Virginiola.’_ You aren’t a competitor, by the
way?”
“No,” replied Carrados; “but if you don’t mind I should like to go with
you.”
Marrable looked at him with slightly suspicious curiosity.
“You’d find it uncommonly dull, surely, seeing nothing,” he remarked.
“I generally contrive to extract some interest from what is going on,”
said Carrados modestly. “And as I have never yet been at a book
sale----”
“Oh, come, by all means,” interposed the other. “I shall be very glad of
your company. Only I was surprised for the moment at the idea. I should
warn you, however, that it isn’t anything great in the way of a
dispersal--no Caxtons or first-folio Shakespeares. Consequently there
will be an absence of ducal bibliophiles and literary Cabinet ministers,
and we shall have a crowd of more or less frowsy dealers.”
They had walked down into the street as they conversed. Marrable held up
a finger to the nearest taxi-cab on an adjacent rank, opened the door
for Carrados, and gave the driver the address of the auction rooms of
which he had spoken.
“I don’t expect to get very much,” he speculated, turning over the later
pages of the catalogue, which he still carried in his hand. “I’ve marked
a dozen lots, but I’m not particularly keen on half of them. But I
should certainly like to land the _Virginiola_.”
“It is rare, I suppose?” inquired Carrados. Indifferent to books from
the bibliophile’s standpoint, he was able to feel the interest that one
collector is generally willing to extend to the tastes of another.
“Yes,” assented Marrable with weighty consideration. “Yes. In a way it
is extremely rare. But this copy is faulty--the Dedication and Address
pages are missing. That will bring down the bidding enormously, and yet
it is just the defect that makes it attractive to me.”
For a moment he was torn between the secretiveness bred of his position
and a human desire to expound his shrewdness. The weakness triumphed.
“A few months ago,” he continued, “I came cross another copy of the
_Virginiola_ among the lumber of a Bristol second-hand book-dealer’s
stock. It was altogether a rotten specimen--both covers gone, scores of
pages ripped away, and most of those that remained appallingly torn and
dirty. It was a fragment in fact, and I was not tempted even at the
nominal guinea that was put upon it. But now----”
“Quite so,” agreed Carrados.
“The first few pages were just the scrap that was presentable. I have a
wonderful memory for details like that. The pages I want were
discoloured, but they were sound. Sunshine or a chloride of lime bath
will restore them to condition. If I get _this_ _Virginiola_ I shall run
down to Bristol to-morrow.”
“I congratulate you,” said Carrados. “Unless, of course, your Bristol
friend runs up to London to-day!”
Mr Marrable started rather violently. Then he shook his head with a
knowing look.
“No; he won’t do that. He is only a little back-street huckster. True,
if he found out that a _Virginiola_ short of the pages he possesses was
being sold he might have written to a London dealer, but he won’t find
out. For some reason they have overlooked the defect in cataloguing. Of
course every expert will spot the omission at once, as I did this
morning, and the book will be sold as faulty, but if my Bristol friend,
as you call him, did happen to see a catalogue there would be nothing to
suggest any profitable opening to him.”
“Splendid,” admitted the blind man. “What would a perfect _Virginiola_
be worth?”
“Auction price? Oh, about five hundred guineas.”
“And to-day’s copy?”
“Ah, that’s more difficult ground. You see, every perfect copy is alike,
but every imperfect copy is different. Well, say anything from a hundred
and fifty to three hundred, according to who wants it. I shall be very
content to take it half-way.”
“Two hundred and twenty-five? Yes, I suppose so. Five hundred, less two
twenty-five plus one leaves two hundred and seventy-four guineas to the
good. You shall certainly pay for the taxi!”
“Oh, I don’t mind standing the taxi,” declared Mr Marrable
magniloquently, “but don’t pin me down to five hundred--that’s the
auction price. I should want a trifle above--if I decided to let the
book go out of my own library, that is to say. Probably I should keep
it. Well, here we are.”
The cab had drawn to the kerb opposite the door of Messrs Gurnard’s
unpretentious frontage. Mr Marrable piloted his friend into the saleroom
and to a vacant chair by the wall, and then went off to watch the fray
at closer quarters. Carrados heard the smooth-tongued auctioneer
referring to an item as No. 142, and for the next fifty lots he followed
the strangely unexciting progress of the sale with his own peculiar
speculative interest.
“Lot 191,” announced the easy, untiring voice. “_An Account of the Newly
Discovered Islands, etc._” At last the atmosphere pulsed to a faint
thrill of expectation. “Unfortunately we had not the book before us when
the catalogue was drawn up. Lot 191 is imperfect and is sold not subject
to return; a very desirable volume all the same. What may I say for Lot
191, please? _An Account, etc._, in original leather, faulty, and not
subject to return.”
As Mr Marrable had indicated, the defective _Virginiola_ occupied a
rather special position. Did anyone else want it? was in several minds;
and if so, how much did he want it? Everyone waited until at last the
question seemed to fine down into: Did _anyone_ want it?
“May I say two hundred guineas?” suggested the auctioneer persuasively.
A large, heavy-faced man, who might have been a cattle-dealer from the
North by every indication that his appearance gave, opened the bidding.
He, at any rate, could have dissipated the uncertainty and saved the
room the waiting. Holding, as he did, two commissions, he was bound to
make the price a point above the lower of the orders.
“A hundred and twenty-one pounds.”