THE UTTERMOST FARTHING
A SAVANT'S VENDETTA
BY R. AUSTIN FREEMAN
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. The Motive Force
II. "Number One"
III. The Housemaid's Followers
IV. The Gifts of Chance
V. By-products of Industry
VI. The Trail of the Serpent
VII. The Uttermost Farthing
THE UTTERMOST FARTHING
I
THE MOTIVE FORCE
It is not without some misgivings that I at length make public the
strange history communicated to me by my lamented friend Humphrey
Challoner. The outlook of the narrator is so evidently abnormal, his
ethical standards are so remote from those ordinarily current, that the
chronicle of his life and actions may not only fail to secure the
sympathy of the reader but may even excite a certain amount of moral
repulsion. But by those who knew him, his generosity to the poor, and
especially to those who struggled against undeserved misfortune, will be
an ample set-off to his severity and even ferocity towards the enemies
of society.
Humphrey Challoner was a great savant spoiled by untimely wealth. When I
knew him he had lapsed into a mere dilettante; at least, so I thought
at the time, though subsequent revelations showed him in a rather
different light. He had some reputation as a criminal anthropologist and
had formerly been well known as a comparative anatomist, but when I made
his acquaintance he seemed to be occupied chiefly in making endless
additions to the specimens in his private museum. This collection I
could never quite understand. It consisted chiefly of human and other
mammalian skeletons, all of which presented certain small deviations
from the normal; but its object I could never make out--until after his
death; and then, indeed, the revelation was a truly astounding one.
I first made Challoner's acquaintance in my professional capacity. He
consulted me about some trifling ailment and we took rather a liking to
each other. He was a learned man and his learning overlapped my own
specialty, so that we had a good deal in common. And his personality
interested me deeply. He gave me the impression of a man naturally
buoyant, genial, witty, whose life had been blighted by some great
sorrow. Ordinarily sad and grave in manner, he exhibited flashes of a
grim, fantastic humor that came as a delightful surprise and showed what
he had been, and might still have been, but for that tragedy at which he
sometimes hinted. Gentle, sympathetic, generous, his universal
kindliness had yet one curious exception: his attitude towards habitual
offenders against the law was one of almost ferocious vindictiveness.
At the time that I went away for my autumn holiday his health was not
quite satisfactory. He made no complaint, indeed he expressed himself as
feeling perfectly well; but a certain, indefinable change in his
appearance had made me a little uneasy. I said nothing to him on the
subject, merely asking him to keep me informed as to his condition
during my absence, but it was not without anxiety that I took leave of
him.
The habits of London society enable a consultant to take a fairly
liberal holiday. I was absent about six weeks, and when I returned and
called on Challoner, his appearance shocked me. There was no doubt now
as to the gravity of his condition. His head appeared almost to have
doubled in size. His face was bloated, his features were thickened, his
eyelids puffy and his eyes protruding. He stood, breathing hard from the
exertion of crossing the room and held out an obviously swollen hand.
"Well, Wharton," said he, with a strange, shapeless smile, "how do you
find me? Don't you think I'm getting a fine fellow? Growing like a
pumpkin, by Jove! I've changed the size of my collars three times in a
month and the new ones are too tight already." He laughed--as he had
spoken--in a thick, muffled voice and I made shift to produce some sort
of smile in response to his hideous facial contortion.
"You don't seem to like the novelty, my child," he continued gaily and
with another horrible grin. "Don't like this softening of the classic
outlines, hey? Well, I'll admit it isn't pretty, but, bless us! what
does that matter at my time of life?"
I looked at him in consternation as he stood, breathing quickly, with
that uncanny smile on his enormous face. It was highly unprofessional
of me, no doubt, but there was little use in attempting to conceal my
opinion of his case. Something inside his chest was pressing on the
great veins of the neck and arms. That something was either an aneurysm
or a solid tumor. A brief examination, to which he submitted with
cheerful unconcern, showed that it was a solid growth, and I told him
so. He knew some pathology and was, of course, an excellent anatomist,
so there was no avoiding a detailed explanation.
"Now, for my part," said he, buttoning up his waistcoat, "I'd sooner
have had an aneurysm. There's a finality about an aneurysm. It gives you
fair notice so that you may settle your affairs, and then, pop! bang!
and the affair's over. How long will this thing take?"
I began to hum and haw nervously, but he interrupted: "It doesn't matter
to me, you know, I'm only asking from curiosity; and I don't expect you
to give a date. But is it a matter of days or weeks? I can see it isn't
one of months."
"I should think, Challoner," I said huskily, "it may be four or five
weeks--at the outside."
"Ha!" he said brightly, "that will suit me nicely. I've finished my job
and rounded up my affairs generally, so that I am ready whenever it
happens. But light your pipe and come and have a look at the museum."
Now, as I knew (or believed I knew) by heart every specimen in the
collection, this suggestion struck me as exceedingly odd; but reflecting
that his brain might well have suffered some disturbance from the
general engorgement, I followed him without remark. Slowly we passed
down the corridor that led to the "museum wing," walked through the
ill-smelling laboratories (for Challoner prepared the bones of the lower
animals himself, though, for obvious reasons, he acquired the human
skeletons from dealers) and entered the long room where the main
collection was kept.
Here we halted, and while Challoner recovered his breath, I looked round
on the familiar scene. The inevitable whale's skeleton--a small sperm
whale--hung from the ceiling, on massive iron supports. The side of the
room nearest the door was occupied by a long glass case filled with
skeletons of animals, all diseased, deformed or abnormal. On the
floor-space under the whale stood the skeletons of a camel and an
aurochs. The camel was affected with rickets and the aurochs had
multiple exostoses or bony tumors. At one end of the room was a large
case of skulls, all deformed or asymmetrical; at the other stood a long
table and a chest of shallow drawers; while the remaining long side of
the room was filled from end to end by a glass case about eight feet
high containing a number of human skeletons, each neatly articulated and
standing on its own pedestal.
Now, this long case had always been somewhat of a mystery to me. Its
contents differed from the other specimens in two respects. First,
whereas all the other skeletons and the skulls bore full descriptive
labels, these human skeletons were distinguished merely by a number and
a date on the pedestal; and, second, whereas all the other specimens
illustrated some disease or deformity, these were, apparently, quite
normal or showed only some trifling abnormality. They were beautifully
prepared and bleached to ivory whiteness, but otherwise they were of no
interest, and I could never understand Challoner's object in
accumulating such a number of duplicate specimens.
"You think you know this collection inside out," said Challoner, as if
reading my thoughts.
"I know it pretty well, I think," was my reply.
"You don't know it at all," he rejoined.
"Oh, come!" I said. "I could write a catalogue of it from memory."
Challoner laughed. "My dear fellow," said he, "you have never seen the
real gems of the collection. I am going to show them to you now."
He passed his arm through mine and we walked slowly up the long room;
and as we went, he glanced in at the skeletons in the great case with a
faint and very horrible smile on his bloated face. At the extreme end I
stopped him and pointed to the last skeleton in the case.
"I want you to explain to me, Challoner, why you have distinguished
this one by a different pedestal from the others."
As I spoke, I ran my eye along the row of gaunt shapes that filled the
great case. Each skeleton stood on a pedestal of ebonized wood on which
was a number and a date painted in white, excepting the end one, the
pedestal of which was coated with scarlet enamel and the number and date
on it in gold lettering.
"That specimen," said Challoner, thoughtfully, "is the last of the
flock. It made the collection complete. So I marked it with a
distinctive pedestal. You will understand all about it when you take
over. Now come and look at my gems."
He walked behind the chest of drawers and stood facing the wall which
was covered with mahogany paneling. Each panel was about four feet wide
by five high, was bordered by a row of carved rosettes and was separated
from the adjoining panels by pilasters.
"Now, watch me, Wharton," said he. "You see these two rosettes near the
bottom of the panel. You press your thumbs on them, so; and you give a
half turn. That turns a catch. Then you do this." He grasped the
pilaster on each side of the panel, gave a gentle pull, and panel and
pilasters came away bodily, exposing a moderate-sized cupboard. I
hastily relieved him of the panel, and, when he had recovered his
breath, he began to expound the contents of this curious hiding-place.
"That row of books you will take possession of and examine when my lease
falls in. You are my executor and this collection will be yours to keep
or give away or destroy, as you think fit. The books consist of a
finger-print album, a portrait album, a catalogue and a history of the
collection. You will find them all quite interesting. Now I will show
you the gems if you will lift those boxes down on to the table."
I did as he asked; lifting down the pile of shallow boxes and placing
them, at his direction, side by side on the table. When they were
arranged to his satisfaction, he took off the lids with somewhat of a
flourish, and I uttered an exclamation of amazement.
The boxes were filled with dolls' heads; at least, such I took them to
be. But such dolls! I had never seen anything like them before. So
horribly realistic and yet so unnatural! I can only describe the
impression they produced by that much-misused word "weird." They were
uncanny in the extreme, suggesting to the beholder the severed heads of
a company of fantastic, grotesque-looking dwarfs. Let me try to describe
them in detail.
Each head was about the size of a small monkey's, that is, about four
inches long. It appeared to be made of some fine leather or vellum,
remarkably like human skin in texture. The hair in all of them was
disproportionately long and very thick, so that it looked somewhat like
a paint-brush. But it was undoubtedly human hair. The eyebrows too were
unnaturally thick and long and so were the mustache and beard, when
present; being composed, as I could plainly see, of genuine mustache and
beard hairs of full length and very closely set. Some were made to
represent clean-shaven men, and some even showed two or three days'
growth of stubble; which stubble was disproportionately long and most
unnaturally dense. The eyes of all were closed and the eyelashes formed
a thick, projecting brush. But despite the abnormal treatment of the
hairy parts, these little heads had the most astonishingly realistic
appearance and were, as I have said, excessively weird and rather
dreadful in aspect. And, in spite of the closed eyes and set features,
each had an expression and character of its own; each, in fact, seemed
to be a faithful and spirited portrait of a definite individual. They
were upwards of twenty in number, all male and all represented persons
of the European type. Each reposed in a little velvet-lined compartment
and each was distinguished by a label bearing a number and a date.
I looked up at Challoner and found him regarding me with an inscrutable
and hideous smile.
"These are very extraordinary productions, Challoner," said I. "What are
they? And what are they made of?"
"Made of, my dear fellow?" said he. "Why, the same as you and I are made
of, to be sure."
"Do you mean to say," I exclaimed, "that these little heads are made of
human skin?"
"Undoubtedly. Human skin and human hair. What else did you think?"
I looked at him with a puzzled frown and finally said that I did not
understand what he meant.
"Have you never heard of the Mundurucú Indians?" he asked.
I shook my head. "What about them?" I asked.
"You will find an account of them in Bates' "Naturalist on the Amazon,"
and there is a reference to them in Gould and Pyle's "Anomalies.""
There was a pause, during which I gazed, not without awe, at the open
boxes. Finally I looked at Challoner and asked, "Well?"
"Well, these are examples of the Mundurucú work."
I looked again at the boxes and I must confess that, as my eye traveled
along the rows of impassive faces and noted the perfect though
diminutive features, the tiny ears, the bristling hair, the frowning
eyebrows--so discordant with the placid expression and peacefully
closed eyes--a chill of horror crept over me. The whole thing was so
unreal, so unnatural, so suggestive of some diabolical wizardry. I
looked up sharply at my host.
"Where did you get these things, Challoner?" I asked.
His bloated face exhibited again that strange, inscrutable smile.
"You will find a full account of them in the archives of the museum.
Every specimen is fully described there and the history of its
acquirement and origin given in detail. They are interesting little
objects, aren't they?"
"Very," I replied abstractedly; for I was speculating at the moment on
the disagreement between the appearance of the heads and their implied
origin. Finally I pointed out the discrepancy.
"But these heads were never prepared by those Indians you speak of."
"Why not?"
"Because they are all Europeans; in fact, most of them look like
Englishmen."
"Well? And what about it?" Challoner seemed quietly amused at my
perplexity, but at this moment my eye noted a further detail which--I
cannot exactly say why--seemed to send a fresh shiver down my spine.
"Look here, Challoner," I said. "Why is this head distinguished from the
others? They are all in compartments lined with black velvet and have
black labels with white numbers and dates; this one has a compartment
lined with red velvet and a red label with a gold number and date, just
as in the case of that end skeleton." I glanced across at the case and
then it came to me in a flash that the numbers and the dates were
identical on both.
Challoner saw that I had observed this and replied: "It is perfectly
simple, my dear fellow. That skeleton and this head were acquired on the
same day, and with their acquirement my collection was complete. They
were the final specimens and I have added nothing since I got them. But
in the case of the head there was a further reason for a distinctive
setting: it is the gem of the whole collection. Just look at the hair.
Take my lens and examine it."
He handed me his lens and I picked the head out of its scarlet nest--it
was as light as a cork--and brought it close to my eye. And then, even
without the lens, I could see what Challoner meant. The hair presented
an excessively rare abnormality; it was what is known as "ringed hair;"
that is to say, each hair was marked by alternate light and dark rings.
"You say this is really human hair?" I asked.
"Undoubtedly. And a very fine example of ringed hair; the only one, I
may say, that I have ever seen."
"I have never seen a specimen before," said I, laying the little head
down in its compartment, "nor," I added, "have I ever seen or heard of
anything like these uncanny objects. Won't you tell me where you got
them?"
"Not now," said Challoner. "You will learn all about them from the
'Archives,' and very interesting you will find them. And now we'll put
them away." He placed the lids on the boxes, and, when I had stowed
them away in the cupboard, he made me replace the panel and take a
special note of the position of the fastenings for future use.
"Can you stay and have some dinner with me?" he asked, adding, "I am
quite presentable at table, still, though I don't swallow very
comfortably."
"Yes," I answered, "I will stay with pleasure; I am not officially back
at work yet. Hanley is still in charge of my practice."
Accordingly we dined together, though, as far as he was concerned, the
dinner was rather an empty ceremony. But he was quite cheerful; in fact,
he seemed in quite high spirits, and in the intervals of struggling with
his food contrived to talk a little in his quaint, rather grotesquely
humorous fashion.
While the meal was in progress, however, our conversation was merely
desultory and not very profuse; but when the cloth was removed and the
wine set on the table he showed a disposition for more connected talk.
"I suppose I can have a cigar, Wharton? Won't shorten my life
seriously, h'm?"
If it would have killed him on the spot, I should have raised no
objection. I replied by pushing the box towards him, and, when he had
selected a cigar and cut off its end with a meditative air, he looked up
at me and said:
"I am inclined to be reminiscent tonight, Wharton; to treat you to a
little autobiography, h'm?"
"By all means. You will satisfy your own inclinations and my curiosity
at the same time."
"You're a deuced polite fellow, Wharton. But I'm not going to bore you.
You'll be really interested in what I'm going to tell you; and
especially will you be interested when you come to go through the museum
by the light of the little history that you are going to hear. For you
must know that my life for the last twenty years has been bound up with
my collection. The one is, as it were, a commentary on and an
illustration of the other. Did you know that I had ever been married?"
"No," I answered in some surprise; for Challoner had always seemed to
me the very type of the solitary, self-contained bachelor.
"I have never mentioned it," said he. "The subject would have been a
painful one. It is not now. The malice of sorrow and misfortune loses
its power as I near the end of my pilgrimage. Soon I shall step across
the border and be out of its jurisdiction forever."
He paused, lit his cigar, took a few labored draughts of the fragrant
smoke, and resumed: "I did not marry until I was turned forty. I had no
desire to. I was a solitary man, full of my scientific interests and not
at all susceptible to the influence of women. But at last I met my late
wife and found her different from all other women whom I had seen. She
was a beautiful girl, some twenty years younger than I, highly
intelligent, cultivated and possessed of considerable property. Of
course I was no match for her. I was nothing to look at, was double her
age, was only moderately well off and had no special standing either
socially or in the world of science. But she married me and, as I may
say, she married me handsomely; by which I mean that she always treated
our marriage as a great stroke of good fortune for her, as if the
advantages were all on her side instead of on mine. As a result, we were
absolutely devoted to each other. Our life was all that married life
could be and that it so seldom is. We were inseparable. In our work, in
our play, in every interest and occupation, we were in perfect harmony.
We grudged the briefest moment of separation and avoided all society
because we were so perfectly happy with each other. She was a wife in a
million; and it was only after I had married her that I realized what a
delightful thing it was to be alive. My former existence, looked back on
from that time, seemed but a blank expanse through which I had stagnated
as a chrysalis lingers on, half alive, through the dreary months of
winter.
"We lived thus in unbroken concord, with mutual love that grew from day
to day, until two years of perfect happiness had passed.
"And then the end came."
Here Challoner paused, and a look of unutterable sadness settled on his
poor, misshapen face. I watched him with an uncomfortable premonition of
something disagreeable in the sequel of his narrative as, with his
trembling, puffy hand, he re-lighted the cigar that had gone out in the
interval.
"The end came," he repeated presently. "The perfect happiness of two
human beings was shattered in a moment. Let me describe the
circumstances.
"I am usually a light sleeper, like most men of an active mind, but on
this occasion I must have slept more heavily than usual. I awoke,
however, with somewhat of a start and the feeling that something had
happened. I immediately missed my wife and sat up in bed to listen.
Faint creakings and sounds of movement were audible from below and I was
about to get up and investigate when a door slammed, a bell rang loudly
and then the report of a pistol or gun echoed through the house.
"I sprang out of bed and rushed down the stairs. As I reached the hall,
someone ran past me in the darkness. There was a blinding flash close
to my face and a deafening explosion; and when I recovered my sight, the
form of a man appeared for an instant dimly silhouetted in the opening
of the street door. The door closed with a bang, leaving the house
wrapped in silence and gloom.
"My first impulse was to pursue the man, but it immediately gave way to
alarm for my wife. I groped my way into the dining-room and was creeping
towards the place where the matches were kept when my bare foot touched
something soft and bulky. I stooped to examine it and my outspread hand
came in contact with a face.
"I sprang up with a gasp of terror and searched frantically for the
matches. In a few moments I had found them and tremblingly struck a
light; and the first glimmer of the flame turned my deadly fear into yet
more deadly realization. My wife lay on the hearth-rug, her upturned
face as white as marble, her half-open eyes already glazing. A great,
brown scorch marked the breast of her night-dress and at its center was
a small stain of blood.
"She was stone dead. I saw that at a glance. The bullet must have passed
right through her heart and she must have died in an instant. That, too,
I saw. And though I called her by her name and whispered words of
tenderness into her ears; though I felt her pulseless wrists and chafed
her hands--so waxen now and chill--I knew that she was gone.
"I was still kneeling beside her, crazed, demented by grief and horror;
still stroking her poor white hand, telling her that she was my dear
one, my little Kate, and begging her, foolishly, to come back to me, to
be my little friend and playmate as of old; still, I say, babbling in
the insanity of grief, when I heard a soft step descending the stairs.
It came nearer. The door opened and someone stole into the room on
tip-toe. It was the housemaid, Harratt. She stood stock still when she
saw us and stared and uttered strange whimpering cries like a frightened
dog. And then, suddenly, she turned and stole away silently as she had
come, and I heard her running softly upstairs. Presently she came down
again, but this time she passed the dining-room and went out of the
street door. I vaguely supposed she had gone for assistance, but the
matter did not concern me. My wife was dead. Nothing mattered now.
"Harratt did not return, however, and I soon forgot her. The death of my
dear one grew more real. I began to appreciate it as an actual fact. And
with this realization, the question of my own death arose. I took it for
granted from the first. The burden of solitary existence was not to be
entertained for a moment. The only question was how, and I debated this
in leisurely fashion, sitting on the floor with Kate's hand in mine. I
had a pistol upstairs and, of course, there were keen-edged scalpels in
the laboratory. But, strange as it may appear, the bias of an anatomical
training even then opposed the idea of gross mechanical injuries.
However, there were plenty of poisons available, and to this method I
inclined as more decent and dignified.
"Having settled on the method, I was disposed to put it into practice
at once; but then another consideration arose. My wife would have to be
buried. By some hands she must be laid in her last resting-place, and
those hands could be none other than my own. So I must stay behind for a
little while.
"The hours passed on unreckoned until pencils of cold blue daylight
began to stream in through the chinks of the shutters and contend with
the warm gaslight within. Then another footstep was heard on the stairs
and the cook, Wilson, came into the room. She, like the housemaid,
stopped dead when she saw my wife's corpse, and stood for an instant
staring wildly with her mouth wide open. But only for an instant. The
next she was flying out of the front door, rousing the street with her
screams.
"The advent of the cook roused me. I knew that the police would arrive
soon and I instinctively looked about me to see how this unspeakable
thing had happened. I had already noticed that one of my wife's
hands--the one that I had not been holding--was clenched, and I now
observed that it grasped a little tuft of hair. I drew out a portion of
the tuft and looked at it. It was coarse hair, about three inches long
and a dull gray in color. I laid it on the clean note-paper in the
drawer of the bureau bookcase to examine later, and then glanced around
the room. The origin of the tragedy was obvious. The household plate had
been taken out of the plate chest in the pantry and laid out on the end
of the dining table. There the things stood, their polished surfaces
sullied by the greasy finger-marks of the wretch who had murdered my
wife. At those tell-tale marks I looked with new and growing interest.
Finger-prints, in those days, had not yet been recognized by the public
or the police as effective means of identification. But they were well
known to scientific men and I had given the subject some attention
myself. And the sight of those signs-manual of iniquity had an immediate
effect on me; they converted the unknown perpetrator of this horror from
a mere abstraction of disaster into a real, living person. With a sudden
flush of hate and loathing, I realized that this wretch was even now
walking the streets or lurking in his accursed den; and I realized, too,
that these marks were, perhaps, the only links that connected him with
the foul deed that he had done.
"I looked over the plate quickly and selected a salver and a large,
globular teapot, on both of which the prints were very distinct. These I
placed in a drawer of the bureau, and, turning the key, dropped it into
the pocket of my pajamas. And at that moment the bell rang violently.
"I went to the door and admitted a police constable and the cook. The
latter looked at me with evident fear and horror and the constable said,
somewhat sternly:
"'This young woman tells me there's something wrong here, sir.'
"I led him into the dining-room--the cook remained at the door, peering
in with an ashen face--and showed him my wife's corpse. He took off his
helmet and asked rather gruffly how it happened. I gave him a brief
account of the catastrophe, on which he made no comment except to remark
that the inspector would be here presently.
"The inspector actually arrived within a couple of minutes, accompanied
by a sergeant, and the two officers questioned me closely. I repeated my
statement and saw at once that they did not believe me; that they
suspected me of having committed the murder myself. I noted the fact
with dull surprise but without annoyance. It didn't seem to matter to me
what they thought.
"They called the cook in and questioned her, but, of course, she knew
nothing. Then they sent her to find the housemaid. But the housemaid had
disappeared and her outdoor clothes and a large hand-bag had disappeared
too; which put a new complexion on the matter. Then the officers
examined the plate and looked at the finger-marks on it. The constable
discovered the tuft of hair in my poor wife's hand, and the inspector
having noted its color and looked rather hard at my hair, put it for
safety in a blue envelope, which he pocketed; and I suspect it never saw
the light again.
"About this time the police surgeon arrived, but there was nothing for
him to do but note the state of the body as bearing on the time at
which death took place. The police took possession of some of the plate
with a dim idea of comparing the finger-prints with the fingers of the
murderer if they should catch him.
"But they never did catch him. Not a vestige of a clue to his identity
was ever forthcoming. The housemaid was searched for but never found.
The coroner's jury returned a verdict of 'wilful murder' against some
person unknown. And that was the end of the matter. I accompanied my
dearest to the place where she was laid to rest, where soon I shall join
her. And I came back alone to the empty house.
"It is unnecessary for me to say that I did not kill myself. In the
interval I had seen things in a new light. It was evident to me from the
first that the police would never capture that villain. And yet he had
to be captured. He had incurred a debt, and that debt had to be paid.
Therefore I remained behind to collect it.
"That was twenty years ago, Wharton; twenty long, gray, solitary years.
Many a time have I longed to go to her, but the debt remained unpaid. I
have tried to make the time pass by getting my little collection
together and studying the very instructive specimens in it; and it has
lightened the burden. But all the time I have been working to collect
that debt and earn my release."
He paused awhile, and I ventured to ask: "And is the debt paid?"
"At last it is paid."
"The man was caught, then, in the end?"
"Yes. He was caught."
"And I hope," I exclaimed fervently, "that the scoundrel met with his
deserts; I mean, that he was duly executed."
"Yes," Challoner answered quietly, "he was executed."
"How did the police discover him, after all?" I asked.
"You will find," said Challoner, "a full account of the affair in the
last volume of the 'Museum Archives';" then, noting the astonishment on
my face at this amazing statement, he added: "You see, Wharton, the
'Museum Archives' are, in a sense, a personal diary; my life has been
wrapped up in the museum and I have associated all the actions of my
life with the collection. I think you will understand when you read it.
And now let us dismiss these recollections of a ruined life. I have told
you my story; I wanted you to hear it from my own lips, and you have
heard it. Now let us take a glass of wine and talk of something else."
I looked at my watch and, finding it much later than I had supposed,
rose to take my leave.
"I oughtn't to have kept you up like this," I said. "You ought to have
been in bed an hour ago."
Challoner laughed his queer muffled laugh. "Bed!" exclaimed he. "I don't
go to bed nowadays. Haven't been able to lie down for the last
fortnight."
Of course he hadn't. I might have known that. "Well," I said, "at any
rate, let me make you comfortable for the night before I go. How do you
generally manage?"
"I rig up a head-rest on the edge of the table, pull up the armchair,
wrap myself in a rug and sleep leaning forward. I'll show you. Just get
down Owen's 'Comparative Anatomy' and stack the volumes close to the
edge of the table. Then set up Parker's 'Monograph on the
Shoulder-girdle' in a slanting position against them. Fine book, that of
Parker's. I enjoyed it immensely when it first came out and it makes a
splendid head-rest. I'll go and get into my pajamas while you are
arranging the things."
He went off to his adjacent bedroom and I piled up the ponderous volumes
on the table and drew up the armchair. When he returned, I wrapped him
in a couple of thick rugs and settled him in his chair. He laid his arms
on the massive monograph, rested his forehead on them and murmured
cheerfully that he should now be quite comfortable until the morning. I
wished him "good-night" and walked slowly to the door, and as I held it
open I stopped to look back at him. He raised his head and gave me a
farewell smile; a queer, ugly smile, but full of courage and a noble
patience. And so I left him.
Thereafter I called to see him every day and settled him to rest every
night. His disease made more rapid progress even than I had expected;
but he was always bright and cheerful, never made any complaint and
never again referred to his troubled past.
One afternoon I called a little later than usual, and when the housemaid
opened the door I asked her how he was.
"He isn't any better, sir," she answered. "He's getting most awful fat,
sir; about the head I mean."
"Where is he now?" I asked.
"He's in the dining-room, sir; I think he's gone to sleep."
I entered the room quietly and found him resting by the table. He was
wrapped up in his rugs and his head rested on his beloved monograph. I
walked up to him and spoke his name softly, but he did not rouse. I
leaned over him and listened, but no sound or movement of breathing was
perceptible. The housemaid was right. He had gone to sleep; or, in his
own phrase, he had passed out of the domain of sorrow.
II
"NUMBER ONE"
It was more than a week after the funeral of my poor friend Humphrey
Challoner that I paid my first regular visit of inspection to his house.
I had been the only intimate friend of this lonely, self-contained man
and he had made me not only his sole executor but his principal legatee.
With the exception of a sum of money to endow an Institute of Criminal
Anthropology, he had made me the heir to his entire estate, including
his museum. The latter bequest was unencumbered by any conditions. I
could keep the collection intact, I could sell it as it stood or I could
break it up and distribute the specimens as I chose; but I knew that
Challoner's unexpressed wish was that it should be kept together,
ultimately to form the nucleus of a collection attached to the
Institute.
It was a gray autumn afternoon when I let myself in. A caretaker was in
charge of the house, which was otherwise unoccupied, and the museum,
which was in a separate wing, seemed strangely silent and remote. As the
Yale latch of the massive door clicked behind me, I seemed to be, and in
fact was, cut off from all the world. A mysterious, sepulchral stillness
pervaded the place, and when I entered the long room I found myself
unconsciously treading lightly so as not to disturb the silence; even as
one might on entering some Egyptian tomb-chamber hidden in the heart of
a pyramid.
I halted in the center of the long room and looked about me, and I don't
mind confessing that I felt distinctly creepy. It was not the skeleton
of the whale that hung overhead, with its ample but ungenial smile; it
was not the bandy-legged skeleton of the rachitic camel, nor that of the
aurochs, nor those of the apes and jackals and porcupines in the smaller
glass case; nor the skulls that grinned from the case at the end of the
room. It was the long row of human skeletons, each erect and watchful on
its little pedestal, that occupied the great wall-case: a silent,
motionless company of fleshless sentinels, standing in easy postures
with unchanging, mirthless grins and seeming to wait for something. That
was what disturbed me.
I am not an impressionable man; and, as a medical practitioner, it is
needless to say that mere bones have no terrors for me. The skeleton
from which I worked as a student was kept in my bedroom, and I minded it
no more than I minded the plates in "Gray's Anatomy." I could have slept
comfortably in the Hunterian Museum--other circumstances being
favorable; and even the gigantic skeleton of Corporal O'Brian--which
graces that collection--with that of his companion, the quaint little
dwarf, thrown in, would not have disturbed my rest in the smallest
degree. But this was different. I had the feeling, as I had had before,
that there was something queer about this museum of Challoner's.
I walked slowly along the great wall-case, looking in at the specimens;
and in the dull light, each seemed to look out at me as I passed with a
questioning expression in his shadowy eye-sockets, as if he would ask,
"Do you know who I was?" It made me quite uncomfortable.
There were twenty-five of them in all. Each stood on a small black
pedestal on which was painted in white a number and a date; excepting
one at the end, which had a scarlet pedestal and gold lettering. Number
1 bore the date 20th September, 1889, and Number 25 (the one with the
red pedestal) was dated 13th May, 1909. I looked at this last one
curiously; a massive figure with traces of great muscularity, a broad,
Mongoloid head with large cheekbones and square eye-sockets. A
formidable fellow he must have been; and even now, the broad, square
face grinned out savagely from the case.
I turned away with something of a shudder. I had not come here to get
"the creeps." I had come for Challoner's journal, or the "Museum
Archives" as he called it. The volumes were in the secret cupboard at
the end of the room and I had to take out the movable panel to get at
them. This presented no difficulty. I found the rosettes that moved the
catches and had the panel out in a twinkling. The cupboard was five feet
high by four broad and had a well in the bottom covered by a lid, which
I lifted and, to my amazement, found the cavity filled with revolvers,
automatic pistols, life-preservers, knuckle-dusters and other weapons,
each having a little label--bearing a number and a date--tied neatly on
it. I shut the lid down rather hastily; there was something rather
sinister in that collection of lethal appliances.
The volumes, seven in number, were on the top shelf, uniformly bound in
Russia leather and labeled, respectively, "Photographs,"
"Finger-prints," "Catalogue," and four volumes of "Museum Archives." I
was about to reach down the catalogue when my eye fell on the pile of
shallow boxes on the next shelf. I knew what they contained and recalled
uncomfortably the strange impression that their contents had made on me;
and yet a sort of fascination led me to take down the top one--labelled
"Series B 5"--and raise the lid. But if those dreadful dolls' heads had
struck me as uncanny when poor Challoner showed them to me, they now
seemed positively appalling. Small as they were--and they were not as
large as a woman's fist--they looked so life-like--or rather, so
death-like--that they suggested nothing so much as actual human heads
seen through the wrong end of a telescope. There were five in this box,
each in a separate compartment lined with black velvet and distinguished
by a black label with white lettering; excepting the central one, which
rested on scarlet velvet and had a red label inscribed in gold "13th
May, 1909."
I gazed at this tiny head in its scarlet setting with shuddering
fascination. It had a hideous little face; a broad, brutal face of the
Tartar type; and the mop of gray-brown hair, so unhuman in color, and
the bristling mustache that stood up like a cat's whiskers, gave it an
aspect half animal, half devilish. I clapped the lid on the box, thrust
it back on the shelf, and, plucking down the first volume of the
"Archives," hurried out of the museum.
That night, when I had rounded up the day's work with a good dinner, I
retired to my study, and, drawing an armchair up to the fire, opened
the volume. It was a strange document. At first I was unable to perceive
the relevancy of the matter to the title, for it seemed to be a journal
of Challoner's private life; but later I began to see the connection, to
realize, as Challoner had said, that the collection was nothing more
than a visible commentary on and illustration of his daily activities.
The volume opened with an account of the murder of his wife and the
circumstances leading up to it, written with a dry circumstantiality
that was to me infinitely pathetic. It was the forced impassiveness of a
strong man whose heart is breaking. There were no comments, no
exclamations; merely a formal recital of facts, exhaustive, literal and
precise. I need not quote it, as it only repeated the story he had told
me, but I will commence my extract at the point where he broke off. The
style, as will be seen, is that of a continuous narrative, apparently
compiled from a diary; and, as it proceeds, marking the lapse of time,
the original dryness of manner gives place to one more animated, more
in keeping with the temperament of the writer.
"When I had buried my dear wife, I waited with some impatience to see
what the police would do. I had no great expectations. The English
police system is more adjusted to offences against property than to
those against the person. Nothing had been stolen, so nothing could be
traced; and the clues were certainly very slight. It soon became evident
to me that the authorities had given the case up. They gave me no hope
that the murderer would ever be identified; and, in fact, it was pretty
obvious that they had written the case off as hopeless and ceased to
interest themselves in it.
"Of course I could not accept this view. My wife had been murdered. The
murder was without extenuation. It had been committed lightly to cover a
paltry theft. Now, for murder, no restitution is possible. But there is
an appropriate forfeit to be paid; and if the authorities failed to
exact it, then the duty of its exaction devolved upon me. Moreover, a
person who thus lightly commits murder as an incident in his calling is
unfit to live in a community of human beings. It was clearly my duty as
a good citizen to see that this dangerous person was eliminated.
"This was well enough in theory, but its realization in practice
presented considerable difficulties. The police had (presumably)
searched for this person and failed to find him. How was I, untrained in
methods of detection, to succeed where the experts had been baffled? I
considered my resources. They consisted of a silver teapot and a salver
which had been handled by the murderer and which, together, yielded a
complete set of finger-prints, and the wisp of hair that I had taken
from the hand of my murdered wife. It is true that the police also had
finger-marked plate and the remainder of the hair and had been unable to
achieve anything by their means; but the value of finger-impressions for
the purposes of identification is not yet appreciated outside scientific
circles.[1] I fetched the teapot and salver from the drawer in which I
had secured them and examined them afresh. The teapot had been held in
both hands and bore a full set of prints; and these were supplemented
by the salver. For greater security I photographed the whole set of the
finger-impressions and made platinotype prints which I filed for future
reference. Then I turned my attention to the hair. I had already noticed
that it was of a dull gray color, but now, when I came to look at it
more closely, I found the color so peculiar that I took it to the window
and examined it with a lens.
[Footnote 1: The narrative seems to have been written in 1890.--L.W.]
"The result was a most startling discovery. It was ringed hair. The gray
appearance was due, not to the usual mingling of white and dark hairs,
but to the fact that each separate hair was marked by alternate rings of
black and white. Now, variegated hairs are common enough in the lower
animals which have a pattern on the fur. The tabby cat furnishes a
familiar example. But in man the condition is infinitely rare; whence it
was obvious that, with these hairs and the finger-prints, I had the
means of infallible identification. But identification involves
possession of the person to be identified. There was the difficulty. How
was it to be overcome?
"Criminals are vermin. They have the typical characters of vermin;
unproductive activity combined with disproportionate destructiveness.
Just as a rat will gnaw his way through a Holbein panel, or shred up the
Vatican Codex to make a nest, so the professional criminal will melt
down priceless medieval plate to sell in lumps for a few shillings. The
analogy is perfect.
"Now, how do we deal with vermin--with the rat, for instance?
"Do we go down his burrow and reason with him? Do we strive to elevate
his moral outlook? Not at all. We induce him to come out. And when he
has come out, we see to it that he doesn't go back. In short, we set a
trap. And if the rat that we catch is not the one that we wanted, we set
it again.
"Precisely. That was the method.
"My housemaid had absconded at the time of the murder; she was evidently
an accomplice of the murderer. My cook had left on the same day, having
conceived a not unnatural horror of the house. Since then I had made
shift with a charwoman. But I should want a housemaid and a cook, and
if I acted judiciously in the matter of references, I might get the sort
of persons who would help my plans. For there are female rats as well as
male.
"But there were certain preliminary measures to be taken. My physical
condition had to be attended to. As a young man I was a first-class
athlete, and even now I was strong and exceedingly active. But I must
get into training and brush up my wrestling and boxing. Then I must fit
up some burglar alarms, lay in a few little necessaries and provide
myself with a suitable appliance for dealing with the 'catch.'
"This latter I proceeded with at once. To the end of a rod of rhinoceros
horn about two feet long I affixed a knob of lead weighing two pounds. I
covered the knob with a thickish layer of plaited horsehair, and over
this fastened a covering of stout leather; and when I had fitted it with
a wrist-strap it looked a really serviceable tool. Its purpose is
obvious. It was an improved form of that very crude appliance, the
sand-bag, which footpads use to produce concussion of the brain without
fracturing the skull. I may describe it as a concussor.
"The preliminary measures were proceeding steadily. I had put in a
fortnight's attendance at a gymnasium under the supervision of Professor
Schneipp, the Bavarian Hercules; I had practiced the most approved
'knock-outs' known to my instructor, the famous pugilist, Melchizedeck
Cohen (popularly known as 'Slimy' Cohen); I had given up an hour a day
to studying the management of the concussor with the aid of a
punching-ball; the alarms were ready for fixing, and I even had the
address of an undoubtedly disreputable housemaid, when a most unexpected
thing happened. I got a premature bite. A fellow actually walked into
the trap without troubling me to set it.
"It befell thus. I had gone to bed rather early and fallen asleep at
once, but about one o'clock I awoke with that unmistakable completeness
that heralds a sleepless night. I lit my candle-lamp and looked round for
the book that I had been reading in the evening, and then I remembered
that I had left it in the museum. Now that book had interested me
deeply. It contained the only lucid description that I had met with of
the Mundurucú Indians and their curious method of preserving the severed
heads of their enemies; a method by which the head--after removal of the
bones--was shrunk until it was no larger than a man's fist.
"I got up, and, taking my lamp and keys, made my way to the museum wing
of the house, which opened out of the dining-room. I found the book,
but, instead of returning immediately, lingered in the museum, looking
about the great room and at the unfinished collection and gloomily
recalling its associations. The museum was a gift from my wife. She had
built it and the big laboratory soon after we were married and many a
delightful hour we had spent in it together, arranging the new specimens
in the cases. I did not allow her to work in the evil-smelling
laboratory, but she had a collection of her own, of land and fresh-water
shells (which were cleaner to handle than the bones); and I was pulling
out some of the drawers in her cabinet, and, as I looked over the
shells, thinking of the happy days when we rambled by the riverside or
over furzy commons in search of them, when I became aware of faint
sounds of movement from the direction of the dining-room.