my thoughts. Springing back from me, he suddenly stooped and caught up a
great flint nodule; and though I ducked quickly as he flung it and so
avoided its full force, I caught such a buffet as it glanced off the
side of my head as convinced me that a settlement must be speedily
arrived at. Rushing in on him, I bore him backwards until he was penned
up in the entrance of one of the caverns against the shafts of a wagon.
Then suddenly he changed his tactics. Realizing at last that a
clumsily-wielded bludgeon is powerless against a stick expertly handled
rapier-wise, he dropped his club, and the next moment the moonbeams
flashed from the broad blade of a knife. This was quite a different
affair. He now stood on guard with the knife poised and his left hand
outspread ready to snatch at my stick. It was a much more effective
plan; only he did not know that inside my stout malacca reposed a keen
Toledo sword-blade.
"I slipped my thumb on the press-button of the sword-stick and watched
him. From time to time he made a dash at me with his knife, and when I
prodded him back, he snatched at the stick. Again and again he nearly
caught it, but I was just a little too quick for him, and he fell back,
gasping and cursing, on the wagon-shafts. And then the end came with
inevitable suddenness. He rushed out on me with upraised knife. I
stopped him with a vigorous poke in the chest; but before I could whisk
away the stick he had clutched it with a howl of joy. I gave a final
drive, pressed the button and sprang back, leaving the scabbard-end in
his hand. Before he had realized what had happened, he darted out,
brandishing the knife, and came fairly on the point of the sword-blade.
At the same moment I must have lunged, though I was not aware of it,
for when he staggered back the handle was against his breast.
"It was over, and I had hardly realized that the final stage had begun.
In an instant, as it seemed, that yelping, murderous wretch had subsided
into a huddled, inert heap. It was a quick and merciful dispatch. By the
time I had cleaned the blade and replaced it in its scabbard, the last
twitchings had ceased. As I stood and looked down at him, I felt
something of the chill of an anticlimax. It had all gone off so easily.
"Now that it was finished, my thoughts went back to the final purpose of
my quest. Was this man, by any chance, the wretch whom I was seeking? It
did not seem likely, and yet the possibility must be considered. The
first question was as to his hair. Stooping down, with my pocket
scissors I cut off a good-sized lock and secured it in an envelope for
future examination. Then, taking out my pocket-book, I pressed his
fingers on some of the blank leaves. The natural surface of his hands
offered a passable substitute for ink and the finger-prints could be
further developed at home.
"Then arose a more difficult question. I naturally wished to add him to
my collection; but the thing seemed impossible. I certainly could not
take him away with me. But if I left him exposed, he would undoubtedly
be found and buried and thus an excellent specimen would be lost to
science. There was only one thing to be done. The middle of the
chalk-pit was occupied by a large area covered with nettles and other
large weeds. Probably no human being trod on that space from one year's
end to another, for the stinging-nettles, four or five feet high, were
enough to keep off stray children. Even now the spring vegetation was
coming up apace. If I placed the body inconspicuously in the middle of
the weedy area it would soon be overgrown and hidden. Then the natural
agencies would do the rougher part of my work. Necrophagous insects and
other vermin would come to the aid of air, moisture and bacteria, and I
could return in the autumn and gather up the bones all ready for the
museum.
"This rather makeshift plan I proceeded to execute. Transporting the
material to the middle of the weed-grown space, I covered it lightly
with twigs and various articles of loose rubbish. It was now quite
invisible, and I was turning away to go when suddenly I bethought me of
the dry preparation of the head that ought to accompany the skeleton.
Without that, the specimen would be incomplete; and an incomplete
specimen would spoil the series. I reflected awhile. It seemed a pity to
spoil the completeness of the series for the sake of a little trouble. I
had a good-sized bag with me and a quantity of stout brown paper in it
in which the bulbs had been wrapped. Why not?
"In the end, I decided that the series should not be spoilt. I need not
describe the obvious details of the simple procedure. When I came up out
of the chalk-pit a quarter of an hour later, my bag contained the
material for the required preparation of a mummified head.
"I soon struck the familiar footpath and set forth at a brisk pace to
catch the late train from Gravesend. It was a long walk and a pleasant
one, though the bag was uncomfortably heavy. I thought, with grim
amusement, of Grayson's gang of footpads. It would be a quaint
situation if I encountered some of them and was robbed of my bag. The
possibilities that the idea opened out were highly diverting and kept me
entertained until I at last reached Gravesend Station and was bundled by
the guard into a first-class compartment just as the train was starting.
I should have preferred an empty compartment, but there was no choice;
and as three of the corners were occupied, I took possession of the
fourth. The rack over my seat was occupied by a bag about the size of my
own, apparently the property of a clergyman who sat in the opposite
corner, so I had to place my bag in the rack over _his_ head.
"I watched him during the journey as he sat opposite me reading the
_Church Times_ and wondered how he would feel if he knew what was in the
bag above him. Probably he would have been quite disturbed; for many of
these clerics entertain the quaintest of old-world ideas. And he was
mighty near to knowing, too; for when the train had stopped at Hither
Green and was just about to move off, he suddenly sprang up,
exclaiming, 'God bless my soul!' and snatching my bag from the rack,
darted out on the platform. I immediately grabbed his bag from my rack
and rushed out after him as the train started, hailing him to stop. 'Hi!
My good sir! You've taken my bag.'
"'Not at all,' he replied indignantly. 'You're quite mistaken.' And
then, as I held out his own bag, he looked from one to the other, and,
to my horror, pressed the clasp of my bag and pulled it wide open.
"On what small chances do great events turn! But for the brown paper in
my bag, there would have been a catastrophe. As it was, when his eye
lighted on that rough, globular paper parcel he handed me my bag with an
apologetic smirk and received his own in exchange. But after that, I
kept my property in my hand until I was safe within the precincts of my
laboratory.
"The usual disappointment awaited me when I came to examine the hair and
finger-prints. He was not the man whom I sought. But he made an
acceptable addition to the Series of Criminal Anthropology in my
museum, for I duly collected the bones from the great nettle-bed in the
chalk-pit early in the following September, and set them, properly
bleached and riveted together, in the large wall-case. But this specimen
had a further, though indirect, value. From him I gathered a useful hint
by which I was subsequently guided into a new and fruitful field of
research.
"(See Catalogue, Numbers 6A and 6B.)"
V
BY-PRODUCTS OF INDUSTRY
The next entry in the amazing "Museum Archives" exhibited my poor friend
Humphrey Challoner in circumstances that were to me perfectly
incredible. When I recall that learned, cultivated man as I knew him, I
find it impossible to picture him living amidst the indescribably
squalid surroundings of the London Ghetto, the tenant of a sordid little
shop in an East End by-street. Yet this appears actually to have been
his condition at one time--but let me quote the entry in his own words,
which need no comments of mine to heighten their strangeness.
"Events connected with the acquirement of Numbers 7, 8 and 9 in the
Anthropological Series:
"We are the creatures of circumstance. Blind chance, which guided that
unknown wretch to my house in the dead of the night and which led my
dear wife to her death at his murderous hands, also impelled that other
villain (Number 6, Anthropological Series) to pursue me to the lonely
chalk-pit, where he would have done me to death had I not fortunately
anticipated his intentions. So, too, it was by a mere chance that I
presently found myself the proprietor of a shop in a Whitechapel
back-street.
"Let me trace the connections of events.
"The first link in the chain was a visit that I had paid in my younger
days to Moscow and Warsaw, where I had stayed long enough to acquire a
useful knowledge of Russian and Yiddish. The second link was the failure
of my plan to lure the murderer of my wife--and, incidentally, other
criminals--to my house. The trap had been scented not only by the
criminals but also by the police, of whom one had visited my museum with
very evident suspicion as to the nature of my specimens.
"After the visit of the detective, I was rather at a loose end. That
unknown wretch was still at large. He had to be found and I had to find
him since the police could not. But how? That detective had completely
upset my plans and, for a time, I could think of no other. Then came the
dirty rascal who had tried to murder me in the chalk-pit; and from his
mongrel jargon, half cockney, half foreign, I had gathered a vague hint.
If I could not entice the criminal population into my domain, how would
it be to reconnoiter theirs? The alien area of London was well known to
me, for it had always seemed interesting since my visit to Warsaw, and,
judging from the police reports, it appeared to be a veritable happy
hunting-ground for the connoisseur in criminals.
"Hence it was that my unrest led me almost daily to perambulate that
strange region east of Aldgate where uncouth foreign names stare out
from the shop signs and almost every public or private notice is in the
Hebrew character. Dressed in my shabbiest clothes, I trudged, hour after
hour and day after day, through the gray and joyless streets and alleys,
looking earnestly into the beady eyes and broad faces of the
East-European wayfarers and wondering whether any of them was the man I
sought.
"One evening, as I was returning homeward through the district that
lies at the rear of Middlesex Street, my attention was arrested by a
large card tacked on the door of a closed shop. A dingy barber's pole
gave a clue to the nature of the industry formerly carried on, and the
card--which was written upon in fair and even scholarly Hebrew
characters--supplied particulars. I had stopped to read the inscription,
faintly amused at the incongruity between the recondite Oriental
lettering and the matter-of-fact references to 'eligible premises' and
'fixtures and goodwill,' when the door opened and two men came out. One
was a typical English Jew, smart, chubby and prosperous; the other was
evidently a foreigner.
"Both men stood aside to enable me to continue my reading, and, as I was
about to turn away, the smarter of the two addressed me.
"'Good chanth here, misther. Nithe little bithness going for nothing. No
charge for goodwill or fixtures. Ready-made bithneth and nothing to pay
but rent.'
"'Ja!' the other man broke in, 'dat shop is a leedle goldmine; und you
buys 'im for noding.'
"It was an absurd situation. I was beginning smilingly to shake my head
when the Jew resumed eagerly:
"I tell you, misther, itth a chanth in a million. A firth clath bithneth
and not a brown to pay for the goodwill. Come in and have a look round,'
he added persuasively.
"I suppose I am curious by nature. At any rate, I am sure it was nothing
but idle curiosity to see what the interior of a Whitechapel house was
like that led me to follow the two men into the dark and musty-smelling
shop. But hardly had my eyes lighted on the frowsy fixtures and
appurtenances of the trade when there flashed into my mind a really
luminous idea.
"'Why did the last man leave?' I asked.
"The Jew caught the lapel of my coat and exclaimed impressively:
"'The lath man wath a fool. Got himself mixthed up with the crookth.
Thet up a roulette table in the thellar and let 'em come and gamble away
their thwag. Thtoopid thing to do, though, mind you, he did a rare good
line while it lathted. Got the sthuff for nothing, you thee.' His tone
at this point was regretfully sympathetic.
"'What happened in the end?' I asked.
"'The copperth dropped on him. Thomebody gave him away.'
"'Some of the ladies, perhaps,' I suggested.
"'Ach! Zo!' the other man burst in fiercely, 'Of gourse it vas der
vimmen! It is always der vimmen. Dese dam vimmen, dey makes all der
drabble!' He thumped the table with his fist, and then, catching the
Hebrew's eye, suddenly subsided into silence.
"From the shop we proceeded to the little parlor behind, from which a
door gave access, by a flight of most dangerous stone steps, to the
large cellar. This was lighted by a grating from the back yard, with
which it also communicated by a flight of steps and a door. We next
examined the yard itself, a small paved enclosure with a gate opening on
an alley, and occupied at the moment by an empty beer-barrel, a
builder's hand-cart and a dead cat.
"'Like to thee the upstairth roomth?' inquired the Hebrew gentleman,
whose name I understood to be Nathan. I nodded abstractedly and
followed him up the stairs, gathering a general impression of
all-pervading dirt. The upper rooms were of no interest to me after what
I had seen downstairs.
"'Well,' said Mr. Nathan when we were once more back in the shop, 'what
do you think of it?'
"I did not answer his question literally. If I had, I should have
startled him. For I thought the place absolutely ideal for my purpose.
Just consider its potentialities! I was searching for a criminal whom I
could identify by his hair. Here was a barber's shop in the heart of a
criminal neighborhood and admittedly the late haunt of criminals. Those
criminals were certain to come back. I could examine their hair at my
leisure; and--there was the cellar. It was, I repeat, absolutely ideal.
"'I think the place will suit me,' I said.
"Mr. Nathan beamed on me. 'Of courth,' he said, 'referentheth will be
nethethary, or rent in advanthe.'
"'A year's rent in advance will do, I suppose?' said I; and Mr. Nathan
nearly jumped clear off the floor. A few minutes later I departed, the
accepted tenant (under the pseudonym of Simon Vosper) of Samuel Nathan,
with the understanding that I should deliver my advance rent in
bank-notes and that he should have the top-dressing of dirt removed from
the house and the name of Vosper painted over the shop.
"My preparations for the new activities on which I was to enter were
quickly made. In my Bloomsbury house I installed as caretaker a retired
sergeant-major of incomparable taciturnity. I locked up the museum wing
and kept the keys. I took a few lessons in haircutting from a West-End
barber. I paid my advance rent, sent in a set of bedroom furniture to my
new premises in Saul Street, Whitechapel, abandoned the habit of shaving
for some ten days, and then took possession of the shop.
"At first the customers were few and far between. A stray coster or
carman came in from time to time, but mostly the shop was silent and
desolate. But this did not distress me. I had various preparations to
make and a plan of campaign to settle. There were the cellar stairs,
for instance; a steep flight of stone steps, unguarded by baluster or
handrail. They were very dangerous. But when I had fitted a sort of
giant stride by suspending a stout rope from the ceiling, I was able to
swing myself down the whole flight in perfect safety. Other preparations
consisted in the placing, of an iron safe in the parlor (with a small
mirror above it) and the purchase of a tin of stiff cart-grease and a
few large barrels. These latter I bought from a cooper in the form of
staves and hoops, and built them up in the cellar in my rather extensive
spare time.
"Meanwhile trade gradually increased. The harmless coster and laborer
began to be varied by customers rather more in my line; in fact, I had
not quite completed my arrangements when I got the first windfall.
"It was a Wednesday evening. I had nearly finished shaving a large,
military-looking laborer when the door opened very quietly and a seedy,
middle-aged man entered and sat down. His movements were silent--almost
stealthy; and, when he had seated himself, he picked up a newspaper
from behind which I saw him steal furtive and suspicious glances at the
patient in the operating chair. The latter, being scraped clean, rose to
depart, and the newcomer underwent a total eclipse behind the newspaper.
"'Oo's 'e?' he demanded, when the laborer was safely outside.
"'I don't know him,' I replied, 'but I should say, by his hands, a
laborer.'
"'Looked rather like a copper,' said my customer. He took his place in
the vacated chair with a laconic ''Air cut,' and then became
conversational.
"'So you've took on Polensky's job?'
"I nodded at the mirror that faced us (Polensky was my predecessor) and
he continued, 'Polensky's doing time, ain't he?'
"I believed he was and said so, and my friend then asked:
"'Young Pongo ever come in here now?'
"Naturally I had never heard of young Pongo, but I felt that I must not
appear too ignorant. It were better to invent a little.
"'Pongo,' I ruminated; 'Pongo. Is that the fellow who was with Joe
Bartels in that job at--er--you know?'
"'No, I don't,' said my friend. 'And 'oo's Joe Bartels?'
"'Oh, I thought you knew him; but if you don't I'd better say no more.
You see, I don't know who you are.'
"'Don't yer. Then I'll tell yer. I'm Spotty Bamber, of Spitalfields,
that's 'oo I am. So now you know.'
"I made a mental note of the name (the first part of which had
apparently been suggested by Mr. Bamber's complexion) and my attention
must have wandered somewhat, for my patient suddenly shouted: 'Ere! I
say! I didn't come 'ere to be scalped. I come to 'ave my 'air cut.'
"I apologized and led the conversation back to Polensky.
"'Ah,' said Bamber, ''e was a downy un, 'e was. Bit too downy. Opened his
mouth too wide. Wanted it all for nix. That was why he got peached on--'
Here Spotty turned his head with a jerk--'What are you looking at me
through that thing for? My 'ed ain't as small as all that.'
"'That thing' was a Coddington lens, through which I examined the hair
of every customer with a view to identification. But I did not tell Mr.
Bamber this. My explanation was recondite and rather obscure, but it
seemed to satisfy him.
"'Well,' he said, 'you're a rum cove. Talk like a blooming toff too, you
do.' I made a careful mental note of that fact and determined to study
the local dialect. Meanwhile I explained, 'I wasn't always a
hairdresser, you know.'
"'So I should suppose,' answered Spotty, twisting his neck to get a look
at his poll in the glass. 'What you'd call a bloomin' ammerchewer.' He
stood up, shook himself and tendered a half-crown in payment, which I
examined carefully before giving change. Then I brought out of my pocket
a handful of assorted coins, including two sovereigns, a quantity of
silver and some coppers. I do not ordinarily carry my money mixed up in
this slovenly fashion, but had adopted the habit, since I came to the
shop, for a definite reason; and was now justified by the avaricious
glare that lighted up in Spotty's eye at the sight of the coins in my
hand.
"I picked out his change deliberately and handed it to him, when he took
it and stood for a few seconds, evidently thinking hard. Suddenly he
thrust his hand into his pocket and said, 'I suppose, mister, you
haven't got such a thing as a fi-pun-note what you can give me in
exchange for five jimmies?' He held out five sovereigns, which I took
from him and inspected critically.
"'Oh, they're all right,' said Spotty, as I weighed them in my hand. And
so they were.
"'I think I can let you have a note if you will wait a moment,' I said;
and, as I turned to enter the parlor, Spotty sat down ostentatiously in
the chair.
"I drew the door to after me, but did not latch it. A small jet of gas
was burning in the parlor and by its light I unlocked the safe, pulled
out a drawer, took from it a bundle of banknotes and looked them over;
all very deliberately and with my eye on the mirror that hung above the
safe. That mirror reflected the door. It also reflected me, but as the
light was on my back my face was in the shadow. Hardly had I opened the
safe when, slowly and silently, the door opened a couple of inches and
an eye appeared in the space. I picked a note out of the bundle,
returned the remainder to the drawer, closed the safe and slowly walked
to the door. When I re-entered the shop, Spotty was seated in the chair
as I had left him, with the immovable air of an Egyptian statue.
"I have no doubt that Spotty Bamber chuckled with joy when he got
outside. I should like to think so, to feel that our pleasure was
mutual. For as to me, my feelings can only be appreciated by some
patient angler who, after a long and fruitless sitting, has seen his
"'quill or cork down sink
With eager bite of perch or bleak or dace.'
"Spotty was on the hook. He would come again, and not alone--at least, I
trusted not alone. For my brief inspection of his hair had convinced me
that he was not the unknown man whom I sought; and, though he would
make an acceptable addition to the group of specimens in the long
wall-case, I was more interested in the companion whom I felt confident
he would bring with him. The elation of spirit produced by the prospect
of this second visit was such that I forthwith closed the shop and spent
the rest of the evening exercising with the concussor and practicing
flying leaps down the cellar steps with the aid of the giant-stride.
"I slept little that night. As a special precaution against failure, I
had left the back gate unbolted and refrained from locking the outside
cellar door; with the sole result that I was roused up at one in the
morning by a meddlesome constable and rebuked sourly for my
carelessness. Otherwise, not a soul came to enliven my solitude. The
second night passed in the same dull fashion, leaving me restless and
disappointed; and when the third slipped by without the sign of a
visitor, I became really uneasy.
"The fourth day was Saturday, and the late evening--the end of the
Sabbath--turned my shop into a veritable Land of Goshen. The
conversation, mostly in Yiddish--of which I professed total
ignorance--kept me pretty well amused until closing time arrived. Then,
as the shop emptied, my hopes and fears began to revive together.
"I was about to begin shutting up the premises when the door opened
softly and a man slipped into the shop. My heart leaped exultingly. The
man was Spotty Bamber.
"And he was not alone. By no means. Two more men stole in in the same
stealthy fashion, and, having first glanced at one another and then
peered suspiciously round the shop, they all looked at me. For my part,
I regarded them with deep interest, especially as to their hair.
'Habitual Criminal' was written large on all of them. As anthropological
material they were quite excellent.
"Mr. Bamber opened the proceedings with one eye on me and the other on
the door.
"'Look, 'ere, mister, we've come about a little matter of business. You
know Polensky used to do a bit of trade?'
"'Yes,' I said; 'and now he's doing a bit of time.'
"'I know,' replied Spotty, 'but you must take the fat with the lean. It
ain't all soup. And _you_ know that Polensky was a bloomin' fool.'
"'It comes to this 'ere,' said one of the other men, stepping up close
to me. 'Do you know a jerry when you sees one--a red 'un, mind you?'
"As I had not the faintest idea what the man meant, I temporized.
"'I haven't seen one yet, you know.'
"The fellow looked furtively at the door and then, diving into an inner
pocket, pulled out a handsome gold watch with a massive chain attached,
exhibited it for a moment and then dropped it back.
"'That's the little article,' said he, 'and before you makes a bid, you
can look it over and try if the stuff's genu-wine. But not out here, you
know. We does our deal inside where you can't get ogled by a copper
through the winder.'