over the town; but now, by reason of a change of wind, the haze began
rapidly to thicken into a definite fog. I set down the barrow and
watched with thankfulness the mass of opaque yellow vapor filling the
street and blotting out the sky. As it thickened and the darkness
closed in, the children strayed away and only one solitary loafer
remained.
"''Ard luck for you, mate, this 'ere fog,' he remarked, 'arter you've
took all that trouble, too.' (He little knew how much.) 'But it's no go.
You'd better git 'ome whilst you can find yer way. This is goin' to be a
black 'un.'
"I thanked him for his sympathy and moved on into the darkening vapor.
Close to Spital Square I found a quiet corner where I quickly dismounted
the guys, covered them with the tarpaulin and, urged by a new anxiety
from the rapidly-growing density of the fog, groped my way into Norton
Folgate. Here I moved forward as quickly as I dared, turned up Great
Eastern Street and at length, to my great relief, came out into Old
Street.
"It was none too soon. As I entered the well-known thoroughfare, the fog
closed down into impenetrable obscurity. The world of visible objects
was extinguished and replaced by a chaos of confused sounds. Even the
end of my barrow faded away into spectral uncertainty, and the curb
against which I kept my left wheel grinding looked thin and remote.
"Opportune as the fog was, it was not without its dangers; of which the
most immediate was that I might lose my way. I set down the barrow, and,
detaching the little compass that I always carry on my watch-guard, laid
it on the tarpaulin. My course, as I knew, lay about west-southwest, and
with the compass before me, I could not go far wrong. Indeed, its
guidance was invaluable; without it I could never have found my way
through those miles of intricate streets. When a stationary wagon or
other obstruction sent me out into the road, it enabled me to pick up
the curb again unerringly. It mapped out the corners of intersecting
streets, it piloted me over the wide crossings of the City Road and
Aldersgate Street, and kept me happily confident of my direction as I
groped my way like a fogbound ship on an invisible sea.
"I went as quickly as was safe, but very warily, for a collision might
have been fatal. Listening intently, with my eye on the compass and my
wheel at the curb, I pushed on through the yellow void until a shadowy
post at a street corner revealed itself by its parish initials as that
at the intersection of Red Lion Street and Theobald's Row.
"I was nearly home. Another ten minutes' careful navigation brought me
to a corner which I believed to be the one opposite my own house. I
turned back a dozen paces, put down the barrow and crossed the
pavement--with the compass in my hand, lest I should not be able to find
the barrow again. I came against the jamb of a street door, I groped
across to the door itself, I found the keyhole of the familiar Yale
pattern, I inserted my key and turned it; and the door of the museum
entrance opened. I had brought my ship into port.
"I listened intently. Someone was creeping down the street, hugging the
railings. I closed the door to let him pass, and heard the groping hands
sweep over the door as he crawled by. Then I went out, steered across to
the barrow, picked up one of the specimens and carried it into the hall,
where I laid it on the floor, returning immediately for the other. When
both the specimens were safely deposited, I came out, softly closing
the door after me with the key, and once more took up the
barrow-handles. Slowly I trundled the invaluable little vehicle up the
street, never losing touch of the curb, flinging the stakes and cordage
into the road as I went, until I had brought it to the corner of a
street about a quarter of a mile from my house; and there I abandoned
it, making my way back as fast as I could to the museum.
"My first proceeding on my return was to carry my treasures to the
laboratory, light the gas and examine their hair. I had really some
hopes that one of them might be the man I sought. But, alas! It was the
old story. They both had coarse black hair of the mongoloid type. My
enemy was still to seek.
"Having cleaned away my 'make-up,' I spent the rest of the day pushing
forward the preliminary processes so that these might be completed
before 'decay's effacing fingers' should obliterate the details of the
integumentary structures. In the evening I returned to Whitechapel and
opened the shop, proposing to purchase the dummy skeletons on the
following day and to devote the succeeding nights and early mornings to
the preparation of the specimens.
"The barrow turned up next day in the possession of an undeniable tramp
who was trying to sell it for ten shillings and who was accused of
having stolen it but was discharged for want of evidence. I compensated
the green grocer for the trouble occasioned by my carelessness in
leaving the back gate open; and thus the incident came to an end. With
one important exception, for there was a very startling sequel.
"On the day after the expedition, I had the curiosity to open the panels
and go through into the room that the murderers had occupied, which had
now been locked up by the police. Looking round the room, my eye lighted
on a shabby cloth cap lying on the still undisturbed mattress just below
the pillow. I picked it up and looked it over curiously, for by its size
I could see that it did not belong to either of the men whom I had
secured. I took it over to the curtained window and carefully inspected
its lining; and suddenly I perceived, clinging to the coarse cloth, a
single short hair, which, even to the naked eye, had a distinctly
unusual appearance. With a trembling hand, I drew out my lens to examine
it more closely; and, as it came into the magnified field, my heart
seemed to stand still. For, even at that low magnification, its
character was unmistakable--it looked like a tiny string of pale gray
beads. Grasping it in my fingers, I dashed through the opening, slammed
the panels to, and rushed down to the parlor where I kept a small
microscope. My agitation was so intense that I could hardly focus the
instrument, but at last the object on the slide came into view: a broad,
variegated stripe, with its dark medulla and the little rings of air
bubbles at regular intervals. It was a typical ringed hair! And what was
the inference?
"The hair was almost certainly Piragoff's. Piragoff was a burglar, a
ruthless murderer, and he had ringed hair. The man whom I sought was a
burglar, a ruthless murderer, and had ringed hair. Then Piragoff was my
man. It was bad logic, but the probabilities were overwhelming. And I
had had the villain in the hollow of my hand and he had gone forth
unscathed!
"I ground my teeth with impotent rage. It was maddening. All the old
passion and yearning for retribution surged up in my breast once more.
My interest in the new specimens almost died out. I wanted Piragoff; and
it was only the new-born hope that I should yet lay my hand on him that
carried me through that time of bitter disappointment."
VII
THE UTTERMOST FARTHING
Intense was the curiosity with which I turned to the last entry in
Humphrey Challoner's "Museum Archives." Not that I had any doubt as to
the issue of the adventure that it recorded. I had seen the specimen
numbered "twenty-five" in the shallow box, and its identity had long
since been evident. But this fact mitigated my curiosity not at all. The
"Archives" had furnished a continuous narrative--surely one of the
strangest ever committed to writing--and now I was to read the climax of
that romantically terrible story; to witness the final achievement of
that object that my poor friend had pursued with such unswerving
pertinacity.
I extract the entry entire with the exception of one or two passages
near the end, the reasons for the omission of which will be obvious to
the reader.
"Circumstances attending the acquirement of the specimen numbered
'twenty-five' in the Anthropological Series (A. Osteology. B. Reduced
dry preparations).
"The months that followed the events connected with the acquirement of
the specimens 23 and 24 brought me nothing but aching suspense and hope
deferred. The pursuit of the common criminal I had abandoned since I had
got scent of my real quarry. The concussor lay idle in its basket; the
cellar steps were greased no more. I had but a passive rôle to play
until the hour should strike to usher in the final scene--if that should
ever be. Though the term of my long exile in East London was drawing
nigh, its approach was unseen by me. I could but wait; and what is
harder than waiting?
"I had made cautious inquiries among the alien population. But no one
knew Piragoff--or, at least, admitted any knowledge of him; and as to
the police, when they had made a few arrests and then released the
prisoners, they appeared to let the matter drop. The newspapers were, of
course, more active. One of them described circumstantially how 'the
three anarchists who escaped from the house in Saul Street' had been
seen together in an East End restaurant; and several others followed
from day to day the supposed whereabouts of a mysterious person known as
'Paul the Plumber,' whom the police declared to be a picturesque myth.
But for me there was one salient fact: of those three ruffians one was
still at large, and no one seemed to have any knowledge of him.
"It was some four months later that I again caught up the scent. A
certain Friday evening early in February found me listlessly tidying up
the shop; for the Jewish Sabbath had begun and customers were few. But
about eight o'clock a man strode in jauntily, hung up his hat and seated
himself in the operating chair; and at that moment a second man entered
and sat down to wait. I glanced at this latter, and in an instant my
gorge rose at him. I cannot tell why. To the scientific mind, intuitions
are abhorrent. They are mostly wrong and wholly unreasonable. But as I
looked at that man a wave of instinctive dislike and suspicion swept
over me. He was, indeed, an ill-looking fellow enough. A broad,
lozenge-shaped Tartar face, with great cheekbones and massive jaws; a
low forehead surmounted by a dense brush of up-standing grayish-brown
hair; beetling brows and eyes deep-set, fierce and furtive; combined to
make a sufficiently unprepossessing countenance. Nor was his manner more
pleasing. He scowled forbiddingly at me, he scrutinized the other
customer, craning sideways to survey him in the mirror, he looked about
the shop and he stared inquisitively at the parlor door. Every movement
was expressive of watchful, uneasy suspicion.
"I tried to avoid looking at him lest my face should betray me, and, to
divert my thoughts, concentrated my attention on the other customer. The
latter unconsciously gave me every assistance in doing so. Though by no
means a young man, he was the vainest and most dandified client I had
ever had under my hands. He stopped me repeatedly to give exhaustive
directions as to the effect that he desired me to produce. He examined
himself in the glass and consulted me anxiously as to the exact
disposition of an artificially curled forelock. I cursed him inwardly,
for I wanted him to be gone and leave me alone with the other man, but
for that very reason and that I might conceal my impatience, I did his
bidding and treated him with elaborate care. But now and again my glance
would stray to the other man; and as I caught his fierce, suspicious
eye--like the eye of a hunted animal--I would look away quickly lest he
should read what was in my mind.
"At length I had finished my dandy client. I had brushed his hair to a
nicety and had even curled his forelock with heated tongs. With a sigh
of relief I took off the cloth and waited for him to rise. But he rose
not. Stroking his cheek critically he decided that he wanted shaving,
and, cursing him in my heart, I had to comply.
"I had acquired some reputation as a barber and, I think, deserved it. I
could put a perfect edge on a razor and I wielded the instrument with a
sensitive hand and habitual care. My client appreciated my skill and
complimented me patronizingly in very fair English, though with a slight
Russian accent, delaying me intolerably to express his approval. When I
had shaved him he asked for pink powder to be applied to his chin; and
when I had powdered him he directed me to shape his mustache with Pate
Hongrois, a process which he superintended with anxious care.
"At last the fellow was actually finished. He got up from the chair and
surveyed himself in the large wall-mirror. He turned his head from side
to side and tried to see the back of it. He smiled into the mirror,
raised his eyebrows, frowned and, in fact, tried a variety of
expressions and effects, including a slight and graceful bow. Then he
approached the glass to examine a spot on his cheek; leaned against it
with outspread hands to inspect his teeth, and finally put out his
tongue to examine that too. I almost expected that he would ask me to
brush it. However, he did not. Adjusting his necktie delicately, he
handed me my fee with a patronizing smile and remarked, 'You are a good
barber: you have taste and you take trouble. I give you a penny for
yourself and I shall come to you again.'
"As the door closed behind him I turned to the other customer. He rose,
walked over to the operating chair and sat down sullenly, keeping an eye
on me all the time; and something in his face expressive of suspicion,
uneasiness and even fear seemed to hint at something unusual in my own
appearance.
"It was likely enough. Hard as I had struggled to smother the tumult of
emotions that seethed within me, some disturbance must have reached the
surface, some light in the eye, some tension of the mouth to tell of the
fierce excitement, the raging anxiety, that possessed me. I was afraid
to look at him for fear of frightening him away.
"Was he the man? Was this the murderer, Piragoff, the slayer of my wife?
The question rang in my ears as, with a far from steady hand, I slowly
lathered his face. Instinct told me that he was. But, even in my
excitement, reason rejected a mere unanalyzable belief. For what is an
intuition? Brutally stated, it is simply a conclusion reached without
premises. I had always disbelieved in instinct and intuition and I
disbelieved still. But what had made me connect this man with Piragoff?
He was clearly a Russian. He looked like a villain. He had the manner of
a Nihilist or violent criminal of some kind. But all this was nothing.
It formed no rational basis for the conviction that possessed me.
"There was his hair; a coarse, wiry mop of a queer grayish-brown. It
might well, from its color, be ringed hair; and if it was I should have
little doubt of the man's identity. But was it? I was getting on in
years and could not see near objects clearly without my spectacles; and
I had laid down my spectacles somewhere in the parlor.
"As I lathered his face, I leaned over him to look at his hair more
closely, but he shrank away in fierce alarm, and after all my eyesight
was not good enough. Once I tried to get out my lens; but he challenged
me furiously as to my object, and I put it away again. I dared not
provoke him to violence, for if he had struck me I should have killed
him on the spot. And he might be the wrong man.
"The operation of shaving him was beset with temptations from moment to
moment. Forgotten anatomical details revived in my memory. I found
myself tracing through the coarse skin those underlying structures that
were so near to hand. Now I was at the angle of the jaw, and as the
ringing blade swept over the skin I traced the edge of the strap-like
muscle and mentally marked the spot where it crossed the great carotid
artery. I could even detect the pulsation of the vessel. How near it was
to the surface! A little dip of the razor's beak at that spot--
"But still I had no clear evidence that he was the right man. A mere
impression--a feeling of physical repulsion unsupported by any tangible
fact--was not enough to act on. One moment a savage impatience for
retribution urged me to take the chance; to fell him with a blow and
fling him down into the cellar. The next, my reason stepped in and bade
me hold my hand and wait for proof. And all the time he watched me like
a cat, and kept his hands thrust into the hip pockets of his coat.
"Again and again these mental oscillations occurred. Now I was simply
and savagely homicidal, and now I was rational--almost judicial. Now the
vital necessity was to prevent his escape; and yet, again, I shrank from
the dreadful risk of killing an innocent man.
"What the issue might have been I cannot say. But suddenly the door
opened, a burly carter entered and sat down, and the opportunity was
gone. The Russian waited for no lengthy inspection in the glass like his
predecessor. As soon as he was finished he sprang from the chair,
slapped down his coppers in payment and darted out of the shop, only too
glad to take himself off in safety. There must have been something very
sinister in my appearance.
"The carter seated himself in the chair and I fell to work on him
mechanically. But my thoughts were with the man who was gone. What a
fiasco it had been! After waiting all these years, I had met a man whom
I suspected to be the very wretch I sought; I had actually been alone
with him--and I had let him go!
"The futility of it! Before my eyes the grinning tenants of the great
wall-case rose in reproach; the little, impassive faces in those shallow
boxes seemed to look at me and ask why they had been killed. I had let
the man go; and he would certainly never come to my shop again. True, I
should know him again; but what better chance should I ever have of
identifying him? And then again came the unanswerable question: Was he
really the man, after all?
"So my thoughts fluttered to and fro. Constant, only, was a feeling of
profound dejection; a sense of unutterable, irretrievable failure. The
carter--a regular customer--rose and looked askance at me as he rubbed
his face with the towel. He remarked that I 'seemed to be feeling a bit
dull tonight,' paid his fee, and, with a civil 'good evening,' took his
departure.
"When he had gone I stood by the chair wrapped in a gloomy reverie. Had
I failed finally? Was my long quest at an end with my object unachieved?
It almost seemed so.
"I raised my eyes and they fell on my reflection in the large mirror;
and suddenly it was borne in on me that I was an old man. The passing
years of labor and mental unrest had left deep traces. My hair, which
was black when I first came to the east, was now snow-white and the face
beneath it was worn and wrinkled and aged. The sands of my life were
running out apace. Soon the last grains would trickle out of the glass;
and then would come the end--the futile end, with the task still
unaccomplished. And for this I had dragged out these twenty weary years,
ever longing for repose and the eternal reunion! How much better to have
spent those years in the peace of the tomb by the dear companion of my
sunny hours!
"I stepped up to the glass to look more closely at my face, to mark the
crow's-feet and intersecting wrinkles in the shrunken skin. Yes, it was
an old, old face; a weary face, too, that spoke of sorrow and anxious
thought and strenuous, unsatisfying effort. And presently it would be a
dead face, calm and peaceful enough then; and the wretch who had
wrought all the havoc would still stalk abroad with his heavy debt
unpaid.
"Something on the surface of the mirror interposed between my eye and
the reflection, slightly blurring the image. I focussed on it with some
difficulty and then saw that it was a group of finger-marks; the prints
made by the greasy fingers of my dandy customer when he had leaned on
the glass to inspect his teeth. As they grew distinct to my vision, I
was aware of a curious sense of familiarity; at first merely
subconscious and not strongly attracting my attention. But this state
lasted only for a few brief moments. Then the vague feeling burst into
full recognition. I snatched out my lens and brought it to bear on those
astounding impressions. My heart thumped furiously. A feeling of awe, of
triumph, of fierce joy and fiercer rage surged through me, and mingled
with profound self-contempt.
"There could be no mistake. I had looked at those finger-prints too
often. Every ridge-mark, every loop and whorl of the varying patterns
was engraved on my memory. For twenty years I had carried the slightly
enlarged photographs in my pocket-book, and hardly a day had passed
without my taking them out to con them afresh. I had them in my pocket
now to justify rather than aid my memory.
"I held the open book before the glass and compared the photographs with
the clearly-printed impressions. There were seven finger-prints on the
mirror; four on the right hand and three on the left, and all were
identical with the corresponding prints in the photographs. No doubt was
possible. But if it had been--
"I darted across to the chair. The floor was still littered with the
cuttings from that villain's head. In my idiotic preoccupation with the
other man I had let that wretch depart without a glance at his hair. I
grabbed up a tuft from the floor and gazed at it. Even to the unaided
eye it had an unusual quality when looked at closely; a soft, shimmering
appearance like that of some delicate textile. But I gave it only a
single glance. Then rushing through to the parlor, I spread a few hairs
on a glass slip and placed it on the stage of the microscope.
"A single glance clenched the matter. As I put my eye to the
instrument, there, straying across the circular field, were the broad
gray stripes, each with its dark line of medulla obscured at intervals
by rings of tiny bubbles. The demonstration was conclusive. This was the
very man. Humanly speaking, no error or fallacy was possible.
"I stood up and laughed grimly. So much for instinct! For what fools
call intuition and wise men recognize for mere slipshod reasoning! I
could understand my precious intuition now; could analyze it into its
trumpery constituents. It was the old story. Unconsciously I had built
up the image of a particular kind of man, and when such a man appeared I
had recognized him at a glance. The villainous Tartar face: I had looked
for it. The fierce, furtive, hunted manner; the restless suspicion; the
mop of grayish-brown hair. I had expected them all, and there they were.
My man would have those peculiarities, and here was a man who had them.
He, therefore, was the man I sought.
"'O! good old "undistributed middle term!" How many intuitions have
been born of you?'
"My triumph was short-lived. A moment's reflection sobered me. True, I
had found my murderer; but I had lost him again. That bird of ill omen
was still a bird in the bush; in the tangled bush of criminal London. He
had said that he would come to me again, and I hoped that he would. But
who could say? Other eyes than mine were probably looking for him.
"I suppose I am by nature an optimist; otherwise I should not have
continued the pursuit all these years. Hence, having mastered the
passing disappointment, I settled myself patiently to wait in the hope
of my victim's ultimate reappearance. Not entirely passively, however,
for, after the shop was shut, I went abroad nightly to frequent the
foreign restaurants and other less reputable places of the East End in
the hopes of meeting him and jogging his memory. The active employment
kept my mind occupied and made the time of waiting seem less long; but
it had no further result. I never met the man; and, as the weeks passed
without bringing him to my net, I had the uncomfortable feeling that
his hair must have grown and been trimmed by someone else; unless,
indeed, he had fallen into the clutches of the law.
"Meanwhile I quietly made my preparations--which involved one or two
visits to a ship chandler's--and laid down a scheme of action. It would
be a delicate business. The villain was some fifteen years younger than
I; a sturdy ruffian and desperate, as I had seen. My own strength and
activity had been failing for some time now. Obviously I could not meet
him on equal terms. Moreover, I must not allow him to injure me. That
was a point of honor. This was to be no trial by wager of battle. It was
to be an execution. Any retaliation by him would destroy the formal,
punitive character which was the essence of the transaction.