have come to the conclusion that that 'though' is a very big 'though'
indeed. Not to put too fine a point on it, I have had to confess that
what I found out, or thought I found out, amounts in reality to
nothing. I am as far away from the heart of the case as ever. However,
I may as well tell you what I do know. You may remember my saying that
I was impressed a good deal by some remarks of one of the doctors who
gave evidence at the inquest. Well, I determined that my first step
must be to try if I could get something more definite and intelligible
out of that doctor. Somehow or other I managed to get an introduction
to the man, and he gave me an appointment to come and see him. He
turned out to be a pleasant, genial fellow; rather young and not in the
least like the typical medical man, and he began the conference by
offering me whiskey and cigars. I didn't think it worth while to beat
about the bush, so I began by saying that part of his evidence at the
Harlesden Inquest struck me as very peculiar, and I gave him the
printed report, with the sentences in question underlined. He just
glanced at the slip, and gave me a queer look. 'It struck you as
peculiar, did it?' said he. 'Well, you must remember the Harlesden case
was very peculiar. In fact, I think I may safely say that in some
features it was unique--quite unique.' 'Quite so,' I replied, 'and
that's exactly why it interests me, and why I want to know more about
it. And I thought that if anybody could give me any information it
would be you. What is your opinion of the matter?'
"It was a pretty downright sort of question, and my doctor looked
rather taken aback.
"'Well,' he said, 'as I fancy your motive in inquiring into the
question must be mere curiosity, I think I may tell you my opinion with
tolerable freedom. So, Mr.--Mr. Dyson, if you want to know my theory,
it is this: I believe that Dr. Black killed his wife.'
"'But the verdict,' I answered, 'the verdict was given from your own
evidence.'
"'Quite so, the verdict was given in accordance with the evidence of my
colleague and myself, and, under the circumstances, I think the jury
acted very sensibly. In fact I don't see what else they could have
done. But I stick to my opinion, mind you, and I say this also: I don't
wonder at Black's doing what I firmly believe he did. I think he was
justified.'
"'Justified! How could that be?' I asked. I was astonished, as you may
imagine, at the answer I had got. The doctor wheeled round his chair,
and looked steadily at me for a moment before he answered.
"'I suppose you are not a man of science yourself? No; then it would be
of no use my going into detail. I have always been firmly opposed
myself to any partnership between physiology and psychology. I believe
that both are bound to suffer. No one recognizes more decidedly than I
do the impassable gulf, the fathomless abyss that separates the world
of consciousness from the sphere of matter. We know that every change
of consciousness is accompanied by a rearrangement of the molecules in
the gray matter; and that is all. What the link between them is, or why
they occur together, we do not know, and most authorities believe that
we never can know. Yet, I will tell you that as I did my work, the
knife in my hand, I felt convinced, in spite of all theories, that what
lay before me was not the brain of a dead woman; not the brain of a
human being at all. Of course I saw the face; but it was quite placid,
devoid of all expression. It must have been a beautiful face, no doubt;
but I can honestly say that I would not have looked in that face when
there was life behind it for a thousand guineas, no, nor for twice that
sum.'
"'My dear sir,' I said, 'you surprise me extremely. You say that it was
not the brain of a human being. What was it then?'
"'The brain of a devil.' He spoke quite coolly, and never moved a
muscle. 'The brain of a devil,' he repeated, 'and I have no doubt that
Black put a pillow over her mouth and kept it there for a few minutes.
I don't blame him if he did. Whatever Mrs. Black was, she was not fit
to stay in this world. Will you have anything more? No? Good-night,
good-night.'
"It was a queer sort of opinion to get from a man of science, wasn't
it? When he was saying that he would not have looked on that face when
alive for a thousand guineas or two thousand guineas, I was thinking of
the face I had seen, but I said nothing. I went again to Harlesden, and
passed from one shop to another, making small purchases, and trying to
find out whether there was anything about the Blacks which was not
already common property; but there was very little to hear. One of the
tradesmen to whom I spoke said he had known the dead woman well--she
used to buy of him such quantities of grocery as were required for
their small household, for they never kept a servant, but had a
charwoman in occasionally, and she had not seen Mrs. Black for months
before she died. According to this man, Mrs. Black was 'a nice lady,'
always kind and considerate, so fond of her husband, and he of her, as
everyone thought. And yet, to put the doctor's opinion on one side, I
knew what I had seen. And then, after thinking it all over and putting
one thing with another, it seemed to me that the only person likely to
give me much assistance would be Black himself, and I made up my mind
to find him. Of course he wasn't to be found in Harlesden; he had left,
I was told, directly after the funeral. Everything in the house had
been sold, and one fine day Black got into the train with a small
portmanteau, and went nobody knew where. It was a chance if he were
ever heard of again, and it was by a mere chance that I came across him
at last. I was walking one day along Gray's Inn Road, not bound for
anywhere in particular, but looking about me, as usual, and holding on
to my hat, for it was a gusty day in early March, and the wind was
making the tree-tops in the Inn rock and quiver. I had come up from the
Holborn end, and I had almost got to Theobald's Road, when I noticed a
man walking in front of me, leaning on a stick and to all appearance
very feeble. There was something about his look that made me curious, I
don't know why; and I began to walk briskly, with the idea of
overtaking him, when of a sudden his hat blew off, and came bounding
along the pavement to my feet. Of course I rescued the hat, and gave it
a glance as I went towards its owner. It was a biography in itself; a
Piccadilly maker's name in the inside, but I don't think a beggar would
have picked it out of the gutter. Then I looked up, and saw Dr. Black
of Harlesden waiting for me. A queer thing, wasn't it? But, Salisbury,
what a change! When I saw Dr. Black come down the steps of his house at
Harlesden, he was an upright man, walking firmly with well-built limbs;
a man, I should say, in the prime of his life. And now before me there
crouched this wretched creature, bent and feeble, with shrunken cheeks,
and hair that was whitening fast, and limbs that trembled and shook
together, and misery in his eyes. He thanked me for bringing him his
hat, saying, 'I don't think I should ever have got it, I can't run much
now. A gusty day, sir, isn't it?' and with this he was turning away;
but by little and little I contrived to draw him into the current of
conversation, and we walked together eastward. I think the man would
have been glad to get rid of me, but I didn't intend to let him go, and
he stopped at last in front of a miserable house in a miserable street.
It was, I verily believe, one of the most wretched quarters I have ever
seen,--houses that must have been sordid and hideous enough when new,
that had gathered foulness with every year, and now seemed to lean and
totter to their fall. 'I live up there,' said Black, pointing to the
tiles, 'not in the front,--in the back. I am very quiet there. I won't
ask you to come in now, but perhaps some other day----'
"I caught him up at that, and told him I should be only too glad to
come and see him. He gave me an odd sort of glance, as if he was
wondering what on earth I or anybody else could care about him, and I
left him fumbling with his latch-key. I think you will say I did pretty
well, when I tell you that within a few weeks I had made myself an
intimate friend of Black's. I shall never forget the first time I went
to this room; I hope I shall never see such abject, squalid misery
again. The foul paper, from which all pattern or trace of a pattern had
long vanished, subdued and penetrated with the grime of the evil
street, was hanging in mouldering pennons from the wall. Only at the
end of the room was it possible to stand upright; and the sight of the
wretched bed and the odour of corruption that pervaded the place made
me turn faint and sick. Here I found him munching a piece of bread; he
seemed surprised to find that I had kept my promise, but he gave me his
chair, and sat on the bed while we talked. I used to go and see him
often, and we had long conversations together, but he never mentioned
Harlesden or his wife. I fancy that he supposed me ignorant of the
matter, or thought that if I had heard of it, I should never connect
the respectable Dr. Black of Harlesden with a poor garreteer in the
backwoods of London. He was a strange man, and as we sat together
smoking, I often wondered whether he were mad or sane, for I think the
wildest dreams of Paracelsus and the Rosicrucians would appear plain
and sober fact, compared with the theories I have heard him earnestly
advance in that grimy den of his. I once ventured to hint something of
the sort to him; I suggested that something he had said was in flat
contradiction to all science and all experience. 'No, Dyson,' he
answered, 'not all experience, for mine counts for something. I am no
dealer in unproved theories; what I say I have proved for myself, and
at a terrible cost. There is a region of knowledge of which you will
never know, which wise men, seeing from afar off, shun like the plague,
as well they may; but into that region I have gone. If you knew, if you
could even dream of what may be done, of what one or two men have done,
in this quiet world of ours, your very soul would shudder and faint
within you. What you have heard from me has been but the merest husk
and outer covering of true science,--that science which means death and
that which is more awful than death to those who gain it. No, Dyson,
when men say that there are strange things in the world, they little
know the awe and the terror that dwell always within them and about
them.'"
There was a sort of fascination about the man that drew me to him, and
I was quite sorry to have to leave London for a month or two; I missed
his odd talk. A few days after I came back to town I thought I would go
and look him up; but when I gave the two rings at the bell that used to
summon him, there was no answer. I rang and rang again, and was just
turning to go away, when the door opened and a dirty woman asked me
what I wanted. From her look I fancy she took me for a plain-clothes
officer after one of her lodgers; but when I inquired if Mr. Black was
in, she gave me a stare of another kind. 'There's no Mr. Black lives
here,' she said. 'He's gone. He's dead this six weeks. I always thought
he was a bit queer in his head, or else had been and got into some
trouble or other. He used to go out every morning from ten till one,
and one Monday morning we heard him come in and go into his room and
shut the door, and a few minutes after, just as we was a-sitting down
to our dinner, there was such a scream that I thought I should have
gone right off. And then we heard a stamping, and down he came raging
and cursing most dreadful, swearing he had been robbed of something
that was worth millions. And then he just dropped down in the passage,
and we thought he was dead. We got him up to his room, and put him on
his bed, and I just sat there and waited, while my 'usband he went for
the doctor. And there was the winder wide open, and a little tin box he
had lying on the floor open and empty; but of course nobody could
possible have got in at the winder, and as for him having anything that
was worth anything, it's nonsense, for he was often weeks and weeks
behind with his rent, and my 'usband he threatened often and often to
turn him into the street, for, as he said, we've got a living to myke
like other people, and of course that's true; but somehow I didn't like
to do it, though he was an odd kind of a man, and I fancy had been
better off. And then the doctor came and looked at him, and said as he
couldn't do nothing, and that night he died as I was a-sitting by his
bed; and I can tell you that, with one thing and another, we lost money
by him, for the few bits of clothes as he had were worth next to
nothing when they came to be sold.'
"I gave the woman half a sovereign for her trouble, and went home
thinking of Dr. Black and the epitaph she had made him, and wondering
at his strange fancy that he had been robbed. I take it that he had
very little to fear on that score, poor fellow; but I suppose that he
was really mad, and died in a sudden access of his mania. His landlady
said that once or twice when she had had occasion to go into his room
(to dun the poor wretch for his rent, most likely), he would keep her
at the door for about a minute, and that when she came in she would
find him putting away his tin box in the corner by the window. I
suppose he had become possessed with the idea of some great treasure,
and fancied himself a wealthy man in the midst of all his misery.
"_Explicit_, my tale is ended; and you see that though I knew Black I
know nothing of his wife or of the history of her death. That's the
Harlesden case, Salisbury, and I think it interests me all the more
deeply because there does not seem the shadow of a possibility that I
or anyone else will ever know more about it. What do you think of it?"
"Well, Dyson, I must say that I think you have contrived to surround
the whole thing with a mystery of your own making. I go for the
doctor's solution,--Black murdered his wife, being himself, in all
probability, an undeveloped lunatic."
"What? Do you believe, then, that this woman was something too awful,
too terrible, to be allowed to remain on the earth? You will remember
that the doctor said it was the brain of a devil?"
"Yes, yes; but he was speaking, of course, metaphorically. It's really
quite a simple matter, Dyson, if you only look at it like that."
"Ah, well, you may be right; but yet I am sure you are not. Well, well,
it's no good discussing it anymore. A little more Benedictine? That's
right; try some of this tobacco. Didn't you say that you had been
bothered by something,--something which happened that night we dined
together?"
"Yes, I have been worried, Dyson,--worried a great deal. I--But it's
such a trivial matter, indeed, such an absurdity, that I feel ashamed
to trouble you with it."
"Never mind; let's have it, absurd or not."
With many hesitations, and with much inward resentment of the folly of
the thing, Salisbury told his tale, and repeated reluctantly the absurd
intelligence and the absurder doggerel of the scrap of paper, expecting
to hear Dyson burst out into a roar of laughter.
"Isn't it too bad that I should let myself be bothered by such stuff as
that?" he asked, when he had stuttered out the jingle of once and twice
and thrice.
Dyson had listened to it all gravely, even to the end, and meditated
for a few minutes in silence.
"Yes," he said at length, "it was a curious chance, your taking shelter
in that archway just as those two went by. But I don't know that I
should call what was written on the paper nonsense; it is bizarre
certainly, but I expect it has a meaning for somebody. Just repeat it
again, will you? and I will write it down. Perhaps we might find a
cipher of some sort, though I hardly think we shall."
Again had the reluctant lips of Salisbury to slowly stammer out the
rubbish he abhorred, while Dyson jotted it down on a slip of paper.
"Look over it, will you?" he said, when it was done; "it may be
important that I should have every word in its place. Is that all
right?"
"Yes, that is an accurate copy. But I don't think you will get much out
of it. Depend upon it, it is mere nonsense, a wanton scribble. I must
be going now, Dyson. No, no more; that stuff of yours is pretty strong.
Good-night."
"I suppose you would like to hear from me, if I did find out anything?"
"No, not I; I don't want to hear about the thing again. You may regard
the discovery, if it is one as your own."
"Very well. Good-night."
IV
A good many hours after Salisbury had returned to the company of the
green rep chairs, Dyson still sat at his desk, itself a Japanese
romance, smoking many pipes, and meditating over his friend's story.
The bizarre quality of the inscription which had annoyed Salisbury was
to him an attraction; and now and again he took it up and scanned
thoughtfully what he had written, especially the quaint jingle at the
end. It was a token, a symbol, he decided, and not a cipher; and the
woman who had flung it away was, in all probability, entirely ignorant
of its meaning. She was but the agent of the "Sam" she had abused and
discarded, and he, too, was again the agent of some one
unknown,--possibly of the individual styled Q., who had been forced to
visit his French friends. But what to make of "Traverse Handel S.?"
Here was the root and source of the enigma, and not all the tobacco of
Virginia seemed likely to suggest any clew here. It seemed almost
hopeless; but Dyson regarded himself as the Wellington of mysteries,
and went to bed feeling assured that sooner or later he would hit upon
the right track. For the next few days he was deeply engaged in his
literary labours,--labours which were a profound mystery even to the
most intimate of his friends, who searched the railway bookstalls in
vain for the result of so many hours spent at the Japanese bureau in
company with strong tobacco and black tea. On this occasion Dyson
confined himself to his room for four days, and it was with genuine
relief that he laid down his pen and went out into the streets in quest
of relaxation and fresh air. The gas lamps were being lighted, and the
fifth edition of the evening papers was being howled through the
streets; and Dyson, feeling that he wanted quiet, turned away from the
clamorous Strand, and began to trend away to the northwest. Soon he
found himself in streets that echoed to his foot-steps; and crossing a
broad new throughfare, and verging still to the west, Dyson discovered
that he had penetrated to the depths of Soho. Here again was life; rare
vintages of France and Italy, at prices which seemed contemptibly
small, allured the passer-by; here were cheeses, vast and rich; here
olive oil, and here a grove of Rabelaisian sausages; while in a
neighbouring shop the whole press of Paris appeared to be on sale. In
the middle of the roadway a strange miscellany of nations sauntered to
and fro; for there cab and hansom rarely ventured, and from window over
window the inhabitants looked forth in pleased contemplation of the
scene. Dyson made his way slowly along, mingling with the crowd on the
cobblestones, listening to the queer babel of French and German and
Italian and English, glancing now and again at the shop windows with
their levelled batteries of bottles, and had almost gained the end of
the street, when his attention was arrested by a small shop at the
corner, a vivid contrast to its neighbours. It was the typical shop of
the poor quarter, a shop entirely English. Here were vended tobacco and
sweets, cheap pipes of clay and cherry wood; penny exercise-books and
penholders jostled for precedence with comic songs, and story papers
with appalling cuts showed that romance claimed its place beside the
actualities of the evening paper, the bills of which fluttered at the
doorway. Dyson glanced up at the name above the door, and stood by the
kennel trembling; for a sharp pang, the pang of one who has made a
discovery, had for a moment left him incapable of motion. The name over
the little shop was Travers. Dyson looked up again, this time at the
corner of the wall above the lamp-post, and read, in white letters on a
blue ground, the words "Handel Street, W.C.," and the legend was
repeated in fainter letters just below. He gave a little sigh of
satisfaction, and without more ado walked boldly into the shop, and
stared the fat man who was sitting behind the counter full in the face.
The fellow rose to his feet and returned the stare a little curiously,
and then began in stereotyped phrase,--
"What can I do for you, sir?"
Dyson enjoyed the situation, and a dawning perplexity on the man's
face. He propped his stick carefully against the counter, and leaning
over it, said slowly and impressively:
"Once around the grass, and twice around the lass, and thrice around
the maple-tree."
Dyson had calculated on his words producing an effect, and he was not
disappointed. The vendor of miscellanies gasped, open-mouthed, like a
fish, and steadied himself against the counter. When he spoke, after a
short interval, it was in a hoarse mutter, tremulous and unsteady.
"Would you mind saying that again, sir? I didn't quite catch it."
"My good man, I shall most certainly do nothing of the kind. You heard
what I said perfectly well. You have got a clock in your shop, I see;
an admirable timekeeper I have no doubt. Well, I give you a minute by
your own clock."
The man looked about him in perplexed indecision, and Dyson felt that
it was time to be bold.
"Look here, Travers, the time is nearly up. You have heard of Q., I
think. Remember, I hold your life in my hands. Now!"
Dyson was shocked at the result of his own audacity. The man shrunk and
shrivelled in terror, the sweat poured down a face of ashy white, and
he held up his hands before him.
"Mr. Davies, Mr. Davies, don't say that, don't for Heaven's sake. I
didn't know you at first, I didn't indeed. Good God! Mr. Davies, you
wouldn't ruin me? I'll get it in a moment."
"You had better not lose any more time."
The man slunk piteously out of his shop, and went into a back parlour.
Dyson heard his trembling fingers fumbling with a bunch of keys, and
the creak of an opening box. He came back presently with a small
package neatly tied up in brown paper in his hands, and, still full of
terror, handed it to Dyson.
"I'm glad to be rid of it," he said. "I'll take no more jobs of this
sort."
Dyson took the parcel and his stick, and walked out of the shop with a
nod, turning round as he passed the door. Travers had sunk into his
seat, his face still white with terror, with one hand over his eyes,
and Dyson speculated a good deal as he walked rapidly away as to what
queer chords those could be on which he had played so roughly. He
hailed the first hansom he could see, and drove home, and when he had
lit his hanging lamp, and laid his parcel on the table, he paused for a
moment, wondering on what strange thing the lamplight would soon shine.
He locked his door, and cut the strings, and unfolded the paper layer
after layer, and came at last to a small wooden box, simply but solidly
made. There was no lock, and Dyson had simply to raise the lid, and as
he did so he drew a long breath and started back. The lamp seemed to
glimmer feebly like a single candle, but the whole room blazed with
light--and not with light alone but with a thousand colours, with all
the glories of some painted window; and upon the walls of his room and
on the familiar furniture, the glow flamed back and seemed to flow
again to its source, the little wooden box. For there upon a bed of
soft wool lay the most splendid jewel,--a jewel such as Dyson had never
dreamed of, and within it shone the blue of far skies, and the green of
the sea by the shore, and the red of the ruby, and deep violet rays,
and in the middle of all it seemed aflame as if a fountain of fire rose
up, and fell, and rose again with sparks like stars for drops. Dyson
gave a long deep sigh, and dropped into his chair, and put his hands
over his eyes to think. The jewel was like an opal, but from a long
experience of the shop windows he knew there was no such thing as an
opal one quarter or one eighth of its size. He looked at the stone
again, with a feeling that was almost awe, and placed it gently on the
table under the lamp, and watched the wonderful flame that shone and
sparkled in its centre, and then turned to the box, curious to know
whether it might contain other marvels. He lifted the bed of wool on
which the opal had reclined, and saw beneath, no more jewels, but a
little old pocket-book, worn and shabby with use. Dyson opened it at
the first leaf, and dropped the book again appalled. He had read the
name of the owner, neatly written in blue ink:--
STEVEN BLACK, M.D.,
Oranmore,
Devon Road,
Harlesden.
It was several minutes before Dyson could bring himself to open the
book a second time; he remembered the wretched exile in his garret and
his strange talk, and the memory too of the face he had seen at the
window, and of what the specialist had said surged up in his mind, and
as he held his finger on the cover he shivered, dreading what might be
written within. When at last he held it in his hand, and turned the
pages, he found that the first two leaves were blank, but the third was
covered with clear minute writing, and Dyson began to read with the
light of the opal flaming in his eyes.
V