CHAPTER VI.

I returned at the top of my speed to the village where I had left the

mules, had the animals saddled immediately, and succeeded in getting

back to Fondi a little before sunset.

While ascending the stairs of our hotel, I suffered under the most

painful uncertainty as to how I should best communicate the news of my

discovery to Alfred. If I could not succeed in preparing him properly

for my tidings, the results, with such an organization as his, might be

fatal. On opening the door of his room, I felt by no means sure of

myself; and when I confronted him, his manner of receiving me took me

so much by surprise that, for a moment or two, I lost my

self-possession altogether.

Every trace of the lethargy in which he was sunk when I had last seen

him had disappeared. His eyes were bright, his cheeks deeply flushed.

As I entered, he started up, and refused my offered hand.

“You have not treated me like a friend,” he said, passionately; “you

had no right to continue the search unless I searched with you—you had

no right to leave me here alone. I was wrong to trust you; you are no

better than all the rest of them.”

I had by this time recovered a little from my first astonishment, and

was able to reply before he could say anything more. It was quite

useless, in his present state, to reason with him or to defend myself.

I determined to risk everything, and break my news to him at once.

“You will treat me more justly, Monkton, when you know that I have been

doing you good service during my absence,” I said. “Unless I am greatly

mistaken, the object for which we have left Naples may be nearer

attainment by both of us than—”

The flush left his cheeks almost in an instant. Some expression in my

face, or some tone in my voice, of which I was not conscious, had

revealed to his nervously-quickened perception more than I had intended

that he should know at first. His eyes fixed themselves intently on

mine; his hand grasped my arm; and he said to me in an eager whisper:

“Tell me the truth at once. Have you found him?”

It was too late to hesitate. I answered in the affirmative.

“Buried or unburied?”

His voice rose abruptly as he put the question, and his unoccupied hand

fastened on my other arm.

“Unburied.”

I had hardly uttered the word before the blood flew back into his

cheeks; his eyes flashed again as they looked into mine, and he burst

into a fit of triumphant laughter, which shocked and startled me

inexpressibly.

“What did I tell you? What do you say to the old prophecy now?” he

cried, dropping his hold on my arms, and pacing backward and forward in

the room. “Own you were wrong. Own it, as all Naples shall own it, when

once I have got him safe in his coffin!”

His laughter grew more and mere violent. I tried to quiet him in vain.

His servant and the landlord of the inn entered the room, but they only

added fuel to the fire, and I made them go out again. As I shut the

door on them, I observed lying on a table near at hand the packet of

letters from Miss Elmslie, which my unhappy friend preserved with such

care, and read and re-read with such unfailing devotion. Looking toward

me just when I passed by the table, the letters caught his eye. The new

hope for the future, in connection with the writer of them, which my

news was already awakening in his heart, seemed to overwhelm him in an

instant at sight of the treasured memorials that reminded him of his

betrothed wife. His laughter ceased, his face changed, he ran to the

table, caught the letters up in his hand, looked from them to me for

one moment with an altered expression which went to my heart, then sank

down on his knees at the table, laid his face on the letters, and burst

into tears. I let the new emotion have its way uninterruptedly, and

quitted the room without saying a word. When I returned after a lapse

of some little time, I found him sitting quietly in his chair, reading

one of the letters from the packet which rested on his knee.

His look was kindness itself; his gesture almost womanly in its

gentleness as he rose to meet me, and anxiously held out his hand.

He was quite calm enough now to hear in detail all that I had to tell

him. I suppressed nothing but the particulars of the state in which I

had found the corpse. I assumed no right of direction as to the share

he was to take in our future proceedings, with the exception of

insisting beforehand that he should leave the absolute superintendence

of the removal of the body to me, and that he should be satisfied with

a sight of M. Foulon’s paper, after receiving my assurance that the

remains placed in the coffin were really and truly the remains of which

we had been in search.

“Your nerves are not so strong as mine,” I said, by way of apology for

my apparent dictation, “and for that reason I must beg leave to assume

the leadership in all that we have now to do, until I see the leaden

coffin soldered down and safe in your possession. After that I shall

resign all my functions to you.”

“I want words to thank you for your kindness,” he answered. “No brother

could have borne with me more affectionately, or helped me more

patiently than you.”

He stopped and grew thoughtful, then occupied himself in tying up

slowly and carefully the packet of Miss Elmslie’s letters, and then

looked suddenly toward the vacant wall behind me with that strange

expression the meaning of which I knew so well. Since we had left

Naples I had purposely avoided exciting him by talking on the useless

and shocking subject of the apparition by which he believed himself to

be perpetually followed. Just now, however, he seemed so calm and

collected—so little likely to be violently agitated by any allusion to

the dangerous topic, that I ventured to speak out boldly.

“Does the phantom still appear to you,” I asked, “as it appeared at

Naples?”

He looked at me and smiled.

“Did I not tell you that it followed me everywhere?” His eyes wandered

back again to the vacant space, and he went on speaking in that

direction as if he had been continuing the conversation with some third

person in the room. “We shall part,” he said, slowly and softly, “when

the empty place is filled in Wincot vault. Then I shall stand with Ada

before the altar in the Abbey chapel, and when my eyes meet hers they

will see the tortured face no more.”

Saying this, he leaned his head on his hand, sighed, and began

repeating softly to himself the lines of the old prophecy:

When in Wincot vault a place

Waits for one of Monkton’s race—

When that one forlorn shall lie

Graveless under open sky,

Beggared of six feet of earth,

Though lord of acres from his birth—

That shall be a certain sign

Of the end of Monktons line.

Dwindling ever faster, faster,

Dwindling to the last-left master;

From mortal ken, from light of day,

Monkton’s race shall pass away.”

Fancying that he pronounced the last lines a little incoherently, I

tried to make him change the subject. He took no notice of what I said,

and went on talking to himself.

“Monkton’s race shall pass away,” he repeated, “but not with _me_. The

fatality hangs over _my_ head no longer. I shall bury the unburied

dead; I shall fill the vacant place in Wincot vault; and then—then the

new life, the life with Ada!” That name seemed to recall him to

himself. He drew his traveling desk toward him, placed the packet of

letters in it, and then took out a sheet of paper. “I am going to write

to Ada,” he said, turning to me, “and tell her the good news. Her

happiness, when she knows it, will be even greater than mine.”

Worn out by the events of the day, I left him writing and went to bed.

I was, however, either too anxious or too tired to sleep. In this

waking condition, my mind naturally occupied itself with the discovery

at the convent and with the events to which that discovery would in all

probability lead. As I thought on the future, a depression for which I

could not account weighed on my spirits. There was not the slightest

reason for the vaguely melancholy forebodings that oppressed me. The

remains, to the finding of which my unhappy friend attached so much

importance, had been traced; they would certainly be placed at his

disposal in a few days; he might take them to England by the first

merchant vessel that sailed from Naples; and, the gratification of his

strange caprice thus accomplished, there was at least some reason to

hope that his mind might recover its tone, and that the new life he

would lead at Wincot might result in making him a happy man. Such

considerations as these were, in themselves, certainly not calculated

to exert any melancholy influence over me; and yet, all through the

night, the same inconceivable, unaccountable depression weighed heavily

on my spirits—heavily through the hours of darkness—heavily, even when

I walked out to breathe the first freshness of the early morning air.

With the day came the all-engrossing business of opening negotiations

with the authorities.

Only those who have had to deal with Italian officials can imagine how

our patience was tried by every one with whom we came in contact. We

were bandied about from one authority to the other, were stared at,

cross-questioned, mystified—not in the least because the case presented

any special difficulties or intricacies, but because it was absolutely

necessary that every civil dignitary to whom we applied should assert

his own importance by leading us to our object in the most roundabout

manner possible. After our first day’s experience of official life in

Italy, I left the absurd formalities, which we had no choice but to

perform, to be accomplished by Alfred alone, and applied myself to the

really serious question of how the remains in the convent outhouse were

to be safely removed.

The best plan that suggested itself to me was to write to a friend in

Rome, where I knew that it was a custom to embalm the bodies of high

dignitaries of the Church, and where, I consequently inferred, such

chemical assistance as was needed in our emergency might be obtained. I

simply stated in my letter that the removal of the body was imperative,

then described the condition in which I had found it, and engaged that

no expense on our part should be spared if the right person or persons

could be found to help us. Here, again, more difficulties interposed

themselves, and more useless formalities were to be gone through, but

in the end patience, perseverance, and money triumphed, and two men

came expressly from Rome to undertake the duties we required of them.

It is unnecessary that I should shock the reader by entering into any

detail in this part of my narrative. When I have said that the progress

of decay was so far suspended by chemical means as to allow of the

remains being placed in the coffin, and to insure their being

transported to England with perfect safety and convenience, I have said

enough. After ten days had been wasted in useless delays and

difficulties, I had the satisfaction of seeing the convent outhouse

empty at last; passed through a final ceremony of snuff-taking, or

rather, of snuff-giving, with the old Capuchin, and ordered the

traveling carriages to be ready at the inn door. Hardly a month had

elapsed since our departure ere we entered Naples successful in the

achievement of a design which had been ridiculed as wildly

impracticable by every friend of ours who had heard of it.

The first object to be accomplished on our return was to obtain the

means of carrying the coffin to England—by sea, as a matter of course.

All inquiries after a merchant vessel on the point of sailing for any

British port led to the most unsatisfactory results. There was only one

way of insuring the immediate transportation of the remains to England,

and that was to hire a vessel. Impatient to return, and resolved not to

lose sight of the coffin till he had seen it placed in Wincot vault,

Monkton decided immediately on hiring the first ship that could be

obtained. The vessel in port which we were informed could soonest be

got ready for sea was a Sicilian brig, and this vessel my friend

accordingly engaged. The best dock-yard artisans that could be got were

set to work, and the smartest captain and crew to be picked up on an

emergency in Naples were chosen to navigate the brig.

Monkton, after again expressing in the warmest terms his gratitude for

the services I had rendered him, disclaimed any intention of asking me

to accompany him on the voyage to England. Greatly to his surprise and

delight, however, I offered of my own accord to take passage in the

brig. The strange coincidences I had witnessed, the extraordinary

discovery I had hit on since our first meeting in Naples, had made his

one great interest in life my one great interest for the time being as

well. I shared none of his delusions, poor fellow; but it is hardly an

exaggeration to say that my eagerness to follow our remarkable

adventure to its end was as great as his anxiety to see the coffin laid

in Wincot vault. Curiosity influenced me, I am afraid, almost as

strongly as friendship, when I offered myself as the companion of his

voyage home.

We set sail for England on a calm and lovely afternoon.

For the first time since I had known him, Monkton seemed to be in high

spirits. He talked and jested on all sorts of subjects, and laughed at

me for allowing my cheerfulness to be affected by the dread of

seasickness. I had really no such fear; it was my excuse to my friend

for a return of that unaccountable depression under which I had

suffered at Fondi. Everything was in our favor; everybody on board the

brig was in good spirits. The captain was delighted with the vessel;

the crew, Italians and Maltese, were in high glee at the prospect of

making a short voyage on high wages in a well-provisioned ship. I alone

felt heavy at heart. There was no valid reason that I could assign to

myself for the melancholy that oppressed me, and yet I struggled

against it in vain.

Late on our first night at sea, I made a discovery which was by no

means calculated to restore my spirits to their usual equilibrium.

Monkton was in the cabin, on the floor of which had been placed the

packing-case containing the coffin, and I was on deck. The wind had

fallen almost to a calm, and I was lazily watching the sails of the

brig as they flapped from time to time against the masts, when the

captain approached, and, drawing me out of hearing of the man at the

helm, whispered in my ear:

“There’s something wrong among the men forward. Did you observe how

suddenly they all became silent just before sunset?”

I had observed it, and told him so.

“There’s a Maltese boy on board,” pursued the captain, “who is a smart

enough lad, but a bad one to deal with. I have found out that he has

been telling the men there is a dead body inside that packing-case of

your friend’s in the cabin.”

My heart sank as he spoke. Knowing the superstitious irrationality of

sailors—of foreign sailors especially—I had taken care to spread a

report on board the brig, before the coffin was shipped, that the

packing-case contained a valuable marble statue which Mr. Monkton

prized highly, and was unwilling to trust out of his own sight. How

could this Maltese boy have discovered that the pretended statue was a

human corpse? As I pondered over the question, my suspicions fixed

themselves on Monkton’s servant, who spoke Italian fluently, and whom I

knew to be an incorrigible gossip. The man denied it when I charged him

with betraying us, but I have never believed his denial to this day.

“The little imp won’t say where he picked up this notion of his about

the dead body,” continued the captain. “It’s not my place to pry into

secrets; but I advise you to call the crew aft, and contradict the boy,

whether he speaks the truth or not. The men are a parcel of fools who

believe in ghosts, and all the rest of it. Some of them say they would

never have signed our articles if they had known they were going to

sail with a dead man; others only grumble; but I’m afraid we shall have

some trouble with them all, in case of rough weather, unless the boy is

contradicted by you or the other gentleman. The men say that if either

you or your friend tell them on your words of honor that the Maltese is

a liar, they will hand him up to be rope’s-ended accordingly; but that

if you won’t, they have made up their minds to believe the boy.”

Here the captain paused and awaited my answer. I could give him none. I

felt hopeless under our desperate emergency. To get the boy punished by

giving my word of honor to support a direct falsehood was not to be

thought of even for a moment. What other means of extrication from this

miserable dilemma remained? None that I could think of. I thanked the

captain for his attention to our interests, told him I would take time

to consider what course I should pursue, and begged that he would say

nothing to my friend about the discovery he had made. He promised to be

silent, sulkily enough, and walked away from me.

We had expected the breeze to spring up with the morning, but no breeze

came. As it wore on toward noon the atmosphere became insufferably

sultry, and the sea looked as smooth as glass. I saw the captain’s eye

turn often and anxiously to windward. Far away in that direction, and

alone in the blue heaven, I observed a little black cloud, and asked if

it would bring us any wind.

“More than we want,” the captain replied, shortly; and then, to my

astonishment, ordered the crew aloft to take in sail. The execution of

this maneuver showed but too plainly the temper of the men; they did

their work sulkily and slowly, grumbling and murmuring among

themselves. The captain’s manner, as he urged them on with oaths and

threats, convinced me we were in danger. I looked again to windward.

The one little cloud had enlarged to a great bank of murky vapor, and

the sea at the horizon had changed in color.

“The squall will be on us before we know where we are,” said the

captain. “Go below; you will be only in the way here.”

I descended to the cabin, and prepared Monkton for what was coming. He

was still questioning me about what I had observed on deck when the

storm burst on us. We felt the little brig strain for an instant as if

she would part in two, then she seemed to be swinging round with us,

then to be quite still for a moment, trembling in every timber. Last

came a shock which hurled us from our seats, a deafening crash, and a

flood of water pouring into the cabin. We clambered, half drowned, to

the deck. The brig had, in the nautical phrase, “broached to,” and she

now lay on her beam-ends.

Before I could make out anything distinctly in the horrible confusion

except the one tremendous certainty that we were entirely at the mercy

of the sea, I heard a voice from the fore part of the ship which

stilled the clamoring and shouting of the rest of the crew in an

instant. The words were in Italian, but I understood their fatal

meaning only too easily. We had sprung a leak, and the sea was pouring

into the ship’s hold like the race of a mill-stream. The captain did

not lose his presence of mind in this fresh emergency. He called for

his ax to cut away the foremast, and, ordering some of the crew to help

him, directed the others to rig out the pumps.

The words had hardly passed his lips before the men broke into open

mutiny. With a savage look at me, their ringleader declared that the

passengers might do as they pleased, but that he and his messmates were

determined to take to the boat, and leave the accursed ship, and _the

dead man in her,_ to go to the bottom together. As he spoke there was a

shout among the sailors, and I observed some of them pointing

derisively behind me. Looking round, I saw Monkton, who had hitherto

kept close at my side, making his way back to the cabin. I followed him

directly, but the water and confusion on deck, and the impossibility,

from the position of the brig, of moving the feet without the slow

assistance of the hands, so impeded my progress that it was impossible

for me to overtake him. When I had got below he was crouched upon the

coffin, with the water on the cabin floor whirling and splashing about

him as the ship heaved and plunged. I saw a warning brightness in his

eyes, a warning flush on his cheek, as I approached and said to him:

“There is nothing left for it, Alfred, but to bow to our misfortune,

and do the best we can to save our lives.”

“Save yours,” he cried, waving his hand to me, “for _you_ have a future

before you. Mine is gone when this coffin goes to the bottom. If the

ship sinks, I shall know that the fatality is accomplished, and shall

sink with her.”

I saw that he was in no state to be reasoned with or persuaded, and

raised myself again to the deck. The men were cutting away all

obstacles so as to launch the longboat placed amidships over the

depressed bulwark of the brig as she lay on her side, and the captain,

after having made a last vain exertion to restore his authority, was

looking on at them in silence. The violence of the squall seemed

already to be spending itself, and I asked whether there was really no

chance for us if we remained by the ship. The captain answered that

there might have been the best chance if the men had obeyed his orders,

but that now there was none. Knowing that I could place no dependence

on the presence of mind of Monkton’s servant, I confided to the

captain, in the fewest and plainest words, the condition of my unhappy

friend, and asked if I might depend on his help. He nodded his head,

and we descended together to the cabin. Even at this day it costs me

pain to write of the terrible necessity to which the strength and

obstinacy of Monkton’s delusion reduced us in the last resort. We were

compelled to secure his hands, and drag him by main force to the deck.

The men were on the point of launching the boat, and refused at first

to receive us into it.

“You cowards!” cried the captain, “have we got the dead man with us

this time? Isn’t he going to the bottom along with the brig? Who are

you afraid of when we get into the boat?”

This sort of appeal produced the desired effect; the men became ashamed

of themselves, and retracted their refusal.

Just as we pushed off from the sinking ship Alfred made an effort to

break from me, but I held him firm, and he never repeated the attempt.

He sat by me with drooping head, still and silent, while the sailors

rowed away from the vessel; still and silent when, with one accord,

they paused at a little distance off, and we all waited and watched to

see the brig sink; still and silent, even when that sinking happened,

when the laboring hull plunged slowly into a hollow of the

sea—hesitated, as it seemed, for one moment, rose a little again, then

sank to rise no more.

Sank with her dead freight—sank, and snatched forever from our power

the corpse which we had discovered almost by a miracle—those

jealously-preserved remains, on the safe-keeping of which rested so

strangely the hopes and the love-destinies of two living beings! As the

last signs of the ship disappeared in the depths of the waters, I felt

Monkton trembling all over as he sat close at my side, and heard him

repeating to himself, sadly, and many times over, the name of “Ada.”

I tried to turn his thoughts to another subject, but it was useless. He

pointed over the sea to where the brig had once been, and where nothing

was left to look at but the rolling waves.

“The empty place will now remain empty forever in Wincot vault.”

As he said these words, he fixed his eyes for a moment sadly and

earnestly on my face, then looked away, leaned his cheek on his hand,

and spoke no more.

We were sighted long before nightfall by a trading vessel, were taken

on board, and landed at Cartagena in Spain. Alfred never held up his

head, and never once spoke to me of his own accord the whole time we

were at sea in the merchantman. I observed, however, with alarm, that

he talked often and incoherently to himself—constantly muttering the

lines of the old prophecy—constantly referring to the fatal place that

was empty in Wincot vault—constantly repeating in broken accents, which

it affected me inexpressibly to hear, the name of the poor girl who was

awaiting his return to England. Nor were these the only causes for the

apprehension that I now felt on his account. Toward the end of our

voyage he began to suffer from alternations of fever-fits and

shivering-fits, which I ignorantly imagined to be attacks of ague. I

was soon undeceived. We had hardly been a day on shore before he became

so much worse that I secured the best medical assistance Cartagena

could afford. For a day or two the doctors differed, as usual, about

the nature of his complaint, but ere long alarming symptoms displayed

themselves. The medical men declared that his life was in danger, and

told me that his disease was brain fever.

Shocked and grieved as I was, I hardly knew how to act at first under

the fresh responsibility now laid upon me. Ultimately I decided on

writing to the old priest who had been Alfred’s tutor, and who, as I

knew, still resided at Wincot Abbey. I told this gentleman all that had

happened, begged him to break my melancholy news as gently as possible

to Miss Elmslie, and assured him of my resolution to remain with

Monkton to the last.

After I had dispatched my letter, and had sent to Gibraltar to secure

the best English medical advice that could be obtained, I felt that I

had done my best, and that nothing remained but to wait and hope.

Many a sad and anxious hour did I pass by my poor friend’s bedside.

Many a time did I doubt whether I had done right in giving any

encouragement to his delusion. The reasons for doing so which had

suggested themselves to me after my first interview with him seemed,

however, on reflection, to be valid reasons still. The only way of

hastening his return to England and to Miss Elmslie, who was pining for

that return, was the way I had taken. It was not my fault that a

disaster which no man could foresee had overthrown all his projects and

all mine. But, now that the calamity had happened and was

irretrievable, how, in the event of his physical recovery, was his

moral malady to be combated?

When I reflected on the hereditary taint in his mental organization, on

that first childish fright of Stephen Monkton from which he had never

recovered, on the perilously-secluded life that he had led at the

Abbey, and on his firm persuasion of the reality of the apparition by

which he believed himself to be constantly followed, I confess I

despaired of shaking his superstitious faith in every word and line of

the old family prophecy. If the series of striking coincidences which

appeared to attest its truth had made a strong and lasting impression

on _me_ (and this was assuredly the case), how could I wonder that they

had produced the effect of absolute conviction on _his_ mind,

constituted as it was? If I argued with him, and he answered me, how

could I rejoin? If he said, “The prophecy points at the last of the

family: _I_ am the last of the family. The prophecy mentions an empty

place in Wincot vault; there is such an empty place there at this

moment. On the faith of the prophecy I told you that Stephen Monkton’s

body was unburied, and you found that it was unburied”—if he said this,

what use would it be for me to reply, “These are only strange

coincidences after all?”

The more I thought of the task that lay before me, if he recovered, the

more I felt inclined to despond. The oftener the English physician who

attended on him said to me, “He may get the better of the fever, but he

has a fixed idea, which never leaves him night or day, which has

unsettled his reason, and which will end in killing him, unless you or

some of his friends can remove it”—the oftener I heard this, the more

acutely I felt my own powerlessness, the more I shrank from every idea

that was connected with the hopeless future.

I had only expected to receive my answer from Wincot in the shape of a

letter. It was consequently a great surprise, as well as a great

relief, to be informed one day that two gentlemen wished to speak with

me, and to find that of these two gentlemen the first was the old

priest, and the second a male relative of Mrs. Elmslie.

Just before their arrival the fever symptoms had disappeared, and

Alfred had been pronounced out of danger. Both the priest and his

companion were eager to know when the sufferer would be strong enough

to travel. They had come to Cartagena expressly to take him home with

them, and felt far more hopeful than I did of the restorative effects

of his native air. After all the questions connected with the first

important point of the journey to England had been asked and answered,

I ventured to make some inquiries after Miss Elmslie. Her relative

informed me that she was suffering both in body and in mind from excess

of anxiety on Alfred’s account. They had been obliged to deceive her as

to the dangerous nature of his illness in order to deter her from

accompanying the priest and her relation on their mission to Spain.

Slowly and imperfectly, as the weeks wore on, Alfred regained something

of his former physical strength, but no alteration appeared in his

illness as it affected his mind.

From the very first day of his advance toward recovery, it had been

discovered that the brain fever had exercised the strangest influence

over his faculties of memory. All recollection of recent events was

gone from him. Everything connected with Naples, with me, with his

journey to Italy, had dropped in some mysterious manner entirely out of

his remembrance. So completely had all late circumstances passed from

his memory that, though he recognized the old priest and his own

servant easily on the first days of his convalescence, he never

recognized me, but regarded me with such a wistful, doubting

expression, that I felt inexpressibly pained when I approached his

bedside. All his questions were about Miss Elmslie and Wincot Abbey,

and all his talk referred to the period when his father was yet alive.

The doctors augured good rather than ill from this loss of memory of

recent incidents, saying that it would turn out to be temporary, and

that it answered the first great healing purpose of keeping his mind at

ease. I tried to believe them—tried to feel as sanguine, when the day

came for his departure, as the old friends felt who were taking him

home. But the effort was too much for me. A foreboding that I should

never see him again oppressed my heart, and the tears came into my eyes

as I saw the worn figure of my poor friend half helped, half lifted

into the traveling-carriage, and borne away gently on the road toward

home.

He had never recognized me, and the doctors had begged that I would

give him, for some time to come, as few opportunities as possible of

doing so. But for this request I should have accompanied him to

England. As it was, nothing better remained for me to do than to change

the scene, and recruit as I best could my energies of body and mind,

depressed of late by much watching and anxiety. The famous cities of

Spain were not new to me, but I visited them again and revived old

impressions of the Alhambra and Madrid. Once or twice I thought of

making a pilgrimage to the East, but late events had sobered and

altered me. That yearning, unsatisfied feeling which we call

“homesickness” began to prey upon my heart, and I resolved to return to

England.

I went back by way of Paris, having settled with the priest that he

should write to me at my banker’s there as soon as he could after

Alfred had returned to Wincot. If I had gone to the East, the letter

would have been forwarded to me. I wrote to prevent this; and, on my

arrival at Paris, stopped at the banker’s before I went to my hotel.

The moment the letter was put into my hands, the black border on the

envelope told me the worst. He was dead.

There was but one consolation—he had died calmly, almost happily,

without once referring to those fatal chances which had wrought the

fulfillment of the ancient prophecy. “My beloved pupil,” the old priest

wrote, “seemed to rally a little the first few days after his return,

but he gained no real strength, and soon suffered a slight relapse of

fever. After this he sank gradually and gently day by day, and so

departed from us on the last dread journey. Miss Elmslie (who knows

that I am writing this) desires me to express her deep and lasting

gratitude for all your kindness to Alfred. She told me when we brought

him back that she had waited for him as his promised wife, and that she

would nurse him now as a wife should; and she never left him. His face

was turned toward her, his hand was clasped in hers when he died. It

will console you to know that he never mentioned events at Naples, or

the shipwreck that followed them, from the day of his return to the day

of his death.”

Three days after reading the letter I was at Wincot, and heard all the

details of Alfred’s last moments from the priest. I felt a shock which

it would not be very easy for me to analyze or explain when I heard

that he had been buried, at his own desire, in the fatal Abbey vault.

The priest took me down to see the place—a grim, cold, subterranean

building, with a low roof, supported on heavy Saxon arches. Narrow

niches, with the ends only of coffins visible within them, ran down

each side of the vault. The nails and silver ornaments flashed here and

there as my companion moved past them with a lamp in his hand. At the

lower end of the place he stopped, pointed to a niche, and said, “He

lies there, between his father and mother.” I looked a little further

on, and saw what appeared at first like a long dark tunnel. “That is

only an empty niche,” said the priest, following me. “If the body of

Mr. Stephen Monkton had been brought to Wincot, his coffin would have

been placed there.”

A chill came over me, and a sense of dread which I am ashamed of having

felt now, but which I could not combat then. The blessed light of day

was pouring down gayly at the other end of the vault through the open

door. I turned my back on the empty niche, and hurried into the

sunlight and the fresh air.

As I walked across the grass glade leading down to the vault, I heard

the rustle of a woman’s dress behind me, and turning round, saw a young

lady advancing, clad in deep mourning. Her sweet, sad face, her manner

as she held out her hand, told me who it was in an instant.

“I heard that you were here,” she said, “and I wished—” Her voice

faltered a little. My heart ached as I saw how her lip trembled, but

before I could say anything she recovered herself and went on: “I

wished to take your hand, and thank you for your brotherly kindness to

Alfred; and I wanted to tell you that I am sure in all you did you

acted tenderly and considerately for the best. Perhaps you may be soon

going away from home again, and we may not meet any more. I shall

never, never forget that you were kind to him when he wanted a friend,

and that you have the greatest claim of any one on earth to be

gratefully remembered in my thoughts as long as I live.”

The inexpressible tenderness of her voice, trembling a little all the

while she spoke, the pale beauty of her face, the artless candor in her

sad, quiet eyes, so affected me that I could not trust myself to answer

her at first except by gesture. Before I recovered my voice she had

given me her hand once more and had left me.

I never saw her again. The chances and changes of life kept us apart.

When I last heard of her, years and years ago, she was faithful to the

memory of the dead, and was Ada Elmslie still for Alfred Monkton’s

sake.

THE FIFTH DAY.

Still cloudy, but no rain to keep our young lady indoors. The paper, as

usual, without interest to _me_.

To-day Owen actually vanquished his difficulties and finished his

story. I numbered it Eight, and threw the corresponding number (as I

had done the day before in Morgan’s case) into the china bowl.

Although I could discover no direct evidence against her, I strongly

suspected The Queen of Hearts of tampering with the lots on the fifth

evening, to irritate Morgan by making it his turn to read again, after

the shortest possible interval of repose. However that might be, the

number drawn was certainly Seven, and the story to be read was

consequently the story which my brother had finished only two days

before.

If I had not known that it was part of Morgan’s character always to do

exactly the reverse of what might be expected from him, I should have

been surprised at the extraordinary docility he exhibited the moment

his manuscript was placed in his hands.

“My turn again?” he said. “How very satisfactory! I was anxious to

escape from this absurd position of mine as soon as possible, and here

is the opportunity most considerately put into my hands. Look out, all

of you! I won’t waste another moment. I mean to begin instantly.”

“Do tell me,” interposed Jessie, mischievously, “shall I be very much

interested to-night’?’

“Not you!” retorted Morgan. “You will be very much frightened instead.

You hair is uncommonly smooth at the present moment, but it will be all

standing on end before I’ve done. Don’t blame me, miss, if you are an

object when you go to bed to-night!”

With this curious introductory speech he began to read. I was obliged

to interrupt him to say the few words of explanation which the story

needed.

“Before my brother begins,” I said, “it may be as well to mention that

he is himself the doctor who is supposed to relate this narrative. The

events happened at a time of his life when he had left London, and had

established himself in medical practice in one of our large northern

towns.”

With that brief explanation, I apologized for interrupting the reader,

and Morgan began once more.

BROTHER MORGAN’S STORY of THE DEAD HAND

When this present nineteenth century was younger by a good many years

than it is now, a certain friend of mine, named Arthur Holliday,

happened to arrive in the town of Doncaster exactly in the middle of

the race-week, or, in other words, in the middle of the month of

September.

He was one of those reckless, rattle-pated, open-hearted, and

open-mouthed young gentlemen who possess the gift of familiarity in its

highest perfection, and who scramble carelessly along the journey of

life, making friends, as the phrase is, wherever they go. His father

was a rich manufacturer, and had bought landed property enough in one

of the midland counties to make all the born squires in his

neighborhood thoroughly envious of him. Arthur was his only son,

possessor in prospect of the great estate and the great business after

his father’s death; well supplied with money, and not too rigidly

looked after during his father’s lifetime. Report, or scandal,

whichever you please, said that the old gentleman had been rather wild

in his youthful days, and that, unlike most parents, he was not

disposed to be violently indignant when he found that his son took

after him. This may be true or not. I myself only knew the elder Mr.

Holliday when he was getting on in years, and then he was as quiet and

as respectable a gentleman as ever I met with.

Well, one September, as I told you, young Arthur comes to Doncaster,

having decided all of a sudden, in his hare-brained way, that he would

go to the races. He did not reach the town till toward the close of

evening, and he went at once to see about his dinner and bed at the

principal hotel. Dinner they were ready enough to give him, but as for

a bed, they laughed when he mentioned it. In the race-week at Doncaster

it is no uncommon thing for visitors who have not bespoken apartments

to pass the night in their carriages at the inn doors. As for the lower

sort of strangers, I myself have often seen them, at that full time,

sleeping out on the doorsteps for want of a covered place to creep

under. Rich as he was, Arthur’s chance of getting a night’s lodging

(seeing that he had not written beforehand to secure one) was more than

doubtful. He tried the second hotel, and the third hotel, and two of

the inferior inns after that, and was met everywhere with the same form

of answer. No accommodation for the night of any sort was left. All the

bright golden sovereigns in his pocket would not buy him a bed at

Doncaster in the race-week.

To a young fellow of Arthur’s temperament, the novelty of being turned

away into the street like a penniless vagabond, at every house where he

asked for a lodging, presented itself in the light of a new and highly

amusing piece of experience. He went on with his carpet-bag in his

hand, applying for a bed at every place of entertainment for travelers

that he could find in Doncaster, until he wandered into the outskirts

of the town.

By this time the last glimmer of twilight had faded out, the moon was

rising dimly in a mist, the wind was getting cold, the clouds were

gathering heavily, and there was every prospect that it was soon going

to rain!

The look of the night had rather a lowering effect on young Holliday’s

spirits. He began to contemplate the houseless situation in which he

was placed from the serious rather than the humorous point of view, and

he looked about him for another public house to inquire at with

something very like downright anxiety in his mind on the subject of a

lodging for the night. The suburban part of the town toward which he

had now strayed was hardly lighted at all, and he could see nothing of

the houses as he passed them, except that they got progressively

smaller and dirtier the further he went. Down the winding road before

him shone the dull gleam of an oil lamp, the one faint lonely light

that struggled ineffectually with the foggy darkness all round him. He

resolved to go on as far as this lamp, and then, if it showed him

nothing in the shape of an inn, to return to the central part of the

town, and to try if he could not at least secure a chair to sit down on

through the night at one of the principal hotels.

As he got near the lamp he heard voices, and, walking close under it,

found that it lighted the entrance to a narrow court, on the wall of

which was painted a long hand in faded flesh-color, pointing, with a

lean forefinger, to this inscription:

THE TWO ROBINS.

Arthur turned into the court without hesitation to see what The Two

Robins could do for him. Four or five men were standing together round

the door of the house, which was at the bottom of the court, facing the

entrance from the street. The men were all listening to one other man,

better dressed than the rest, who was telling his audience something,

in a low voice, in which they were apparently very much interested.

On entering the passage, Arthur was passed by a stranger with a

knapsack in his hand, who was evidently leaving the house.

“No,” said the traveler with the knapsack, turning round and addressing

himself cheerfully to a fat, sly-looking, bald-headed man, with a dirty

white apron on, who had followed him down the passage, “no, Mr.

Landlord, I am not easily scared by trifles; but I don’t mind

confessing that I can’t quite stand _that_.”

It occurred to young Holliday, the moment he heard these words, that

the stranger had been asked an exorbitant price for a bed at The Two

Robins, and that he was unable or unwilling to pay it. The moment his

back was turned, Arthur, comfortably conscious of his own well-filled

pockets, addressed himself in a great hurry, for fear any other

benighted traveler should slip in and forestall him, to the sly-looking

landlord with the dirty apron and the bald head.

“If you have got a bed to let,” he said, “and if that gentleman who has

just gone out won’t pay your price for it, I will.”

The sly landlord looked hard at Arthur. “Will you, sir?” he asked, in a

meditative, doubtful way.

“Name your price,” said young Holliday, thinking that the landlord’s

hesitation sprang from some boorish distrust of him. “Name your price,

and I’ll give you the money at once, if you like.”

“Are you game for five shillings?” inquired the landlord, rubbing his

stubby double chin and looking up thoughtfully at the ceiling above

him.

Arthur nearly laughed in the man’s face; but, thinking it prudent to

control himself, offered the five shillings as seriously as he could.

The sly landlord held out his hand, then suddenly drew it back again.

“You’re acting all fair and aboveboard by me,” he said, “and, before I

take your money, I’ll do the same by you. Look here; this is how it

stands. You can have a bed all to yourself for five shillings, but you

can’t have more than a half share of the room it stands in. Do you see

what I mean, young gentleman?”

“Of course I do,” returned Arthur, a little irritably. “You mean that

it is a double-bedded room, and that one of the beds is occupied?”

The land lord nodded his head, and rubbed his double chin harder than

ever. Arthur hesitated, and mechanically moved back a step or two

toward the door. The idea of sleeping in the same room with a total

stranger did not present an attractive prospect to him. He felt more

than half inclined to drop his five shillings into his pocket and to go

out into the street once more.

“Is it yes or no?” asked the landlord. “Settle it as quick as you can,

because there’s lots of people wanting a bed at Doncaster to-night

besides you.”

Arthur looked toward the court and heard the rain falling heavily in

the street outside. He thought he would ask a question or two before he

rashly decided on leaving the shelter of The Two Robins.

“What sort of man is it who has got the other bed?” he inquired. “Is he

a gentleman? I mean, is he a quiet, well-behaved person?”

“The quietest man I ever came across,” said the landlord, rubbing his

fat hands stealthily one over the other. “As sober as a judge, and as

regular as clock-work in his habits. It hasn’t struck nine, not ten

minutes ago, and he’s in his bed already. I don’t know whether that

comes up to your notion of a quiet man: it goes a long way ahead of

mine, I can tell you.”

“Is he asleep, do you think?” asked Arthur.

“I know he’s asleep,” returned the landlord; “and, what’s more, he’s

gone off so fast that I’ll warrant you don’t wake him. This way, sir,”

said the landlord, speaking over young Holliday’s shoulder, as if he

was addressing some new guest who was approaching the house.

“Here you are,” said Arthur, determined to be beforehand with the

stranger, whoever he might be. “I’ll take the bed.” And he handed the

five shillings to the landlord, who nodded, dropped the money

carelessly into his waistcoat pocket, and lighted a candle.

“Come up and see the room,” said the host of The Two Robins, leading

the way to the staircase quite briskly, considering how fat he was.

They mounted to the second floor of the house. The landlord half opened

a door fronting the landing, then stopped, and turned round to Arthur.

“It’s a fair bargain, mind, on my side as well as on yours,” he said.

“You give me five shillings, and I give you in return a clean,

comfortable bed; and I warrant, beforehand, that you won’t be

interfered with, or annoyed in anyway, by the man who sleeps in the

same room with you.” Saying those words, he looked hard, for a moment,

in young Holliday’s face, and then led the way into the room.

It was larger and cleaner than Arthur had expected it would be. The two

beds stood parallel with each other, a space of about six feet

intervening between them. They were both of the same medium size, and

both had the same plain white curtains, made to draw, if necessary, all

round them.

The occupied bed was the bed nearest the window. The curtains were all

drawn round it except the half curtain at the bottom, on the side of

the bed furthest from the window. Arthur saw the feet of the sleeping

man raising the scanty clothes into a sharp little eminence, as if he

was lying flat on his back. He took the candle, and advanced softly to

draw the curtain—stopped half way, and listened for a moment—then

turned to the landlord.

“He is a very quiet sleeper,” said Arthur. “Yes,” said the landlord,

“very quiet.” Young Holliday advanced with the candle, and looked in at

the man cautiously.

“How pale he is,” said Arthur.

“Yes,” returned the landlord, “pale enough, isn’t he?”

Arthur looked closer at the man. The bedclothes were drawn up to his

chin, and they lay perfectly still over the region of his chest.

Surprised and vaguely startled as he noticed this, Arthur stooped down

closer over the stranger, looked at his ashy, parted lips, listened

breathlessly for an instant, looked again at the strangely still face,

and the motionless lips and chest, and turned round suddenly on the

landlord with his own cheeks as pale for the moment as the hollow

cheeks of the man on the bed.

“Come here,” he whispered, under his breath. “Come here, for God’s

sake! The man’s not asleep—he is dead.”

“You have found that out sooner than I thought you would,” said the

landlord, composedly. “Yes, he’s dead, sure enough. He died at five

o’clock to-day.”

“How did he die? Who is he?” asked Arthur, staggered for the moment by

the audacious coolness of the answer.

“As to who is he,” rejoined the landlord, “I know no more about him

than you do. There are his books, and letters, and things all sealed up

in that brown paper parcel for the coroner’s inquest to open to-morrow

or next day. He’s been here a week, paying his way fairly enough, and

stopping indoors, for the most part, as if he was ailing. My girl

brought him up his tea at five to-day, and as he was pouring of it out,

he fell down in a faint, or a fit, or a compound of both, for anything

I know. We couldn’t bring him to, and I said he was dead. And, the

doctor couldn’t bring him to, and the doctor said he was dead. And

there he is. And the coroner’s inquest’s coming as soon as it can. And

that’s as much as I know about it.”

Arthur held the candle close to the man’s lips. The flame still burned

straight up as steadily as ever. There was a moment of silence, and the

rain pattered drearily through it against the panes of the window.

“If you haven’t got nothing more to say to me,” continued the landlord,

“I suppose I may go. You don’t expect your five shillings back, do you?

There’s the bed I promised you, clean and comfortable. There’s the man

I warranted not to disturb you, quiet in this world forever. If you’re

frightened to stop alone with him, that’s not my lookout. I’ve kept my

part of the bargain, and I mean to keep the money. I’m not Yorkshire

myself, young gentleman, but I’ve lived long enough in these parts to

have my wits sharpened, and I shouldn’t wonder if you found out the way

to brighten up yours next time you come among us.”

With these words the landlord turned toward the door, and laughed to

himself softly, in high satisfaction at his own sharpness.

Startled and shocked as he was, Arthur had by this time sufficiently

recovered himself to feel indignant at the trick that had been played

on him, and at the insolent manner in which the landlord exulted in it.

“Don’t laugh,” he said sharply, “till you are quite sure you have got

the laugh against me. You shan’t have the five shillings for nothing,

my man. I’ll keep the bed.”

“Will you?” said the landlord. “Then I wish you a good night’s rest.”

With that brief farewell he went out and shut the door after him.

A good night’s rest! The words had hardly been spoken, the door had

hardly been closed, before Arthur half repented the hasty words that

had just escaped him. Though not naturally over-sensitive, and not

wanting in courage of the moral as well as the physical sort, the

presence of the dead man had an instantaneously chilling effect on his

mind when he found himself alone in the room—alone, and bound by his

own rash words to stay there till the next morning. An older man would

have thought nothing of those words, and would have acted, without

reference to them, as his calmer sense suggested. But Arthur was too

young to treat the ridicule even of his inferiors with contempt—too

young not to fear the momentary humiliation of falsifying his own

foolish boast more than he feared the trial of watching out the long

night in the same chamber with the dead.

“It is but a few hours,” he thought to himself, “and I can get away the

first thing in the morning.”

He was looking toward the occupied bed as that idea passed through his

mind, and the sharp, angular eminence made in the clothes by the dead

man’s upturned feet again caught his eye. He advanced and drew the

curtains, purposely abstaining, as he did so, from looking at the face

of the corpse, lest he might unnerve himself at the outset by fastening

some ghastly impression of it on his mind. He drew the curtain very

gently, and sighed involuntarily as he closed it.

“Poor fellow,” he said, almost as sadly as if he had known the man.

“Ah! poor fellow!”

He went next to the window. The night was black, and he could see

nothing from it. The rain still pattered heavily against the glass. He

inferred, from hearing it, that the window was at the back of the

house, remembering that the front was sheltered from the weather by the

court and the buildings over it.

While he was still standing at the window—for even the dreary rain was

a relief, because of the sound it made; a relief, also, because it

moved, and had some faint suggestion, in consequence, of life and

companionship in it—while he was standing at the window, and looking

vacantly into the black darkness outside, he heard a distant church

clock strike ten. Only ten! How was he to pass the time till the house

was astir the next morning?

Under any other circumstances he would have gone down to the

public-house parlor, would have called for his grog, and would have

laughed and talked with the company assembled as familiarly as if he

had known them all his life. But the very thought of whiling away the

time in this manner was now distasteful to him. The new situation in

which he was placed seemed to have altered him to himself already. Thus

far his life had been the common, trifling, prosaic, surface-life of a

prosperous young man, with no troubles to conquer and no trials to

face. He had lost no relation whom he loved, no friend whom he

treasured. Till this night, what share he had of the immortal

inheritance that is divided among us all had lain dormant within him.

Till this night, Death and he had not once met, even in thought.

He took a few turns up and down the room, then stopped. The noise made

by his boots on the poorly-carpeted floor jarred on his ear. He

hesitated a little, and ended by taking the boots off, and walking

backward and forward noiselessly.

All desire to sleep or to rest had left him. The bare thought of lying

down on the unoccupied bed instantly drew the picture on his mind of a

dreadful mimicry of the position of the dead man. Who was he? What was

the story of his past life? Poor he must have been, or he would not

have stopped at such a place as the Two Robins Inn; and weakened,

probably, by long illness, or he could hardly have died in the manner

which the landlord had described. Poor, ill, lonely—dead in a strange

place—dead, with nobody but a stranger to pity him. A sad story; truly,

on the mere face of it, a very sad story.

While these thoughts were passing through his mind, he had stopped

insensibly at the window, close to which stood the foot of the bed with

the closed curtains. At first he looked at it absently; then he became

conscious that his eyes were fixed on it; and then a perverse desire

took possession of him to do the very thing which he had resolved not

to do up to this time—to look at the dead man.

He stretched out his hand toward the curtains, but checked himself in

the very act of undrawing them, turned his back sharply on the bed, and

walked toward the chimney-piece, to see what things were placed on it,

and to try if he could keep the dead man out of his mind in that way.

There was a pewter inkstand on the chimney-piece, with some mildewed

remains of ink in the bottle. There were two coarse china ornaments of

the commonest kind; and there was a square of embossed card, dirty and

fly-blown, with a collection of wretched riddles printed on it, in all

sorts of zigzag directions, and in variously colored inks. He took the

card and went away to read it at the table on which the candle was

placed, sitting down with his back resolutely turned to the curtained

bed.

He read the first riddle, the second, the third, all in one corner of

the card, then turned it round impatiently to look at another. Before

he could begin reading the riddles printed here the sound of the church

clock stopped him.

Eleven.

He had got through an hour of the time in the room with the dead man.

Once more he looked at the card. It was not easy to make out the

letters printed on it in consequence of the dimness of the light which

the landlord had left him—a common tallow candle, furnished with a pair

of heavy old-fashioned steel snuffers. Up to this time his mind had

been too much occupied to think of the light. He had left the wick of

the candle unsnuffed till it had risen higher than the flame, and had

burned into an odd pent-house shape at the top, from which morsels of

the charred cotton fell off from time to time in little flakes. He took

up the snuffers now and trimmed the wick. The light brightened

directly, and the room became less dismal.

Again he turned to the riddles, reading them doggedly and resolutely,

now in one corner of the card, now in another. All his efforts,

however, could not fix his attention on them. He pursued his occupation

mechanically, deriving no sort of impression from what he was reading.

It was as if a shadow from the curtained bed had got between his mind

and the gayly printed letters—a shadow that nothing could dispel. At

last he gave up the struggle, threw the card from him impatiently, and

took to walking softly up and down the room again.

The dead man, the dead man, the _hidden_ dead man on the bed!

There was the one persistent idea still haunting him. Hidden! Was it

only the body being there, or was it the body being there _concealed,_

that was preying on his mind? He stopped at the window with that doubt

in him, once more listening to the pattering rain, once more looking

out into the black darkness.

Still the dead man!

The darkness forced his mind back upon itself, and set his memory at

work, reviving with a painfully vivid distinctness the momentary

impression it had received from his first sight of the corpse. Before

long the face seemed to be hovering out in the middle of the darkness,

confronting him through the window, with the paleness whiter—with the

dreadful dull line of light between the imperfectly-closed eyelids

broader than he had seen it—with the parted lips slowly dropping

further and further away from each other—with the features growing

larger and moving closer, till they seemed to fill the window, and to

silence the rain, and to shut out the night.

The sound of a voice shouting below stairs woke him suddenly from the

dream of his own distempered fancy. He recognized it as the voice of

the landlord.

“Shut up at twelve, Ben,” he heard it say. “I’m off to bed.”

He wiped away the damp that had gathered on his forehead, reasoned with

himself for a little while, and resolved to shake his mind free of the

ghastly counterfeit which still clung to it by forcing himself to

confront, if it was only for a moment, the solemn reality. Without

allowing himself an instant to hesitate, he parted the curtains at the

foot of the bed, and looked through.

There was the sad, peaceful, white face, with the awful mystery of

stillness on it, laid back upon the pillow. No stir, no change there!

He only looked at it for a moment before he closed the curtains again,

but that moment steadied him, calmed him, restored him—mind and body—to

himself. He returned to his old occupation of walking up and down the

room, persevering in it this time till the clock struck again.

Twelve.

As the sound of the clock-bell died away, it was succeeded by the

confused noise downstairs of the drinkers in the taproom leaving the

house. The next sound, after an interval of silence, was caused by the

barring of the door and the closing of the shutters at the back of the

inn. Then the silence followed again, and was disturbed no more.

He was alone now—absolutely, hopelessly alone with the dead man till

the next morning.

The wick of the candle wanted trimming again. He took up the snuffers,

but paused suddenly on the very point of using them, and looked

attentively at the candle—then back, over his shoulder, at the

curtained bed—then again at the candle. It had been lighted for the

first time to show him the way upstairs, and three parts of it, at

least, were already consumed. In another hour it would be burned out.

In another hour, unless he called at once to the man who had shut up

the inn for a fresh candle, he would be left in the dark.

Strongly as his mind had been affected since he had entered the room,

his unreasonable dread of encountering ridicule and of exposing his

courage to suspicion had not altogether lost its influence over him

even yet.

He lingered irresolutely by the table, waiting till he could prevail on

himself to open the door, and call from the landing, to the man who had

shut up the inn. In his present hesitating frame of mind, it was a kind

of relief to gain a few moments only by engaging in the trifling

occupation of snuffing the candle. His hand trembled a little, and the

snuffers were heavy and awkward to use. When he closed them on the

wick, he closed them a hair-breadth too low. In an instant the candle

was out, and the room was plunged in pitch darkness.

The one impression which the absence of light immediately produced on

his mind was distrust of the curtained bed—distrust which shaped itself

into no distinct idea, but which was powerful enough, in its very

vagueness, to bind him down to his chair, to make his heart beat fast,

and to set him listening intently. No sound stirred in the room, but

the familiar sound of the rain against the window, louder and sharper

now than he had heard it yet.

Still the vague distrust, the inexpressible dread possessed him, and

kept him in his chair. He had put his carpet-bag on the table when he

first entered the room, and he now took the key from his pocket,

reached out his hand softly, opened the bag, and groped in it for his

traveling writing-case, in which he knew that there was a small store

of matches. When he had got one of the matches he waited before he

struck it on the coarse wooden table, and listened intently again

without knowing why. Still there was no sound in the room but the

steady, ceaseless rattling sound of the rain.

He lighted the candle again without another moment of delay, and, on

the instant of its burning up, the first object in the room that his

eyes sought for was the curtained bed.

Just before the light had been put out he had looked in that direction,

and had seen no change, no disarrangement of any sort in the folds of

the closely-drawn curtains.

When he looked at the bed now, he saw hanging over the side of it a

long white hand.

It lay perfectly motionless midway on the side of the bed, where the

curtain at the head and the curtain at the foot met. Nothing more was

visible. The clinging curtains hid everything but the long white hand.

He stood looking at it, unable to stir, unable to call out—feeling

nothing, knowing nothing—every faculty he possessed gathered up and

lost in the one seeing faculty. How long that first panic held him he

never could tell afterward. It might have been only for a moment—it

might have been for many minutes together. How he got to the

bed—whether he ran to it headlong, or whether he approached it slowly;

how he wrought himself up to unclose the curtains and look in, he never

has remembered, and never will remember to his dying day. It is enough

that he did go to the bed, and that he did look inside the curtains.

The man had moved. One of his arms was outside the clothes; his face

was turned a little on the pillow; his eyelids were wide open. Changed

as to position and as to one of the features, the face was otherwise

fearfully and wonderfully unaltered. The dead paleness and the dead

quiet were on it still.

One glance showed Arthur this—one glance before he flew breathlessly to

the door and alarmed the house.

The man whom the landlord called “Ben” was the first to appear on the

stairs. In three words Arthur told him what had happened, and sent him

for the nearest doctor.

I, who tell you this story, was then staying with a medical friend of

mine, in practice at Doncaster, taking care of his patients for him

during his absence in London; and I, for the time being, was the

nearest doctor. They had sent for me from the inn when the stranger was

taken ill in the afternoon, but I was not at home, and medical

assistance was sought for elsewhere. When the man from The Two Robins

rang the night-bell, I was just thinking of going to bed. Naturally

enough, I did not believe a word of his story about “a dead man who had

come to life again.” However, I put on my hat, armed myself with one or

two bottles of restorative medicine, and ran to the inn, expecting to

find nothing more remarkable, when I got there, than a patient in a

fit.

My surprise at finding that the man had spoken the literal truth was

almost, if not quite, equaled by my astonishment at finding myself face

to face with Arthur Holliday as soon as I entered the bedroom. It was

no time then for giving or seeking explanations. We just shook hands

amazedly, and then I ordered everybody but Arthur out of the room, and

hurried to the man on the bed.

The kitchen fire had not been long out. There was plenty of hot water

in the boiler, and plenty of flannel to be had. With these, with my

medicines, and with such help as Arthur could render under my

direction, I dragged the man literally out of the jaws of death. In

less than an hour from the time when I had been called in, he was alive

and talking in the bed on which he had been laid out to wait for the

coroner’s inquest.

You will naturally ask me what had been the matter with him, and I

might treat you, in reply, to a long theory, plentifully sprinkled with

what the children call hard words. I prefer telling you that, in this

case, cause and effect could not be satisfactorily joined together by

any theory whatever. There are mysteries in life and the conditions of

it which human science has not fathomed yet; and I candidly confess to

you that, in bringing that man back to existence, I was, morally

speaking, groping haphazard in the dark. I know (from the testimony of

the doctor who attended him in the afternoon) that the vital machinery,

so far as its action is appreciable by our senses, had, in this case,

unquestionably stopped, and I am equally certain (seeing that I

recovered him) that the vital principle was not extinct. When I add

that he had suffered from a long and complicated illness, and that his

whole nervous system was utterly deranged, I have told you all I really

know of the physical condition of my dead-alive patient at the Two

Robins Inn.

When he “came to,” as the phrase goes, he was a startling object to

look at, with his colorless face, his sunken cheeks, his wild black

eyes, and his long black hair. The first question he asked me about

himself when he could speak made me suspect that I had been called in

to a man in my own profession. I mentioned to him my surmise, and he

told me that I was right.

He said he had come last from Paris, where he had been attached to a

hospital; that he had lately returned to England, on his way to

Edinburgh, to continue his studies; that he had been taken ill on the

journey; and that he had stopped to rest and recover himself at

Doncaster. He did not add a word about his name, or who he was, and of

course I did not question him on the subject. All I inquired when he

ceased speaking was what branch of the profession he intended to

follow.

“Any branch,” he said, bitterly, “which will put bread into the mouth

of a poor man.”

At this, Arthur, who had been hitherto watching him in silent

curiosity, burst out impetuously in his usual good-humored way:

“My dear fellow” (everybody was “my dear fellow” with Arthur), “now you

have come to life again, don’t begin by being down-hearted about your

prospects. I’ll answer for it I can help you to some capital thing in

the medical line, or, if I can’t, I know my father can.”

The medical student looked at him steadily.

“Thank you,” he said, coldly; then added, “May I ask who your father

is?”

“He’s well enough known all about this part of the country,” replied

Arthur. “He is a great manufacturer, and his name is Holliday.”

My hand was on the man’s wrist during this brief conversation. The

instant the name of Holliday was pronounced I felt the pulse under my

fingers flutter, stop, go on suddenly with a bound, and beat afterward

for a minute or two at the fever rate.

“How did you come here?” asked the stranger, quickly, excitably,

passionately almost.

Arthur related briefly what had happened from the time of his first

taking the bed at the inn.

“I am indebted to Mr. Holliday’s son, then, for the help that has saved

my life,” said the medical student, speaking to himself, with a

singular sarcasm in his voice. “Come here!”

He held out, as he spoke, his long, white, bony right hand.

“With all my heart,” said Arthur, taking his hand cordially. “I may

confess it now,” he continued, laughing, “upon my honor, you almost

frightened me out of my wits.”

The stranger did not seem to listen. His wild black eyes were fixed

with a look of eager interest on Arthur’s face, and his long bony

fingers kept tight hold of Arthur’s hand. Young Holliday, on his side,

returned the gaze, amazed and puzzled by the medical student’s odd

language and manners. The two faces were close together; I looked at

them, and, to my amazement, I was suddenly impressed by the sense of a

likeness between them—not in features or complexion, but solely in

expression. It must have been a strong likeness, or I should certainly

not have found it out, for I am naturally slow at detecting

resemblances between faces.

“You have saved my life,” said the strange man, still looking hard in

Arthur’s face, still holding tightly by his hand. “If you had been my

own brother, you could not have done more for me than that.”

He laid a singularly strong emphasis on those three words “my own

brother,” and a change passed over his face as he pronounced them—a

change that no language of mine is competent to describe.

“I hope I have not done being of service to you yet,” said Arthur.

“I’ll speak to my father as soon as I get home.”

“You seem to be fond and proud of your father,” said the medical

student. “I suppose, in return, he is fond and proud of you?”

“Of course he is,” answered Arthur, laughing. “Is there anything

wonderful in that? Isn’t _your_ father fond—”

The stranger suddenly dropped young Holliday’s hand and turned his face

away.

“I beg your pardon,” said Arthur. “I hope I have not unintentionally

pained you. I hope you have not lost your father?”

“I can’t well lose what I have never had,” retorted the medical

student, with a harsh mocking laugh.

“What you have never had!”

The strange man suddenly caught Arthur’s hand again, suddenly looked

once more hard in his face.

“Yes,” he said, with a repetition of the bitter laugh. “You have

brought a poor devil back into the world who has no business there. Do

I astonish you? Well, I have a fancy of my own for telling you what men

in my situation generally keep a secret. I have no name and no father.

The merciful law of society tells me I am nobody’s son! Ask your father

if he will be my father too, and help me on in life with the family

name.”

Arthur looked at me more puzzled than ever.

I signed to him to say nothing, and then laid my fingers again on the

man’s wrist. No. In spite of the extraordinary speech that he had just

made, he was not, as I had been disposed to suspect, beginning to get

light-headed. His pulse, by this time, had fallen back to a quiet, slow

beat, and his skin was moist and cool. Not a symptom of fever or

agitation about him.

Finding that neither of us answered him, he turned to me, and began

talking of the extraordinary nature of his case, and asking my advice

about the future course of medical treatment to which he ought to

subject himself. I said the matter required careful thinking over, and

suggested that I should send him a prescription a little later. He told

me to write it at once, as he would most likely be leaving Doncaster in

the morning before I was up. It was quite useless to represent to him

the folly and danger of such a proceeding as this. He heard me politely

and patiently, but held to his resolution, without offering any reasons

or explanations, and repeated to me that, if I wished to give him a

chance of seeing my prescription, I must write it at once.

Hearing this, Arthur volunteered the loan of a traveling writing-case,

which he said he had with him, and, bringing it to the bed, shook the

note-paper out of the pocket of the case forthwith in his usual

careless way. With the paper there fell out on the counterpane of the

bed a small packet of sticking-plaster, and a little water-color

drawing of a landscape.

The medical student took up the drawing and looked at it. His eye fell

on some initials neatly written in cipher in one corner. He started and

trembled; his pale face grew whiter than ever; his wild black eyes

turned on Arthur, and looked through and through him.

“A pretty drawing,” he said, in a remarkably quiet tone of voice.

“Ah! and done by such a pretty girl,” said Arthur. “Oh, such a pretty

girl! I wish it was not a landscape—I wish it was a portrait of her!”

“You admire her very much?”

Arthur, half in jest, half in earnest, kissed his hand for answer.

“Love at first sight,” said young Holliday, putting the drawing away

again. “But the course of it doesn’t run smooth. It’s the old story.

She’s monopolized, as usual; trammeled by a rash engagement to some

poor man who is never likely to get money enough to marry her. It was

lucky I heard of it in time, or I should certainly have risked a

declaration when she gave me that drawing. Here, doctor, here is pen,

ink, and paper all ready for you.”

“When she gave you that drawing? Gave it? gave it?”

He repeated the words slowly to himself, and suddenly closed his eyes.

A momentary distortion passed across his face, and I saw one of his

hands clutch up the bedclothes and squeeze them hard. I thought he was

going to be ill again, and begged that there might be no more talking.

He opened his eyes when I spoke, fixed them once more searchingly on

Arthur, and said, slowly and distinctly:

“You like her, and she likes you. The poor man may die out of your way.

Who can tell that she may not give you herself as well as her drawing,

after all?”

Before young Holliday could answer he turned to me, and said in a

whisper: “Now for the prescription.” From that time, though he spoke to

Arthur again, he never looked at him more.

When I had written the prescription, he examined it, approved of it,

and then astonished us both by abruptly wishing us good-night. I

offered to sit up with him, and he shook his head. Arthur offered to

sit up with him, and he said, shortly, with his face turned away, “No.”

I insisted on having somebody left to watch him. He gave way when he

found I was determined, and said he would accept the services of the

waiter at the inn.

“Thank you both,” he said, as we rose to go. “I have one last favor to

ask—not of you, doctor, for I leave you to exercise your professional

discretion, but of Mr. Holliday.” His eyes, while he spoke, still

rested steadily on me, and never once turned toward Arthur. “I beg that

Mr. Holliday will not mention to any one, least of all to his father,

the events that have occurred and the words that have passed in this

room. I entreat him to bury me in his memory as, but for him, I might

have been buried in my grave. I cannot give my reason for making this

strange request. I can only implore him to grant it.”

His voice faltered for the first time, and he hid his face on the

pillow. Arthur, completely bewildered, gave the required pledge. I took

young Holliday away with me immediately afterward to the house of my

friend, determining to go back to the inn and to see the medical

student again before he had left in the morning.

I returned to the inn at eight o’clock, purposely abstaining from

waking Arthur, who was sleeping off the past night’s excitement on one

of my friend’s sofas. A suspicion had occurred to me, as soon as I was

alone in my bedroom, which made me resolve that Holliday and the

stranger whose life he had saved should not meet again, if I could

prevent it.

I have already alluded to certain reports or scandals which I knew of

relating to the early life of Arthur’s father. While I was thinking, in

my bed, of what had passed at the inn; of the change in the student’s

pulse when he heard the name of Holliday; of the resemblance of

expression that I had discovered between his face and Arthur’s; of the

emphasis he had laid on those three words, “my own brother,” and of his

incomprehensible acknowledgment of his own illegitimacy—while I was

thinking of these things, the reports I have mentioned suddenly flew

into my mind, and linked themselves fast to the chain of my previous

reflections. Something within me whispered, “It is best that those two

young men should not meet again.” I felt it before I slept; I felt it

when I woke; and I went as I told you, alone to the inn the next

morning.

I had missed my only opportunity of seeing my nameless patient again.

He had been gone nearly an hour when I inquired for him.

I have now told you everything that I know for certain in relation to

the man whom I brought back to life in the double-bedded room of the

inn at Doncaster. What I have next to add is matter for inference and

surmise, and is not, strictly speaking, matter of fact.

I have to tell you, first, that the medical student turned out to be

strangely and unaccountably right in assuming it as more than probable

that Arthur Holliday would marry the young lady who had given him the

water-color drawing of the landscape. That marriage took place a little

more than a year after the events occurred which I have just been

relating.

The young couple came to live in the neighborhood in which I was then

established in practice. I was present at the wedding, and was rather

surprised to find that Arthur was singularly reserved with me, both

before and after his marriage, on the subject of the young lady’s prior

engagement. He only referred to it once when we were alone, merely

telling me, on that occasion, that his wife had done all that honor and

duty required of her in the matter, and that the engagement had been

broken off with the full approval of her parents. I never heard more

from him than this. For three years he and his wife lived together

happily. At the expiration of that time the symptoms of a serious

illness first declared themselves in Mrs. Arthur Holliday. It turned

out to be a long, lingering, hopeless malady. I attended her

throughout. We had been great friends when she was well, and we became

more attached to each other than ever when she was ill. I had many long

and interesting conversations with her in the intervals when she

suffered least. The result of one of those conversations I may briefly

relate, leaving you to draw any inferences from it that you please.

The interview to which I refer occurred shortly before her death.

I called one evening as usual, and found her alone, with a look in her

eyes which told me she had been crying. She only informed me at first

that she had been depressed in spirits, but by little and little she

became more communicative, and confessed to me that she had been

looking over some old letters which had been addressed to her, before

she had seen Arthur, by a man to whom she had been engaged to be

married. I asked her how the engagement came to be broken off. She

replied that it had not been broken off, but that it had died out in a

very mysterious way. The person to whom she was engaged—her first love,

she called him—was very poor, and there was no immediate prospect of

their being married. He followed my profession, and went abroad to

study. They had corresponded regularly until the time when, as she

believed, he had returned to England. From that period she heard no

more of him. He was of a fretful, sensitive temperament, and she feared

that she might have inadvertently done or said something to offend him.

However that might be, he had never written to her again, and after

waiting a year she had married Arthur. I asked when the first

estrangement had begun, and found that the time at which she ceased to

hear anything of her first lover exactly corresponded with the time at

which I had been called in to my mysterious patient at The Two Robins

Inn.

A fortnight after that conversation she died. In course of time Arthur

married again. Of late years he has lived principally in London, and I

have seen little or nothing of him.

I have some years to pass over before I can approach to anything like a

conclusion of this fragmentary narrative. And even when that later

period is reached, the little that I have to say will not occupy your

attention for more than a few minutes.

One rainy autumn evening, while I was still practicing as a country

doctor, I was sitting alone, thinking over a case then under my charge,

which sorely perplexed me, when I heard a low knock at the door of my

room.

“Come in,” I cried, looking up curiously to see who wanted me.

After a momentary delay, the lock moved, and a long, white, bony hand

stole round the door as it opened, gently pushing it over a fold in the

carpet which hindered it from working freely on the hinges. The hand

was followed by a man whose face instantly struck me with a very

strange sensation. There was something familiar to me in the look of

him, and yet it was also something that suggested the idea of change.

He quietly introduced himself as “Mr. Lorn,” presented to me some

excellent professional recommendations, and proposed to fill the place,

then vacant, of my assistant. While he was speaking I noticed it as

singular that we did not appear to be meeting each other like

strangers, and that, while I was certainly startled at seeing him, he

did not appear to be at all startled at seeing me.

It was on the tip of my tongue to say that I thought I had met with him

before. But there was something in his face, and something in my own

recollections—I can hardly say what—which unaccountably restrained me

from speaking and which as unaccountably attracted me to him at once,

and made me feel ready and glad to accept his proposal.

He took his assistant’s place on that very day. We got on together as

if we had been old friends from the first; but, throughout the whole

time of his residence in my house, he never volunteered any confidences

on the subject of his past life, and I never approached the forbidden

topic except by hints, which he resolutely refused to understand.

I had long had a notion that my patient at the inn might have been a

natural son of the elder Mr. Holliday’s, and that he might also have

been the man who was engaged to Arthur’s first wife. And now another

idea occurred to me, that Mr. Lorn was the only person in existence who

could, if he chose, enlighten me on both those doubtful points. But he

never did choose, and I was never enlightened. He remained with me till

I removed to London to try my fortune there as a physician for the

second time, and then he went his way and I went mine, and we have

never seen one another since.

I can add no more. I may have been right in my suspicion, or I may have

been wrong. All I know is that, in those days of my country practice,

when I came home late, and found my assistant asleep, and woke him, he

used to look, in coming to, wonderfully like the stranger at Doncaster

as he raised himself in the bed on that memorable night.

THE SIXTH DAY

An oppressively mild temperature, and steady, soft, settled rain—dismal

weather for idle people in the country. Miss Jessie, after looking

longingly out of the window, resigned herself to circumstances, and

gave up all hope of a ride. The gardener, the conservatory, the

rabbits, the raven, the housekeeper, and, as a last resource, even the

neglected piano, were all laid under contribution to help her through

the time. It was a long day, but thanks to her own talent for trifling,

she contrived to occupy it pleasantly enough.

Still no news of my son. The time was getting on now, and it was surely

not unreasonable to look for some tidings of him.

To-day Morgan and I both finished our third and last stories. I

corrected my brother’s contribution with no very great difficulty on

this occasion, and numbered it Nine. My own story came next, and was

thus accidentally distinguished as the last of the series—Number Ten.

When I dropped the two corresponding cards into the bowl, the thought

that there would be now no more to add seemed to quicken my prevailing

sense of anxiety on the subject of George’s return. A heavy depression

hung upon my spirits, and I went out desperately in the rain to shake

my mind free of oppressing influences by dint of hard bodily exercise.

The number drawn this evening was Three. On the production of the

corresponding manuscript it proved to be my turn to read again.

“I can promise you a little variety to-night,” I said, addressing our

fair guest, “if I can promise nothing else. This time it is not a story

of my own writing that I am about to read, but a copy of a very curious

correspondence which I found among my professional papers.”

Jessie’s countenance fell. “Is there no story in it?” she asked, rather

discontentedly.

“Certainly there is a story in it,” I replied—“a story of a much

lighter kind than any we have yet read, and which may, on that account,

prove acceptable, by way of contrast and relief, even if it fails to

attract you by other means. I obtained the original correspondence, I

must tell you, from the office of the Detective Police of London.”

Jessie’s face brightened. “That promises something to begin with,” she

said.

“Some years since,” I continued, “there was a desire at headquarters to

increase the numbers and efficiency of the Detective Police, and I had

the honor of being one of the persons privately consulted on that

occasion. The chief obstacle to the plan proposed lay in the difficulty

of finding new recruits. The ordinary rank and file of the police of

London are sober, trustworthy, and courageous men, but as a body they

are sadly wanting in intelligence. Knowing this, the authorities took

into consideration a scheme, which looked plausible enough on paper,

for availing themselves of the services of that proverbially sharp

class of men, the experienced clerks in attorney’s offices. Among the

persons whose advice was sought on this point, I was the only one who

dissented from the arrangement proposed. I felt certain that the really

experienced clerks intrusted with conducting private investigations and

hunting up lost evidence, were too well paid and too independently

situated in their various offices to care about entering the ranks of

the Detective Police, and submitting themselves to the rigid discipline

of Scotland Yard, and I ventured to predict that the inferior clerks

only, whose discretion was not to be trusted, would prove to be the men

who volunteered for detective employment. My advice was not taken and

the experiment of enlisting the clerks was tried in two or three cases.

I was naturally interested in the result, and in due course of time I

applied for information in the right quarter. In reply, the originals

of the letters of which I am now about to read the copies were sent to

me, with an intimation that the correspondence in this particular

instance offered a fair specimen of the results of the experiment in

the other cases. The letters amused me, and I obtained permission to

copy them before I sent them back. You will now hear, therefore, by his

own statement, how a certain attorney’s clerk succeeded in conducting a

very delicate investigation, and how the regular members of the

Detective Police contrived to help him through his first experiment.”

BROTHER GRIFFITH’S STORY of THE BITER BIT.

_Extracted from the Correspondence of the London Police_.

FROM CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE, OF THE DETECTIVE POLICE, TO SERGEANT

BULMER, OF THE SAME FORCE.

London, 4th July, 18—.

SERGEANT BULMER—This is to inform you that you are wanted to assist in

looking up a case of importance, which will require all the attention

of an experienced member of the force. The matter of the robbery on

which you are now engaged you will please to shift over to the young

man who brings you this letter. You will tell him all the circumstances

of the case, just as they stand; you will put him up to the progress

you have made (if any) toward detecting the person or persons by whom

the money has been stolen; and you will leave him to make the best he

can of the matter now in your hands. He is to have the whole

responsibility of the case, and the whole credit of his success if he

brings it to a proper issue.

So much for the orders that I am desired to communicate to you.

A word in your ear, next, about this new man who is to take your place.

His name is Matthew Sharpin, and he is to have the chance given him of

dashing into our office at one jump—supposing he turns out strong

enough to take it. You will naturally ask me how he comes by this

privilege. I can only tell you that he has some uncommonly strong

interest to back him in certain high quarters, which you and I had

better not mention except under our breaths. He has been a lawyer’s

clerk, and he is wonderfully conceited in his opinion of himself, as

well as mean and underhand, to look at. According to his own account,

he leaves his old trade and joins ours of his own free will and

preference. You will no more believe that than I do. My notion is, that

he has managed to ferret out some private information in connection

with the affairs of one of his master’s clients, which makes him rather

an awkward customer to keep in the office for the future, and which, at

the same time, gives him hold enough over his employer to make it

dangerous to drive him into a corner by turning him away. I think the

giving him this unheard-of chance among us is, in plain words, pretty

much like giving him hush money to keep him quiet. However that may be,

Mr. Matthew Sharpin is to have the case now in your hands, and if he

succeeds with it he pokes his ugly nose into our office as sure as

fate. I put you up to this, sergeant, so that you may not stand in your

own light by giving the new man any cause to complain of you at

headquarters, and remain yours,

FRANCIS THEAKSTONE. FROM MR. MATTHEW SHARPIN TO CHIEF INSPECTOR

THEAKSTONE.

London, 5th July, 18—.

DEAR SIR—Having now been favored with the necessary instructions from

Sergeant Bulmer, I beg to remind you of certain directions which I have

received relating to the report of my future proceedings which I am to

prepare for examination at headquarters.

The object of my writing, and of your examining what I have written

before you send it to the higher authorities, is, I am informed, to

give me, as an untried hand, the benefit of your advice in case I want

it (which I venture to think I shall not) at any stage of my

proceedings. As the extraordinary circumstances of the case on which I

am now engaged make it impossible for me to absent myself from the

place where the robbery was committed until I have made some progress

toward discovering the thief, I am necessarily precluded from

consulting you personally. Hence the necessity of my writing down the

various details, which might perhaps be better communicated by word of

mouth. This, if I am not mistaken, is the position in which we are now

placed. I state my own impressions on the subject in writing, in order

that we may clearly understand each other at the outset; and have the

honor to remain your obedient servant,

MATTHEW SHARPIN. FROM CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE TO MR. MATTHEW

SHARPIN.

London, 5th July, 18—.

SIR—You have begun by wasting time, ink, and paper. We both of us

perfectly well knew the position we stood in toward each other when I

sent you with my letter to Sergeant Bulmer. There was not the least

need to repeat it in writing. Be so good as to employ your pen in

future on the business actually in hand.

You have now three separate matters on which to write me. First, you

have to draw up a statement of your instructions received from Sergeant

Bulmer, in order to show us that nothing has escaped your memory, and

that you are thoroughly acquainted with all the circumstances of the

case which has been intrusted to you. Secondly, you are to inform me

what it is you propose to do. Thirdly, you are to report every inch of

your progress (if you make any) from day to day, and, if need be, from

hour to hour as well. This is _your_ duty. As to what _my_ duty may be,

when I want you to remind me of it, I will write and tell you so. In

the meantime, I remain yours,

FRANCIS THEAKSTONE. FROM MR. MATTHEW SHARPIN TO CHIEF INSPECTOR

THEAKSTONE.

London, 6th July, 18—.

SIR—You are rather an elderly person, and as such, naturally inclined

to be a little jealous of men like me, who are in the prime of their

lives and their faculties. Under these circumstances, it is my duty to

be considerate toward you, and not to bear too hardly on your small

failings. I decline, therefore, altogether to take offense at the tone

of your letter; I give you the full benefit of the natural generosity

of my nature; I sponge the very existence of your surly communication

out of my memory—in short, Chief Inspector Theakstone, I forgive you,

and proceed to business.

My first duty is to draw up a full statement of the instructions I have

received from Sergeant Bulmer. Here they are at your service, according

to my version of them.

At Number Thirteen Rutherford Street, Soho, there is a stationer’s

shop. It is kept by one Mr. Yatman. He is a married man, but has no

family. Besides Mr. and Mrs. Yatman, the other inmates in the house are

a lodger, a young single man named Jay, who occupies the front room on

the second floor—a shopman, who sleeps in one of the attics, and a

servant-of-all-work, whose bed is in the back kitchen. Once a week a

charwoman comes to help this servant. These are all the persons who, on

ordinary occasions, have means of access to the interior of the house,

placed, as a matter of course, at their disposal. Mr. Yatman has been

in business for many years, carrying on his affairs prosperously enough

to realize a handsome independence for a person in his position.

Unfortunately for himself, he endeavored to increase the amount of his

property by speculating. He ventured boldly in his investments; luck

went against him; and rather less than two years ago he found himself a

poor man again. All that was saved out of the wreck of his property was

the sum of two hundred pounds.

Although Mr. Yatman did his best to meet his altered circumstances, by

giving up many of the luxuries and comforts to which he and his wife

had been accustomed, he found it impossible to retrench so far as to

allow of putting by any money from the income produced by his shop. The

business has been declining of late years, the cheap advertising

stationers having done it injury with the public. Consequently, up to

the last week, the only surplus property possessed by Mr. Yatman

consisted of the two hundred pounds which had been recovered from the

wreck of his fortune. This sum was placed as a deposit in a joint-stock

bank of the highest possible character.

Eight days ago Mr. Yatman and his lodger, Mr. Jay, held a conversation

on the subject of the commercial difficulties which are hampering trade

in all directions at the present time. Mr. Jay (who lives by supplying

the newspapers with short paragraphs relating to accidents, offenses,

and brief records of remarkable occurrences in general—who is, in

short, what they call a penny-a-liner) told his landlord that he had

been in the city that day and heard unfavorable rumors on the subject

of the joint-stock banks. The rumors to which he alluded had already

reached the ears of Mr. Yatman from other quarters, and the

confirmation of them by his lodger had such an effect on his

mind—predisposed as it was to alarm by the experience of his former

losses—that he resolved to go at once to the bank and withdraw his

deposit. It was then getting on toward the end of the afternoon, and he

arrived just in time to receive his money before the bank closed.

He received the deposit in bank-notes of the following amounts: one

fifty-pound note, three twenty-pound notes, six ten-pound notes, and

six five-pound notes. His object in drawing the money in this form was

to have it ready to lay out immediately in trifling loans, on good

security, among the small tradespeople of his district, some of whom

are sorely pressed for the very means of existence at the present time.

Investments of this kind seemed to Mr. Yatman to be the most safe and

the most profitable on which he could now venture.

He brought the money back in an envelope placed in his breast pocket,

and asked his shopman, on getting home, to look for a small, flat, tin

cash-box, which had not been used for years, and which, as Mr. Yatman

remembered it, was exactly of the right size to hold the bank-notes.

For some time the cash-box was searched for in vain. Mr. Yatman called

to his wife to know if she had any idea where it was. The question was

overheard by the servant-of-all-work, who was taking up the tea-tray at

the time, and by Mr. Jay, who was coming downstairs on his way out to

the theater. Ultimately the cash-box was found by the shopman. Mr.

Yatman placed the bank-notes in it, secured them by a padlock, and put

the box in his coat pocket. It stuck out of the coat pocket a very

little, but enough to be seen. Mr. Yatman remained at home, upstairs,

all that evening. No visitors called. At eleven o’clock he went to bed,

and put the cash-box under his pillow.

When he and his wife woke the next morning the box was gone. Payment of

the notes was immediately stopped at the Bank of England, but no news

of the money has been heard of since that time.

So far the circumstances of the case are perfectly clear. They point

unmistakably to the conclusion that the robbery must have been

committed by some person living in the house. Suspicion falls,

therefore, upon the servant-of-all-work, upon the shopman, and upon Mr.

Jay. The two first knew that the cash-box was being inquired for by

their master, but did not know what it was he wanted to put into it.

They would assume, of course, that it was money. They both had

opportunities (the servant when she took away the tea, and the shopman

when he came, after shutting up, to give the keys of the till to his

master) of seeing the cash-box in Mr. Yatman’s pocket, and of inferring

naturally, from its position there, that he intended to take it into

his bedroom with him at night.

Mr. Jay, on the other hand, had been told, during the afternoon’s

conversation on the subject of joint-stock banks, that his landlord had

a deposit of two hundred pounds in one of them. He also knew that Mr.

Yatman left him with the intention of drawing that money out; and he

heard the inquiry for the cash-box afterward, when he was coming

downstairs. He must, therefore, have inferred that the money was in the

house, and that the cash-box was the receptacle intended to contain it.

That he could have had any idea, however, of the place in which Mr.

Yatman intended to keep it for the night is impossible, seeing that he

went out before the box was found, and did not return till his landlord

was in bed. Consequently, if he committed the robbery, he must have

gone into the bedroom purely on speculation.

Speaking of the bedroom reminds me of the necessity of noticing the

situation of it in the house, and the means that exist of gaining easy

access to it at any hour of the night.

The room in question is the back room on the first floor. In

consequence of Mrs. Yatman’s constitutional nervousness on the subject

of fire, which makes her apprehend being burned alive in her room, in

case of accident, by the hampering of the lock if the key is turned in

it, her husband has never been accustomed to lock the bedroom door.

Both he and his wife are, by their own admission, heavy sleepers;

consequently, the risk to be run by any evil-disposed persons wishing

to plunder the bedroom was of the most trifling kind. They could enter

the room by merely turning the handle of the door; and, if they moved

with ordinary caution, there was no fear of their waking the sleepers

inside. This fact is of importance. It strengthens our conviction that

the money must have been taken by one of the inmates of the house,

because it tends to show that the robbery, in this case, might have

been committed by persons not possessed of the superior vigilance and

cunning of the experienced thief.

Such are the circumstances, as they were related to Sergeant Bulmer,

when he was first called in to discover the guilty parties, and, if

possible, to recover the lost bank-notes. The strictest inquiry which

he could institute failed of producing the smallest fragment of

evidence against any of the persons on whom suspicion naturally fell.

Their language and behavior on being informed of the robbery was

perfectly consistent with the language and behavior of innocent people.

Sergeant Bulmer felt from the first that this was a case for private

inquiry and secret observation. He began by recommending Mr. and Mrs.

Yatman to affect a feeling of perfect confidence in the innocence of

the persons living under their roof, and he then opened the campaign by

employing himself in following the goings and comings, and in

discovering the friends, the habits, and the secrets of the

maid-of-all-work.

Three days and nights of exertion on his own part, and on that of

others who were competent to assist his investigations, were enough to

satisfy him that there was no sound cause for suspicion against the

girl.

He next practiced the same precaution in relation to the shopman. There

was more difficulty and uncertainty in privately clearing up this

person’s character without his knowledge, but the obstacles were at

last smoothed away with tolerable success; and, though there is not the

same amount of certainty in this case which there was in the case of

the girl, there is still fair reason for supposing that the shopman has

had nothing to do with the robbery of the cash-box.

As a necessary consequence of these proceedings, the range of suspicion

now becomes limited to the lodger, Mr. Jay.

When I presented your letter of introduction to Sergeant Bulmer, he had

already made some inquiries on the subject of this young man. The

result, so far, has not been at all favorable. Mr. Jay’s habits are

irregular; he frequents public houses, and seems to be familiarly

acquainted with a great many dissolute characters; he is in debt to

most of the tradespeople whom he employs; he has not paid his rent to

Mr. Yatman for the last month; yesterday evening he came home excited

by liquor, and last week he was seen talking to a prize-fighter; in

short, though Mr. Jay does call himself a journalist, in virtue of his

penny-a-line contributions to the newspapers, he is a young man of low

tastes, vulgar manners, and bad habits. Nothing has yet been discovered

in relation to him which redounds to his credit in the smallest degree.

I have now reported, down to the very last details, all the particulars

communicated to me by Sergeant Bulmer. I believe you will not find an

omission anywhere; and I think you will admit, though you are

prejudiced against me, that a clearer statement of facts was never laid

before you than the statement I have now made. My next duty is to tell

you what I propose to do now that the case is confided to my hands.

In the first place, it is clearly my business to take up the case at

the point where Sergeant Bulmer has left it. On his authority, I am

justified in assuming that I have no need to trouble myself about the

maid-of-all-work and the shopman. Their characters are now to be

considered as cleared up. What remains to be privately investigated is

the question of the guilt or innocence of Mr. Jay. Before we give up

the notes for lost, we must make sure, if we can, that he knows nothing

about them.

This is the plan that I have adopted, with the full approval of Mr. and

Mrs. Yatman, for discovering whether Mr. Jay is or is not the person

who has stolen the cash-box:

I propose to-day to present myself at the house in the character of a

young man who is looking for lodgings. The back room on the second

floor will be shown to me as the room to let, and I shall establish

myself there to-night as a person from the country who has come to

London to look for a situation in a respectable shop or office.

By this means I shall be living next to the room occupied by Mr. Jay.

The partition between us is mere lath and plaster. I shall make a small

hole in it, near the cornice, through which I can see what Mr. Jay does

in his room, and hear every word that is said when any friend happens

to call on him. Whenever he is at home, I shall be at my post of

observation; whenever he goes out, I shall be after him. By employing

these means of watching him, I believe I may look forward to the

discovery of his secret—if he knows anything about the lost

bank-notes—as to a dead certainty.

What you may think of my plan of observation I cannot undertake to say.

It appears to me to unite the invaluable merits of boldness and

simplicity. Fortified by this conviction, I close the present

communication with feelings of the most sanguine description in regard

to the future, and remain your obedient servant,

MATTHEW SHARPIN. FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

7th July.

SIR—As you have not honored me with any answer to my last

communication, I assume that, in spite of your prejudices against me,

it has produced the favorable impression on your mind which I ventured

to anticipate. Gratified and encouraged beyond measure by the token of

approval which your eloquent silence conveys to me, I proceed to report

the progress that has been made in the course of the last twenty-four

hours.

I am now comfortably established next door to Mr. Jay, and I am

delighted to say that I have two holes in the partition instead of one.

My natural sense of humor has led me into the pardonable extravagance

of giving them both appropriate names. One I call my peep-hole, and the

other my pipe-hole. The name of the first explains itself; the name of

the second refers to a small tin pipe or tube inserted in the hole, and

twisted so that the mouth of it comes close to my ear while I am

standing at my post of observation. Thus, while I am looking at Mr. Jay

through my peep-hole, I can hear every word that may be spoken in his

room through my pipe-hole.

Perfect candor—a virtue which I have possessed from my

childhood—compels me to acknowledge, before I go any further, that the

ingenious notion of adding a pipe-hole to my proposed peep-hole

originated with Mrs. Yatman. This lady—a most intelligent and

accomplished person, simple, and yet distinguished in her manners, has

entered into all my little plans with an enthusiasm and intelligence

which I cannot too highly praise. Mr. Yatman is so cast down by his

loss that he is quite incapable of affording me any assistance. Mrs.

Yatman, who is evidently most tenderly attached to him, feels her

husband’s sad condition of mind even more acutely than she feels the

loss of the money, and is mainly stimulated to exertion by her desire

to assist in raising him from the miserable state of prostration into

which he has now fallen.

“The money, Mr. Sharpin,” she said to me yesterday evening, with tears

in her eyes, “the money may be regained by rigid economy and strict

attention to business. It is my husband’s wretched state of mind that

makes me so anxious for the discovery of the thief. I may be wrong, but

I felt hopeful of success as soon as you entered the house; and I

believe that, if the wretch who robbed us is to be found, you are the

man to discover him.” I accepted this gratifying compliment in the

spirit in which it was offered, firmly believing that I shall be found,

sooner or later, to have thoroughly deserved it.

Let me now return to business—that is to say, to my peep-hole and my

pipe-hole.

I have enjoyed some hours of calm observation of Mr. Jay. Though rarely

at home, as I understand from Mrs. Yatman, on ordinary occasions, he

has been indoors the whole of this day. That is suspicious, to begin

with. I have to report, further, that he rose at a late hour this

morning (always a bad sign in a young man), and that he lost a great

deal of time, after he was up, in yawning and complaining to himself of

headache. Like other debauched characters, he ate little or nothing for

breakfast. His next proceeding was to smoke a pipe—a dirty clay pipe,

which a gentleman would have been ashamed to put between his lips. When

he had done smoking he took out pen, ink and paper, and sat down to

write with a groan—whether of remorse for having taken the bank-notes,

or of disgust at the task before him, I am unable to say. After writing

a few lines (too far away from my peep-hole to give me a chance of

reading over his shoulder), he leaned back in his chair, and amused

himself by humming the tunes of popular songs. I recognized “My Mary

Anne,” “Bobbin’ Around,” and “Old Dog Tray,” among other melodies.

Whether these do or do not represent secret signals by which he

communicates with his accomplices remains to be seen. After he had

amused himself for some time by humming, he got up and began to walk

about the room, occasionally stopping to add a sentence to the paper on

his desk. Before long he went to a locked cupboard and opened it. I

strained my eyes eagerly, in expectation of making a discovery. I saw

him take something carefully out of the cupboard—he turned round—and it

was only a pint bottle of brandy! Having drunk some of the liquor, this

extremely indolent reprobate lay down on his bed again, and in five

minutes was fast asleep.

After hearing him snoring for at least two hours, I was recalled to my

peep-hole by a knock at his door. He jumped up and opened it with

suspicious activity.

A very small boy, with a very dirty face, walked in, said: “Please,

sir, they’re waiting for you,” sat down on a chair with his legs a long

way from the ground, and instantly fell asleep! Mr. Jay swore an oath,

tied a wet towel round his head, and, going back to his paper, began to

cover it with writing as fast as his fingers could move the pen.

Occasionally getting up to dip the towel in water and tie it on again,

he continued at this employment for nearly three hours; then folded up

the leaves of writing, woke the boy, and gave them to him, with this

remarkable expression: “Now, then, young sleepy-head, quick march! If

you see the governor, tell him to have the money ready for me when I

call for it.” The boy grinned and disappeared. I was sorely tempted to

follow “sleepy-head,” but, on reflection, considered it safest still to

keep my eye on the proceedings of Mr. Jay.

In half an hour’s time he put on his hat and walked out. Of course I

put on my hat and walked out also. As I went downstairs I passed Mrs.

Yatman going up. The lady has been kind enough to undertake, by

previous arrangement between us, to search Mr. Jay’s room while he is

out of the way, and while I am necessarily engaged in the pleasing duty

of following him wherever he goes. On the occasion to which I now

refer, he walked straight to the nearest tavern and ordered a couple of

mutton-chops for his dinner. I placed myself in the next box to him,

and ordered a couple of mutton-chops for my dinner. Before I had been

in the room a minute, a young man of highly suspicious manners and

appearance, sitting at a table opposite, took his glass of porter in

his hand and joined Mr. Jay. I pretended to be reading the newspaper,

and listened, as in duty bound, with all my might.

“Jack has been here inquiring after you,” says the young man.

“Did he leave any message?” asks Mr. Jay.

“Yes,” says the other. “He told me, if I met with you, to say that he

wished very particularly to see you to-night, and that he would give

you a look in at Rutherford Street at seven o’clock.”

“All right,” says Mr. Jay. “I’ll get back in time to see him.”

Upon this, the suspicious-looking young man finished his porter, and

saying that he was rather in a hurry, took leave of his friend (perhaps

I should not be wrong if I said his accomplice?), and left the room.

At twenty-five minutes and a half past six—in these serious cases it is

important to be particular about time—Mr. Jay finished his chops and

paid his bill. At twenty-six minutes and three-quarters I finished my

chops and paid mine. In ten minutes more I was inside the house in

Rutherford Street, and was received by Mrs. Yatman in the passage. That

charming woman’s face exhibited an expression of melancholy and

disappointment which it quite grieved me to see.

“I am afraid, ma’am,” says I, “that you have not hit on any little

criminating discovery in the lodger’s room?”