III

Salisbury was a man of habit. When he got home, drenched to the skin,

his clothes hanging lank about him, and a ghastly dew besmearing his

hat, his only thought was of his health, of which he took studious care.

So, after changing his clothes and encasing himself in a warm

dressing-gown, he proceeded to prepare a sudorific in the shape of a hot

gin and water, warming the latter over one of those spirit-lamps which

mitigate the austerities of the modern hermit's life. By the time this

preparation had been exhibited, and Salisbury's disturbed feelings had

been soothed by a pipe of tobacco, he was able to get into bed in a

happy state of vacancy, without a thought of his adventure in the dark

archway, or of the weird fancies with which Dyson had seasoned his

dinner. It was the same at breakfast the next morning, for Salisbury

made a point of not thinking of any thing until that meal was over; but

when the cup and saucer were cleared away, and the morning pipe was lit,

he remembered the little ball of paper, and began fumbling in the

pockets of his wet coat. He did not remember into which pocket he had

put it, and as he dived now into one and now into another, he

experienced a strange feeling of apprehension lest it should not be

there at all, though he could not for the life of him have explained the

importance he attached to what was in all probability mere rubbish. But

he sighed with relief when his fingers touched the crumpled surface in

an inside pocket, and he drew it out gently and laid it on the little

desk by his easy-chair with as much care as if it had been some rare

jewel. Salisbury sat smoking and staring at his find for a few minutes,

an odd temptation to throw the thing in the fire and have done with it

struggling with as odd a speculation as to its possible contents, and as

to the reason why the infuriated woman should have flung a bit of paper

from her with such vehemence. As might be expected, it was the latter

feeling that conquered in the end, and yet it was with something like

repugnance that he at last took the paper and unrolled it, and laid it

out before him. It was a piece of common dirty paper, to all appearance

torn out of a cheap exercise-book, and in the middle were a few lines

written in a queer cramped hand. Salisbury bent his head and stared

eagerly at it for a moment, drawing a long breath, and then fell back in

his chair gazing blankly before him, till at last with a sudden

revulsion he burst into a peal of laughter, so long and loud and

uproarious that the landlady's baby on the floor below awoke from sleep

and echoed his mirth with hideous yells. But he laughed again and again,

and took the paper up to read a second time what seemed such meaningless

nonsense.

'Q. has had to go and see his friends in Paris,' it began. 'Traverse

Handle S. "Once around the grass, and twice around the lass, and

thrice around the maple tree."'

Salisbury took up the paper and crumpled it as the angry woman had done,

and aimed it at the fire. He did not throw it there, however, but

tossed it carelessly into the well of the desk, and laughed again. The

sheer folly of the thing offended him, and he was ashamed of his own

eager speculation, as one who pores over the high-sounding announcements

in the agony column of the daily paper, and finds nothing but

advertisement and triviality. He walked to the window, and stared out at

the languid morning life of his quarter; the maids in slatternly print

dresses washing door-steps, the fish-monger and the butcher on their

rounds, and the tradesmen standing at the doors of their small shops,

drooping for lack of trade and excitement. In the distance a blue haze

gave some grandeur to the prospect, but the view as a whole was

depressing, and would only have interested a student of the life of

London, who finds something rare and choice in its very aspect.

Salisbury turned away in disgust, and settled himself in the easy-chair,

upholstered in a bright shade of green, and decked with yellow gimp,

which was the pride and attraction of the apartments. Here he composed

himself to his morning's occupation--the perusal of a novel that dealt

with sport and love in a manner that suggested the collaboration of a

stud-groom and a ladies' college. In an ordinary way, however, Salisbury

would have been carried on by the interest of the story up to

lunch-time, but this morning he fidgeted in and out of his chair, took

the book up and laid it down again, and swore at last to himself and at

himself in mere irritation. In point of fact the jingle of the paper

found in the archway had 'got into his head,' and do what he would he

could not help muttering over and over, 'Once around the grass, and

twice around the lass, and thrice around the maple tree.' It became a

positive pain, like the foolish burden of a music-hall song,

everlastingly quoted, and sung at all hours of the day and night, and

treasured by the street-boys as an unfailing resource for six months

together. He went out into the streets, and tried to forget his enemy in

the jostling of the crowds and the roar and clatter of the traffic, but

presently he would find himself stealing quietly aside, and pacing some

deserted byway, vainly puzzling his brains, and trying to fix some

meaning to phrases that were meaningless. It was a positive relief when

Thursday came, and he remembered that he had made an appointment to go

and see Dyson; the flimsy reveries of the self-styled man of letters

appeared entertaining when compared with this ceaseless iteration, this

maze of thought from which there seemed no possibility of escape.

Dyson's abode was in one of the quietest of the quiet streets that led

down from the Strand to the river, and when Salisbury passed from the

narrow stairway into his friend's room, he saw that the uncle had been

beneficent indeed. The floor glowed and flamed with all the colours of

the East; it was, as Dyson pompously remarked, 'a sunset in a dream,'

and the lamplight, the twilight of London streets, was shut out with

strangely worked curtains, glittering here and there with threads of

gold. In the shelves of an oak _armoire_ stood jars and plates of old

French china, and the black and white of etchings not to be found in the

Haymarket or in Bond Street, stood out against the splendour of a

Japanese paper. Salisbury sat down on the settle by the hearth, and

sniffed the mingled fumes of incense and tobacco, wondering and dumb

before all this splendour after the green rep and the oleographs, the

gilt-framed mirror, and the lustres of his own apartment.

'I am glad you have come,' said Dyson. 'Comfortable little room, isn't

it? But you don't look very well, Salisbury. Nothing disagreed with you,

has it?'

'No; but I have been a good deal bothered for the last few days. The

fact is I had an odd kind of--of--adventure, I suppose I may call it,

that night I saw you, and it has worried me a good deal. And the

provoking part of it is that it's the merest nonsense--but, however, I

will tell you all about it, by and by. You were going to let me have the

rest of that odd story you began at the restaurant.'

'Yes. But I am afraid, Salisbury, you are incorrigible. You are a slave

to what you call matter of fact. You know perfectly well that in your

heart you think the oddness in that case is of my making, and that it is

all really as plain as the police reports. However, as I have begun, I

will go on. But first we will have something to drink, and you may as

well light your pipe.'

Dyson went up to the oak cupboard, and drew from its depths a rotund

bottle and two little glasses, quaintly gilded.

'It's Benedictine,' he said. 'You'll have some, won't you?'

Salisbury assented, and the two men sat sipping and smoking reflectively

for some minutes before Dyson began.

'Let me see,' he said at last, 'we were at the inquest, weren't we? No,

we had done with that. Ah, I remember. I was telling you that on the

whole I had been successful in my inquiries, investigation, or whatever

you like to call it, into the matter. Wasn't that where I left off?'

'Yes, that was it. To be precise, I think "though" was the last word you

said on the matter.'

'Exactly. I have been thinking it all over since the other night, and I

have come to the conclusion that that "though" is a very big "though"

indeed. Not to put too fine a point on it, I have had to confess that

what I found out, or thought I found out, amounts in reality to nothing.

I am as far away from the heart of the case as ever. However, I may as

well tell you what I do know. You may remember my saying that I was

impressed a good deal by some remarks of one of the doctors who gave

evidence at the inquest. Well, I determined that my first step must be

to try if I could get something more definite and intelligible out of

that doctor. Somehow or other I managed to get an introduction to the

man, and he gave me an appointment to come and see him. He turned out to

be a pleasant, genial fellow; rather young and not in the least like the

typical medical man, and he began the conference by offering me whisky

and cigars. I didn't think it worth while to beat about the bush, so I

began by saying that part of his evidence at the Harlesden Inquest

struck me as very peculiar, and I gave him the printed report, with the

sentences in question underlined. He just glanced at the slip, and gave

me a queer look. "It struck you as peculiar, did it?" said he. "Well,

you must remember that the Harlesden case was very peculiar. In fact, I

think I may safely say that in some features it was unique--quite

unique." "Quite so," I replied, "and that's exactly why it interests me,

and why I want to know more about it. And I thought that if anybody

could give me any information it would be you. What is your opinion of

the matter?"

'It was a pretty downright sort of question, and my doctor looked rather

taken aback.

'"Well," he said, "as I fancy your motive in inquiring into the question

must be mere curiosity, I think I may tell you my opinion with tolerable

freedom. So, Mr., Mr. Dyson? if you want to know my theory, it is this:

I believe that Dr. Black killed his wife."

'"But the verdict," I answered, "the verdict was given from your own

evidence."

'"Quite so; the verdict was given in accordance with the evidence of my

colleague and myself, and, under the circumstances, I think the jury

acted very sensibly. In fact, I don't see what else they could have

done. But I stick to my opinion, mind you, and I say this also. I don't

wonder at Black's doing what I firmly believe he did. I think he was

justified."

'"Justified! How could that be?" I asked. I was astonished, as you may

imagine, at the answer I had got. The doctor wheeled round his chair and

looked steadily at me for a moment before he answered.

'"I suppose you are not a man of science yourself? No; then it would be

of no use my going into detail. I have always been firmly opposed myself

to any partnership between physiology and psychology. I believe that

both are bound to suffer. No one recognizes more decidedly than I do the

impassable gulf, the fathomless abyss that separates the world of

consciousness from the sphere of matter. We know that every change of

consciousness is accompanied by a rearrangement of the molecules in the

grey matter; and that is all. What the link between them is, or why

they occur together, we do not know, and most authorities believe that

we never can know. Yet, I will tell you that as I did my work, the knife

in my hand, I felt convinced, in spite of all theories, that what lay

before me was not the brain of a dead woman--not the brain of a human

being at all. Of course I saw the face; but it was quite placid, devoid

of all expression. It must have been a beautiful face, no doubt, but I

can honestly say that I would not have looked in that face when there

was life behind it for a thousand guineas, no, nor for twice that sum."

'"My dear sir," I said, "you surprise me extremely. You say that it was

not the brain of a human being. What was it then?"

'"The brain of a devil." He spoke quite coolly, and never moved a

muscle. "The brain of a devil," he repeated, "and I have no doubt that

Black found some way of putting an end to it. I don't blame him if he

did. Whatever Mrs. Black was, she was not fit to stay in this world.

Will you have anything more? No? Good-night, good-night."

'It was a queer sort of opinion to get from a man of science, wasn't it?

When he was saying that he would not have looked on that face when alive

for a thousand guineas, or two thousand guineas, I was thinking of the

face I had seen, but I said nothing. I went again to Harlesden, and

passed from one shop to another, making small purchases, and trying to

find out whether there was anything about the Blacks which was not

already common property, but there was very little to hear. One of the

tradesmen to whom I spoke said he had known the dead woman well; she

used to buy of him such quantities of grocery as were required for

their small household, for they never kept a servant, but had a

charwoman in occasionally, and she had not seen Mrs. Black for months

before she died. According to this man Mrs. Black was "a nice lady,"

always kind and considerate, and so fond of her husband and he of her,

as every one thought. And yet, to put the doctor's opinion on one side,

I knew what I had seen. And then after thinking it all over, and putting

one thing with another, it seemed to me that the only person likely to

give me much assistance would be Black himself, and I made up my mind to

find him. Of course he wasn't to be found in Harlesden; he had left, I

was told, directly after the funeral. Everything in the house had been

sold, and one fine day Black got into the train with a small

portmanteau, and went, nobody knew where. It was a chance if he were

ever heard of again, and it was by a mere chance that I came across him

at last. I was walking one day along Gray's Inn Road, not bound for

anywhere in particular, but looking about me, as usual, and holding on

to my hat, for it was a gusty day in early March, and the wind was

making the treetops in the Inn rock and quiver. I had come up from the

Holborn end, and I had almost got to Theobald's Road when I noticed a

man walking in front of me, leaning on a stick, and to all appearance

very feeble. There was something about his look that made me curious, I

don't know why, and I began to walk briskly with the idea of overtaking

him, when of a sudden his hat blew off and came bounding along the

pavement to my feet. Of course I rescued the hat, and gave it a glance

as I went towards its owner. It was a biography in itself; a Piccadilly

maker's name in the inside, but I don't think a beggar would have picked

it out of the gutter. Then I looked up and saw Dr. Black of Harlesden

waiting for me. A queer thing, wasn't it? But, Salisbury, what a change!

When I saw Dr. Black come down the steps of his house at Harlesden he

was an upright man, walking firmly with well-built limbs; a man, I

should say, in the prime of his life. And now before me there crouched

this wretched creature, bent and feeble, with shrunken cheeks, and hair

that was whitening fast, and limbs that trembled and shook together, and

misery in his eyes. He thanked me for bringing him his hat, saying, "I

don't think I should ever have got it, I can't run much now. A gusty

day, sir, isn't it?" and with this he was turning away, but by little

and little I contrived to draw him into the current of conversation, and

we walked together eastward. I think the man would have been glad to get

rid of me; but I didn't intend to let him go, and he stopped at last in

front of a miserable house in a miserable street. It was, I verily

believe, one of the most wretched quarters I have ever seen: houses that

must have been sordid and hideous enough when new, that had gathered

foulness with every year, and now seemed to lean and totter to their

fall. "I live up there," said Black, pointing to the tiles, "not in the

front--in the back. I am very quiet there. I won't ask you to come in

now, but perhaps some other day----" I caught him up at that, and told

him I should be only too glad to come and see him. He gave me an odd

sort of glance, as if he were wondering what on earth I or anybody else

could care about him, and I left him fumbling with his latch-key. I

think you will say I did pretty well when I tell you that within a few

weeks I had made myself an intimate friend of Black's. I shall never

forget the first time I went to his room; I hope I shall never see such

abject, squalid misery again. The foul paper, from which all pattern or

trace of a pattern had long vanished, subdued and penetrated with the

grime of the evil street, was hanging in mouldering pennons from the

wall. Only at the end of the room was it possible to stand upright, and

the sight of the wretched bed and the odour of corruption that pervaded

the place made me turn faint and sick. Here I found him munching a piece

of bread; he seemed surprised to find that I had kept my promise, but he

gave me his chair and sat on the bed while we talked. I used to go to

see him often, and we had long conversations together, but he never

mentioned Harlesden or his wife. I fancy that he supposed me ignorant of

the matter, or thought that if I had heard of it, I should never connect

the respectable Dr. Black of Harlesden with a poor garreteer in the

backwoods of London. He was a strange man, and as we sat together

smoking, I often wondered whether he were mad or sane, for I think the

wildest dreams of Paracelsus and the Rosicrucians would appear plain and

sober fact compared with the theories I have heard him earnestly advance

in that grimy den of his. I once ventured to hint something of the sort

to him. I suggested that something he had said was in flat contradiction

to all science and all experience. "No," he answered, "not all

experience, for mine counts for something. I am no dealer in unproved

theories; what I say I have proved for myself, and at a terrible cost.

There is a region of knowledge which you will never know, which wise men

seeing from afar off shun like the plague, as well they may, but into

that region I have gone. If you knew, if you could even dream of what

may be done, of what one or two men have done in this quiet world of

ours, your very soul would shudder and faint within you. What you have

heard from me has been but the merest husk and outer covering of true

science--that science which means death, and that which is more awful

than death, to those who gain it. No, when men say that there are

strange things in the world, they little know the awe and the terror

that dwell always with them and about them." There was a sort of

fascination about the man that drew me to him, and I was quite sorry to

have to leave London for a month or two; I missed his odd talk. A few

days after I came back to town I thought I would look him up, but when I

gave the two rings at the bell that used to summon him, there was no

answer. I rang and rang again, and was just turning to go away, when the

door opened and a dirty woman asked me what I wanted. From her look I

fancy she took me for a plain-clothes officer after one of her lodgers,

but when I inquired if Mr. Black were in, she gave me a stare of another

kind. "There's no Mr. Black lives here," she said. "He's gone. He's dead

this six weeks. I always thought he was a bit queer in his head, or else

had been and got into some trouble or other. He used to go out every

morning from ten till one, and one Monday morning we heard him come in,

and go into his room and shut the door, and a few minutes after, just as

we was a-sitting down to our dinner, there was such a scream that I

thought I should have gone right off. And then we heard a stamping, and

down he came, raging and cursing most dreadful, swearing he had been

robbed of something that was worth millions. And then he just dropped

down in the passage, and we thought he was dead. We got him up to his

room, and put him on his bed, and I just sat there and waited, while my

'usband he went for the doctor. And there was the winder wide open, and

a little tin box he had lying on the floor open and empty, but of course

nobody could possible have got in at the winder, and as for him having

anything that was worth anything, it's nonsense, for he was often weeks

and weeks behind with his rent, and my 'usband he threatened often and

often to turn him into the street, for, as he said, we've got a living

to myke like other people--and, of course, that's true; but, somehow, I

didn't like to do it, though he was an odd kind of a man, and I fancy

had been better off. And then the doctor came and looked at him, and

said as he couldn't do nothing, and that night he died as I was

a-sitting by his bed; and I can tell you that, with one thing and

another, we lost money by him, for the few bits of clothes as he had

were worth next to nothing when they came to be sold." I gave the woman

half a sovereign for her trouble, and went home thinking of Dr. Black

and the epitaph she had made him, and wondering at his strange fancy

that he had been robbed. I take it that he had very little to fear on

that score, poor fellow; but I suppose that he was really mad, and died

in a sudden access of his mania. His landlady said that once or twice

when she had had occasion to go into his room (to dun the poor wretch

for his rent, most likely), he would keep her at the door for about a

minute, and that when she came in she would find him putting away his

tin box in the corner by the window; I suppose he had become possessed

with the idea of some great treasure, and fancied himself a wealthy man

in the midst of all his misery. _Explicit_, my tale is ended, and you

see that though I knew Black, I know nothing of his wife or of the

history of her death.--That's the Harlesden case, Salisbury, and I think

it interests me all the more deeply because there does not seem the

shadow of a possibility that I or any one else will ever know more about

it. What do you think of it?'

'Well, Dyson, I must say that I think you have contrived to surround the

whole thing with a mystery of your own making. I go for the doctor's

solution: Black murdered his wife, being himself in all probability an

undeveloped lunatic.'

'What? Do you believe, then, that this woman was something too awful,

too terrible to be allowed to remain on the earth? You will remember

that the doctor said it was the brain of a devil?'

'Yes, yes, but he was speaking, of course, metaphorically. It's really

quite a simple matter if you only look at it like that.'

'Ah, well, you may be right; but yet I am sure you are not. Well, well,

it's no good discussing it any more. A little more Benedictine? That's

right; try some of this tobacco. Didn't you say that you had been

bothered by something--something which happened that night we dined

together?'

'Yes, I have been worried, Dyson, worried a great deal. I----But it's

such a trivial matter--indeed, such an absurdity--that I feel ashamed to

trouble you with it.'

'Never mind, let's have it, absurd or not.'

With many hesitations, and with much inward resentment of the folly of

the thing, Salisbury told his tale, and repeated reluctantly the absurd

intelligence and the absurder doggerel of the scrap of paper, expecting

to hear Dyson burst out into a roar of laughter.

'Isn't it too bad that I should let myself be bothered by such stuff as

that?' he asked, when he had stuttered out the jingle of once, and

twice, and thrice.

Dyson listened to it all gravely, even to the end, and meditated for a

few minutes in silence.

'Yes,' he said at length, 'it was a curious chance, your taking shelter

in that archway just as those two went by. But I don't know that I

should call what was written on the paper nonsense; it is bizarre

certainly, but I expect it has a meaning for somebody. Just repeat it

again, will you, and I will write it down. Perhaps we might find a

cipher of some sort, though I hardly think we shall.'

Again had the reluctant lips of Salisbury slowly to stammer out the

rubbish that he abhorred, while Dyson jotted it down on a slip of paper.

'Look over it, will you?' he said, when it was done; 'it may be

important that I should have every word in its place. Is that all

right?'

'Yes; that is an accurate copy. But I don't think you will get much out

of it. Depend upon it, it is mere nonsense, a wanton scribble. I must be

going now, Dyson. No, no more; that stuff of yours is pretty strong.

Good-night.'

'I suppose you would like to hear from me, if I did find out anything?'

'No, not I; I don't want to hear about the thing again. You may regard

the discovery, if it is one, as your own.'

'Very well. Good-night.'