The Uttermost Farthing

by R. Austin Freeman

  Produced by Steven desJardins and Distributed Proofreaders

  THE UTTERMOST FARTHING

  A SAVANT'S VENDETTA

  BY R. AUSTIN FREEMAN

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER

  I. The Motive Force

  II. "Number One"

  III. The Housemaid's Followers

  IV. The Gifts of Chance

  V. By-products of Industry

  VI. The Trail of the Serpent

  VII. The Uttermost Farthing

  THE UTTERMOST FARTHING

  I

  THE MOTIVE FORCE

  It is not without some misgivings that I at length make public thestrange history communicated to me by my lamented friend HumphreyChalloner. The outlook of the narrator is so evidently abnormal, hisethical standards are so remote from those ordinarily current, that thechronicle of his life and actions may not only fail to secure thesympathy of the reader but may even excite a certain amount of moralrepulsion. But by those who knew him, his generosity to the poor, andespecially to those who struggled against undeserved misfortune, will bean ample set-off to his severity and even ferocity towards the enemiesof society.

  Humphrey Challoner was a great savant spoiled by untimely wealth. When Iknew him he had lapsed into a mere dilettante; at least, so I thoughtat the time, though subsequent revelations showed him in a ratherdifferent light. He had some reputation as a criminal anthropologist andhad formerly been well known as a comparative anatomist, but when I madehis acquaintance he seemed to be occupied chiefly in making endlessadditions to the specimens in his private museum. This collection Icould never quite understand. It consisted chiefly of human and othermammalian skeletons, all of which presented certain small deviationsfrom the normal; but its object I could never make out--until after hisdeath; and then, indeed, the revelation was a truly astounding one.

  I first made Challoner's acquaintance in my professional capacity. Heconsulted me about some trifling ailment and we took rather a liking toeach other. He was a learned man and his learning overlapped my ownspecialty, so that we had a good deal in common. And his personalityinterested me deeply. He gave me the impression of a man naturallybuoyant, genial, witty, whose life had been blighted by some greatsorrow. Ordinarily sad and grave in manner, he exhibited flashes of agrim, fantastic humor that came as a delightful surprise and showed whathe had been, and might still have been, but for that tragedy at which hesometimes hinted. Gentle, sympathetic, generous, his universalkindliness had yet one curious exception: his attitude towards habitualoffenders against the law was one of almost ferocious vindictiveness.

  At the time that I went away for my autumn holiday his health was notquite satisfactory. He made no complaint, indeed he expressed himself asfeeling perfectly well; but a certain, indefinable change in hisappearance had made me a little uneasy. I said nothing to him on thesubject, merely asking him to keep me informed as to his conditionduring my absence, but it was not without anxiety that I took leave ofhim.

  The habits of London society enable a consultant to take a fairlyliberal holiday. I was absent about six weeks, and when I returned andcalled on Challoner, his appearance shocked me. There was no doubt nowas to the gravity of his condition. His head appeared almost to havedoubled in size. His face was bloated, his features were thickened, hiseyelids puffy and his eyes protruding. He stood, breathing hard from theexertion of crossing the room and held out an obviously swollen hand.

  "Well, Wharton," said he, with a strange, shapeless smile, "how do youfind me? Don't you think I'm getting a fine fellow? Growing like apumpkin, by Jove! I've changed the size of my collars three times in amonth and the new ones are too tight already." He laughed--as he hadspoken--in a thick, muffled voice and I made shift to produce some sortof smile in response to his hideous facial contortion.

  "You don't seem to like the novelty, my child," he continued gaily andwith another horrible grin. "Don't like this softening of the classicoutlines, hey? Well, I'll admit it isn't pretty, but, bless us! whatdoes that matter at my time of life?"

  I looked at him in consternation as he stood, breathing quickly, withthat uncanny smile on his enormous face. It was highly unprofessionalof me, no doubt, but there was little use in attempting to conceal myopinion of his case. Something inside his chest was pressing on thegreat veins of the neck and arms. That something was either an aneurysmor a solid tumor. A brief examination, to which he submitted withcheerful unconcern, showed that it was a solid growth, and I told himso. He knew some pathology and was, of course, an excellent anatomist,so there was no avoiding a detailed explanation.

  "Now, for my part," said he, buttoning up his waistcoat, "I'd soonerhave had an aneurysm. There's a finality about an aneurysm. It gives youfair notice so that you may settle your affairs, and then, pop! bang!and the affair's over. How long will this thing take?"

  I began to hum and haw nervously, but he interrupted: "It doesn't matterto me, you know, I'm only asking from curiosity; and I don't expect youto give a date. But is it a matter of days or weeks? I can see it isn'tone of months."

  "I should think, Challoner," I said huskily, "it may be four or fiveweeks--at the outside."

  "Ha!" he said brightly, "that will suit me nicely. I've finished my joband rounded up my affairs generally, so that I am ready whenever ithappens. But light your pipe and come and have a look at the museum."

  Now, as I knew (or believed I knew) by heart every specimen in thecollection, this suggestion struck me as exceedingly odd; but reflectingthat his brain might well have suffered some disturbance from thegeneral engorgement, I followed him without remark. Slowly we passeddown the corridor that led to the "museum wing," walked through theill-smelling laboratories (for Challoner prepared the bones of the loweranimals himself, though, for obvious reasons, he acquired the humanskeletons from dealers) and entered the long room where the maincollection was kept.

  Here we halted, and while Challoner recovered his breath, I looked roundon the familiar scene. The inevitable whale's skeleton--a small spermwhale--hung from the ceiling, on massive iron supports. The side of theroom nearest the door was occupied by a long glass case filled withskeletons of animals, all diseased, deformed or abnormal. On thefloor-space under the whale stood the skeletons of a camel and anaurochs. The camel was affected with rickets and the aurochs hadmultiple exostoses or bony tumors. At one end of the room was a largecase of skulls, all deformed or asymmetrical; at the other stood a longtable and a chest of shallow drawers; while the remaining long side ofthe room was filled from end to end by a glass case about eight feethigh containing a number of human skeletons, each neatly articulated andstanding on its own pedestal.

  Now, this long case had always been somewhat of a mystery to me. Itscontents differed from the other specimens in two respects. First,whereas all the other skeletons and the skulls bore full descriptivelabels, these human skeletons were distinguished merely by a number anda date on the pedestal; and, second, whereas all the other specimensillustrated some disease or deformity, these were, apparently, quitenormal or showed only some trifling abnormality. They were beautifullyprepared and bleached to ivory whiteness, but otherwise they were of nointerest, and I could never understand Challoner's object inaccumulating such a number of duplicate specimens.

  "You think you know this collection inside out," said Challoner, as ifreading my thoughts.

  "I know it pretty well, I think," was my reply.

  "You don't know it at all," he rejoined.

  "Oh, come!" I said. "I could write a catalogue of it from memory."

  Challoner laughed. "My dear fellow," said he, "you have never seen thereal gems of the collection. I am going to show them to you now."

  He passed his arm through mine and we walked s
lowly up the long room;and as we went, he glanced in at the skeletons in the great case with afaint and very horrible smile on his bloated face. At the extreme end Istopped him and pointed to the last skeleton in the case.

  "I want you to explain to me, Challoner, why you have distinguishedthis one by a different pedestal from the others."

  As I spoke, I ran my eye along the row of gaunt shapes that filled thegreat case. Each skeleton stood on a pedestal of ebonized wood on whichwas a number and a date painted in white, excepting the end one, thepedestal of which was coated with scarlet enamel and the number and dateon it in gold lettering.

  "That specimen," said Challoner, thoughtfully, "is the last of theflock. It made the collection complete. So I marked it with adistinctive pedestal. You will understand all about it when you takeover. Now come and look at my gems."

  He walked behind the chest of drawers and stood facing the wall whichwas covered with mahogany paneling. Each panel was about four feet wideby five high, was bordered by a row of carved rosettes and was separatedfrom the adjoining panels by pilasters.

  "Now, watch me, Wharton," said he. "You see these two rosettes near thebottom of the panel. You press your thumbs on them, so; and you give ahalf turn. That turns a catch. Then you do this." He grasped thepilaster on each side of the panel, gave a gentle pull, and panel andpilasters came away bodily, exposing a moderate-sized cupboard. Ihastily relieved him of the panel, and, when he had recovered hisbreath, he began to expound the contents of this curious hiding-place.

  "That row of books you will take possession of and examine when my leasefalls in. You are my executor and this collection will be yours to keepor give away or destroy, as you think fit. The books consist of afinger-print album, a portrait album, a catalogue and a history of thecollection. You will find them all quite interesting. Now I will showyou the gems if you will lift those boxes down on to the table."

  I did as he asked; lifting down the pile of shallow boxes and placingthem, at his direction, side by side on the table. When they werearranged to his satisfaction, he took off the lids with somewhat of aflourish, and I uttered an exclamation of amazement.

  The boxes were filled with dolls' heads; at least, such I took them tobe. But such dolls! I had never seen anything like them before. Sohorribly realistic and yet so unnatural! I can only describe theimpression they produced by that much-misused word "weird." They wereuncanny in the extreme, suggesting to the beholder the severed heads ofa company of fantastic, grotesque-looking dwarfs. Let me try to describethem in detail.

  Each head was about the size of a small monkey's, that is, about fourinches long. It appeared to be made of some fine leather or vellum,remarkably like human skin in texture. The hair in all of them wasdisproportionately long and very thick, so that it looked somewhat likea paint-brush. But it was undoubtedly human hair. The eyebrows too wereunnaturally thick and long and so were the mustache and beard, whenpresent; being composed, as I could plainly see, of genuine mustache andbeard hairs of full length and very closely set. Some were made torepresent clean-shaven men, and some even showed two or three days'growth of stubble; which stubble was disproportionately long and mostunnaturally dense. The eyes of all were closed and the eyelashes formeda thick, projecting brush. But despite the abnormal treatment of thehairy parts, these little heads had the most astonishingly realisticappearance and were, as I have said, excessively weird and ratherdreadful in aspect. And, in spite of the closed eyes and set features,each had an expression and character of its own; each, in fact, seemedto be a faithful and spirited portrait of a definite individual. Theywere upwards of twenty in number, all male and all represented personsof the European type. Each reposed in a little velvet-lined compartmentand each was distinguished by a label bearing a number and a date.

  I looked up at Challoner and found him regarding me with an inscrutableand hideous smile.

  "These are very extraordinary productions, Challoner," said I. "What arethey? And what are they made of?"

  "Made of, my dear fellow?" said he. "Why, the same as you and I are madeof, to be sure."

  "Do you mean to say," I exclaimed, "that these little heads are made ofhuman skin?"

  "Undoubtedly. Human skin and human hair. What else did you think?"

  I looked at him with a puzzled frown and finally said that I did notunderstand what he meant.

  "Have you never heard of the Mundurucu Indians?" he asked.

  I shook my head. "What about them?" I asked.

  "You will find an account of them in Bates' "Naturalist on the Amazon,"and there is a reference to them in Gould and Pyle's "Anomalies.""

  There was a pause, during which I gazed, not without awe, at the openboxes. Finally I looked at Challoner and asked, "Well?"

  "Well, these are examples of the Mundurucu work."

  I looked again at the boxes and I must confess that, as my eye traveledalong the rows of impassive faces and noted the perfect thoughdiminutive features, the tiny ears, the bristling hair, the frowningeyebrows--so discordant with the placid expression and peacefullyclosed eyes--a chill of horror crept over me. The whole thing was sounreal, so unnatural, so suggestive of some diabolical wizardry. Ilooked up sharply at my host.

  "Where did you get these things, Challoner?" I asked.

  His bloated face exhibited again that strange, inscrutable smile.

  "You will find a full account of them in the archives of the museum.Every specimen is fully described there and the history of itsacquirement and origin given in detail. They are interesting littleobjects, aren't they?"

  "Very," I replied abstractedly; for I was speculating at the moment onthe disagreement between the appearance of the heads and their impliedorigin. Finally I pointed out the discrepancy.

  "But these heads were never prepared by those Indians you speak of."

  "Why not?"

  "Because they are all Europeans; in fact, most of them look likeEnglishmen."

  "Well? And what about it?" Challoner seemed quietly amused at myperplexity, but at this moment my eye noted a further detail which--Icannot exactly say why--seemed to send a fresh shiver down my spine.

  "Look here, Challoner," I said. "Why is this head distinguished from theothers? They are all in compartments lined with black velvet and haveblack labels with white numbers and dates; this one has a compartmentlined with red velvet and a red label with a gold number and date, justas in the case of that end skeleton." I glanced across at the case andthen it came to me in a flash that the numbers and the dates wereidentical on both.

  Challoner saw that I had observed this and replied: "It is perfectlysimple, my dear fellow. That skeleton and this head were acquired on thesame day, and with their acquirement my collection was complete. Theywere the final specimens and I have added nothing since I got them. Butin the case of the head there was a further reason for a distinctivesetting: it is the gem of the whole collection. Just look at the hair.Take my lens and examine it."

  He handed me his lens and I picked the head out of its scarlet nest--itwas as light as a cork--and brought it close to my eye. And then, evenwithout the lens, I could see what Challoner meant. The hair presentedan excessively rare abnormality; it was what is known as "ringed hair;"that is to say, each hair was marked by alternate light and dark rings.

  "You say this is really human hair?" I asked.

  "Undoubtedly. And a very fine example of ringed hair; the only one, Imay say, that I have ever seen."

  "I have never seen a specimen before," said I, laying the little headdown in its compartment, "nor," I added, "have I ever seen or heard ofanything like these uncanny objects. Won't you tell me where you gotthem?"

  "Not now," said Challoner. "You will learn all about them from the'Archives,' and very interesting you will find them. And now we'll putthem away." He placed the lids on the boxes, and, when I had stowedthem away in the cupboard, he made me replace the panel and take aspecial note of the position of the fastenings for future use.

  "Can you stay and have some
dinner with me?" he asked, adding, "I amquite presentable at table, still, though I don't swallow verycomfortably."

  "Yes," I answered, "I will stay with pleasure; I am not officially backat work yet. Hanley is still in charge of my practice."

  Accordingly we dined together, though, as far as he was concerned, thedinner was rather an empty ceremony. But he was quite cheerful; in fact,he seemed in quite high spirits, and in the intervals of struggling withhis food contrived to talk a little in his quaint, rather grotesquelyhumorous fashion.

  While the meal was in progress, however, our conversation was merelydesultory and not very profuse; but when the cloth was removed and thewine set on the table he showed a disposition for more connected talk.

  "I suppose I can have a cigar, Wharton? Won't shorten my lifeseriously, h'm?"

  If it would have killed him on the spot, I should have raised noobjection. I replied by pushing the box towards him, and, when he hadselected a cigar and cut off its end with a meditative air, he looked upat me and said:

  "I am inclined to be reminiscent tonight, Wharton; to treat you to alittle autobiography, h'm?"

  "By all means. You will satisfy your own inclinations and my curiosityat the same time."

  "You're a deuced polite fellow, Wharton. But I'm not going to bore you.You'll be really interested in what I'm going to tell you; andespecially will you be interested when you come to go through the museumby the light of the little history that you are going to hear. For youmust know that my life for the last twenty years has been bound up withmy collection. The one is, as it were, a commentary on and anillustration of the other. Did you know that I had ever been married?"

  "No," I answered in some surprise; for Challoner had always seemed tome the very type of the solitary, self-contained bachelor.

  "I have never mentioned it," said he. "The subject would have been apainful one. It is not now. The malice of sorrow and misfortune losesits power as I near the end of my pilgrimage. Soon I shall step acrossthe border and be out of its jurisdiction forever."

  He paused, lit his cigar, took a few labored draughts of the fragrantsmoke, and resumed: "I did not marry until I was turned forty. I had nodesire to. I was a solitary man, full of my scientific interests and notat all susceptible to the influence of women. But at last I met my latewife and found her different from all other women whom I had seen. Shewas a beautiful girl, some twenty years younger than I, highlyintelligent, cultivated and possessed of considerable property. Ofcourse I was no match for her. I was nothing to look at, was double herage, was only moderately well off and had no special standing eithersocially or in the world of science. But she married me and, as I maysay, she married me handsomely; by which I mean that she always treatedour marriage as a great stroke of good fortune for her, as if theadvantages were all on her side instead of on mine. As a result, we wereabsolutely devoted to each other. Our life was all that married lifecould be and that it so seldom is. We were inseparable. In our work, inour play, in every interest and occupation, we were in perfect harmony.We grudged the briefest moment of separation and avoided all societybecause we were so perfectly happy with each other. She was a wife in amillion; and it was only after I had married her that I realized what adelightful thing it was to be alive. My former existence, looked back onfrom that time, seemed but a blank expanse through which I had stagnatedas a chrysalis lingers on, half alive, through the dreary months ofwinter.

  "We lived thus in unbroken concord, with mutual love that grew from dayto day, until two years of perfect happiness had passed.

  "And then the end came."

  Here Challoner paused, and a look of unutterable sadness settled on hispoor, misshapen face. I watched him with an uncomfortable premonition ofsomething disagreeable in the sequel of his narrative as, with histrembling, puffy hand, he re-lighted the cigar that had gone out in theinterval.

  "The end came," he repeated presently. "The perfect happiness of twohuman beings was shattered in a moment. Let me describe thecircumstances.

  "I am usually a light sleeper, like most men of an active mind, but onthis occasion I must have slept more heavily than usual. I awoke,however, with somewhat of a start and the feeling that something hadhappened. I immediately missed my wife and sat up in bed to listen.Faint creakings and sounds of movement were audible from below and I wasabout to get up and investigate when a door slammed, a bell rang loudlyand then the report of a pistol or gun echoed through the house.

  "I sprang out of bed and rushed down the stairs. As I reached the hall,someone ran past me in the darkness. There was a blinding flash closeto my face and a deafening explosion; and when I recovered my sight, theform of a man appeared for an instant dimly silhouetted in the openingof the street door. The door closed with a bang, leaving the housewrapped in silence and gloom.

  "My first impulse was to pursue the man, but it immediately gave way toalarm for my wife. I groped my way into the dining-room and was creepingtowards the place where the matches were kept when my bare foot touchedsomething soft and bulky. I stooped to examine it and my outspread handcame in contact with a face.

  "I sprang up with a gasp of terror and searched frantically for thematches. In a few moments I had found them and tremblingly struck alight; and the first glimmer of the flame turned my deadly fear into yetmore deadly realization. My wife lay on the hearth-rug, her upturnedface as white as marble, her half-open eyes already glazing. A great,brown scorch marked the breast of her night-dress and at its center wasa small stain of blood.

  "She was stone dead. I saw that at a glance. The bullet must have passedright through her heart and she must have died in an instant. That, too,I saw. And though I called her by her name and whispered words oftenderness into her ears; though I felt her pulseless wrists and chafedher hands--so waxen now and chill--I knew that she was gone.

  "I was still kneeling beside her, crazed, demented by grief and horror;still stroking her poor white hand, telling her that she was my dearone, my little Kate, and begging her, foolishly, to come back to me, tobe my little friend and playmate as of old; still, I say, babbling inthe insanity of grief, when I heard a soft step descending the stairs.It came nearer. The door opened and someone stole into the room ontip-toe. It was the housemaid, Harratt. She stood stock still when shesaw us and stared and uttered strange whimpering cries like a frighteneddog. And then, suddenly, she turned and stole away silently as she hadcome, and I heard her running softly upstairs. Presently she came downagain, but this time she passed the dining-room and went out of thestreet door. I vaguely supposed she had gone for assistance, but thematter did not concern me. My wife was dead. Nothing mattered now.

  "Harratt did not return, however, and I soon forgot her. The death of mydear one grew more real. I began to appreciate it as an actual fact. Andwith this realization, the question of my own death arose. I took it forgranted from the first. The burden of solitary existence was not to beentertained for a moment. The only question was how, and I debated thisin leisurely fashion, sitting on the floor with Kate's hand in mine. Ihad a pistol upstairs and, of course, there were keen-edged scalpels inthe laboratory. But, strange as it may appear, the bias of an anatomicaltraining even then opposed the idea of gross mechanical injuries.However, there were plenty of poisons available, and to this method Iinclined as more decent and dignified.

  "Having settled on the method, I was disposed to put it into practiceat once; but then another consideration arose. My wife would have to beburied. By some hands she must be laid in her last resting-place, andthose hands could be none other than my own. So I must stay behind for alittle while.

  "The hours passed on unreckoned until pencils of cold blue daylightbegan to stream in through the chinks of the shutters and contend withthe warm gaslight within. Then another footstep was heard on the stairsand the cook, Wilson, came into the room. She, like the housemaid,stopped dead when she saw my wife's corpse, and stood for an instantstaring wildly with her mouth wide open. But only for an instant. Thenext she was flying out
of the front door, rousing the street with herscreams.

  "The advent of the cook roused me. I knew that the police would arrivesoon and I instinctively looked about me to see how this unspeakablething had happened. I had already noticed that one of my wife'shands--the one that I had not been holding--was clenched, and I nowobserved that it grasped a little tuft of hair. I drew out a portion ofthe tuft and looked at it. It was coarse hair, about three inches longand a dull gray in color. I laid it on the clean note-paper in thedrawer of the bureau bookcase to examine later, and then glanced aroundthe room. The origin of the tragedy was obvious. The household plate hadbeen taken out of the plate chest in the pantry and laid out on the endof the dining table. There the things stood, their polished surfacessullied by the greasy finger-marks of the wretch who had murdered mywife. At those tell-tale marks I looked with new and growing interest.Finger-prints, in those days, had not yet been recognized by the publicor the police as effective means of identification. But they were wellknown to scientific men and I had given the subject some attentionmyself. And the sight of those signs-manual of iniquity had an immediateeffect on me; they converted the unknown perpetrator of this horror froma mere abstraction of disaster into a real, living person. With a suddenflush of hate and loathing, I realized that this wretch was even nowwalking the streets or lurking in his accursed den; and I realized, too,that these marks were, perhaps, the only links that connected him withthe foul deed that he had done.

  "I looked over the plate quickly and selected a salver and a large,globular teapot, on both of which the prints were very distinct. These Iplaced in a drawer of the bureau, and, turning the key, dropped it intothe pocket of my pajamas. And at that moment the bell rang violently.

  "I went to the door and admitted a police constable and the cook. Thelatter looked at me with evident fear and horror and the constable said,somewhat sternly:

  "'This young woman tells me there's something wrong here, sir.'

  "I led him into the dining-room--the cook remained at the door, peeringin with an ashen face--and showed him my wife's corpse. He took off hishelmet and asked rather gruffly how it happened. I gave him a briefaccount of the catastrophe, on which he made no comment except to remarkthat the inspector would be here presently.

  "The inspector actually arrived within a couple of minutes, accompaniedby a sergeant, and the two officers questioned me closely. I repeated mystatement and saw at once that they did not believe me; that theysuspected me of having committed the murder myself. I noted the factwith dull surprise but without annoyance. It didn't seem to matter to mewhat they thought.

  "They called the cook in and questioned her, but, of course, she knewnothing. Then they sent her to find the housemaid. But the housemaid haddisappeared and her outdoor clothes and a large hand-bag had disappearedtoo; which put a new complexion on the matter. Then the officersexamined the plate and looked at the finger-marks on it. The constablediscovered the tuft of hair in my poor wife's hand, and the inspectorhaving noted its color and looked rather hard at my hair, put it forsafety in a blue envelope, which he pocketed; and I suspect it never sawthe light again.

  "About this time the police surgeon arrived, but there was nothing forhim to do but note the state of the body as bearing on the time atwhich death took place. The police took possession of some of the platewith a dim idea of comparing the finger-prints with the fingers of themurderer if they should catch him.

  "But they never did catch him. Not a vestige of a clue to his identitywas ever forthcoming. The housemaid was searched for but never found.The coroner's jury returned a verdict of 'wilful murder' against someperson unknown. And that was the end of the matter. I accompanied mydearest to the place where she was laid to rest, where soon I shall joinher. And I came back alone to the empty house.

  "It is unnecessary for me to say that I did not kill myself. In theinterval I had seen things in a new light. It was evident to me from thefirst that the police would never capture that villain. And yet he hadto be captured. He had incurred a debt, and that debt had to be paid.Therefore I remained behind to collect it.

  "That was twenty years ago, Wharton; twenty long, gray, solitary years.Many a time have I longed to go to her, but the debt remained unpaid. Ihave tried to make the time pass by getting my little collectiontogether and studying the very instructive specimens in it; and it haslightened the burden. But all the time I have been working to collectthat debt and earn my release."

  He paused awhile, and I ventured to ask: "And is the debt paid?"

  "At last it is paid."

  "The man was caught, then, in the end?"

  "Yes. He was caught."

  "And I hope," I exclaimed fervently, "that the scoundrel met with hisdeserts; I mean, that he was duly executed."

  "Yes," Challoner answered quietly, "he was executed."

  "How did the police discover him, after all?" I asked.

  "You will find," said Challoner, "a full account of the affair in thelast volume of the 'Museum Archives';" then, noting the astonishment onmy face at this amazing statement, he added: "You see, Wharton, the'Museum Archives' are, in a sense, a personal diary; my life has beenwrapped up in the museum and I have associated all the actions of mylife with the collection. I think you will understand when you read it.And now let us dismiss these recollections of a ruined life. I have toldyou my story; I wanted you to hear it from my own lips, and you haveheard it. Now let us take a glass of wine and talk of something else."

  I looked at my watch and, finding it much later than I had supposed,rose to take my leave.

  "I oughtn't to have kept you up like this," I said. "You ought to havebeen in bed an hour ago."

  Challoner laughed his queer muffled laugh. "Bed!" exclaimed he. "I don'tgo to bed nowadays. Haven't been able to lie down for the lastfortnight."

  Of course he hadn't. I might have known that. "Well," I said, "at anyrate, let me make you comfortable for the night before I go. How do yougenerally manage?"

  "I rig up a head-rest on the edge of the table, pull up the armchair,wrap myself in a rug and sleep leaning forward. I'll show you. Just getdown Owen's 'Comparative Anatomy' and stack the volumes close to theedge of the table. Then set up Parker's 'Monograph on theShoulder-girdle' in a slanting position against them. Fine book, that ofParker's. I enjoyed it immensely when it first came out and it makes asplendid head-rest. I'll go and get into my pajamas while you arearranging the things."

  He went off to his adjacent bedroom and I piled up the ponderous volumeson the table and drew up the armchair. When he returned, I wrapped himin a couple of thick rugs and settled him in his chair. He laid his armson the massive monograph, rested his forehead on them and murmuredcheerfully that he should now be quite comfortable until the morning. Iwished him "good-night" and walked slowly to the door, and as I held itopen I stopped to look back at him. He raised his head and gave me afarewell smile; a queer, ugly smile, but full of courage and a noblepatience. And so I left him.

  Thereafter I called to see him every day and settled him to rest everynight. His disease made more rapid progress even than I had expected;but he was always bright and cheerful, never made any complaint andnever again referred to his troubled past.

  One afternoon I called a little later than usual, and when the housemaidopened the door I asked her how he was.

  "He isn't any better, sir," she answered. "He's getting most awful fat,sir; about the head I mean."

  "Where is he now?" I asked.

  "He's in the dining-room, sir; I think he's gone to sleep."

  I entered the room quietly and found him resting by the table. He waswrapped up in his rugs and his head rested on his beloved monograph. Iwalked up to him and spoke his name softly, but he did not rouse. Ileaned over him and listened, but no sound or movement of breathing wasperceptible. The housemaid was right. He had gone to sleep; or, in hisown phrase, he had passed out of the domain of sorrow.