The three impostorsArthur Machen, Aubrey Beardsley


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1


THE THREE IMPOSTORS


By the same Author
and uniform with
this volume
The Great God Pan
and The Inmost Light
Price y. 6d. tut
London: John Lane


The Three Impostors
or The Transmutations
by Arthur Machen
TRANSLATOR OF 'L'HEPTAMERON' AND
'LE MOYKN DB PARVENIR'; AUTHOR
OF 'TUB CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDV"
AND 'THE GREAT GOD PAN'
London: John Lane, Vigo St
Boston: Roberts Bros., 1895


Copyrighted in the United States
All rights reserved
Edinburgh : T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty


The Navel of1 The Iron Maid' has appeared before.
Its reappearance in this volume is due to the courtesy
of the Editor of THE ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE.






CONTENTS
PAGE
PROLOGUE, I
ADVENTURE OF THE GOLD TIBERIUS, ... 8
THE ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT, ... 23
NOVEL OF THE DARK VALLEY, . . . . 31
ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING BROTHER, ... 65
NOVEL OF THE BLACK SEAL 8z
INCIDENT OF THE PRIVATE BAR l6l
THE DECORATIVE IMAGINATION, 182
NOVEL OF THE IRON MAID l86
THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER, 197
NOVEL OF THE WHITE POWDER, . . . 2O6
STRANGE OCCURRENCE IN CLERKENWELL, . . . 244
HISTORY OF THE YOUNG MAN WITH SPECTACLES, 255
ADVENTURE OF THE DESERTED RESIDENCE, . . 282





2 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
The other man looked doubtfully about
him.
'Is it quite prudent, do you think, Davies?'
he said, pausing with his hand on the moulder-
ing knocker. 'I don't think Lipsius would like
it. What do you say, Helen?'
'I agree with Davies. Davies is an artist,
and you are commonplace, Richmond, and a
bit of a coward. Let the door stand open, of
course. But what a pity Lipsius had to go
away! He would have enjoyed himself.'
'Yes,' replied the smooth Mr. Davies, 'that
summons to the west was very hard on the
doctor.'
The three passed out, leaving the hall door,
cracked and riven with frost and wet, half-open,
and they stood silent for a moment under the
ruinous shelter of the porch.
'Well,1 said the girl,' it is done at last. We
shall hurry no more on the track of the young
man with spectacles.'
'We owe a great deal to you,' said Mr. Davies
politely; 'the doctor said so before he left. But
have we not all three some farewells to make?
I, for my part, propose to say good-bye here,
before this picturesque but mouldy residence,


PROLOGUE 3
to my friend Mr. Burton, dealer in the antique
and curious,' and the man lifted his hat with an
exaggerated bow.
'And I,' said Richmond, 'bid adieu to Mr.
Wilkins, the private secretary, whose company
has, I confess, become a little tedious.'
'Farewell to Miss Lally, and to Miss Leicester
also,' said the girl, making as she spoke a
delicious curtsy. 'Farewell to all occult
adventure; the farce is played.'
Mr. Davies and the lady seemed full of
grim enjoyment, but Richmond tugged at his
whiskers nervously.
'I feel a bit shaken up,' he said. 'I 've seen
rougher things in the States, but that crying
noise he made gave me a sickish feeling. And
then the smell ;but my stomach was never
very strong.'
The three friends moved away from the
door, and began to walk slowly up and down
what had been a gravel path, but now lay green
and pulpy with damp mosses. It was a fine
autumn evening, and a faint sunlight shone on
the yellow walls of the old deserted house, and
showed the patches of gangrenous decay, and
all the stains, the black drift of rain from the


4 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
broken pipes, the scabrous blots where the bare
bricks were exposed, the green weeping of a
gaunt laburnum that stood beside the porch,
and ragged marks near the ground where the
reeking clay was gaining on the worn founda-
tions. It was a queer, rambling old place, the
centre perhaps two hundred years old, with
dormer windows sloping from the tiled roof,
and on each side there were Georgian wings;
bow windows had been carried up to the first
floor, and two dome-like cupolas that had once
been painted a bright green were now grey and
neutral. Broken urns lay upon the path, and a
heavy mist seemed to rise from the unctuous
clay; the neglected shrubberies, grown all
tangled and unshapen, smelt dank and evil,
and there was an atmosphere all about the
deserted mansion that proposed thoughts of
an opened grave. The three friends looked
dismally at the rough grasses and the nettles
that grew thick over lawn and flower-beds;
and at the sad water-pool in the midst of the
weeds. There, above green and oily scum
instead of lilies, stood a rusting Triton on the
rocks, sounding a dirge through a shattered
horn; and beyond, beyond the sunk fence and


PROLOGUE 5
the far meadows, the sun slid down and shone
red through the bars of the elm-trees.
Richmond shivered and stamped his foot.
'We had better be going soon,' he said;
'there is nothing else to be done here.'
'No,' said Davies; 'it is finished at last. I
thought for some time we should never get
hold of the gentleman with the spectacles. He
was a clever fellow, but, Lord! he broke up
badly at last. I can tell you, he looked white
at me when I touched him on the arm in the
bar. But where could he have hidden the
thing? We can all swear it was not on him.'
The girl laughed, and they turned away,
when Richmond gave a violent start.
'Ah!' he cried, turning to the girl, 'what
have you got there? Look, Davies, look; it's
all oozing and dripping.'
The young woman glanced down at the little
parcel she was carrying, and partially unfolded
the paper.
'Yes, look both of you,' she said; 'it's my
own idea. Don't you think it will do nicely for
the doctor's museum? It comes from the right
hand, the hand that took the Gold Tiberius.'
Mr. Davies nodded with a good deal of


6 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
approbation, and Richmond lifted his ugly
high-crowned bowler, and wiped his forehead
with a dingy handkerchief.
'I 'm going,' he said; 'you two can stay if
you like.'
The three went round by the stable-path,
past the withered wilderness of the old kitchen-
garden, and struck off by a hedge at the back,
making for a particular point in the road.
About five minutes later two gentlemen, whom
idleness had led to explore these forgotten
outskirts of London, came sauntering up the
shadowy carriage-drive. They had spied the
deserted house from the road, and as they
observed all the heavy desolation of the place,
they began to moralise in the great style, with
considerable debts to Jeremy Taylor.
'Look, Dyson,' said the one, as they drew
nearer; 'look at those upper windows; the sun
is setting, and, though the panes are dusty,
yet-
"The grimy sash an oriel burns."'
'Phillipps,' replied the elder and (it must be
said) the more pompous of the two,' I yield to
fantasy; I cannot withstand the influence of


PROLOGUE 7
the grotesque. Here, where all is falling into
dimness and dissolution, and we walk in cedarn
gloom, and the very air of heaven goes moulder-
ing to the lungs, I cannot remain commonplace.
I look at that deep glow on the panes, and the
house lies all enchanted; that very room, I tell
you, is within all blood and fire.'


THE GOLD TIBERIUS 9
shop in Great Queen Street, and proclaim to
any one who cared to listen that he had seen
the rising and setting of two successive suns.
The proprietor of the shop, a middle-aged man
of singular civility, tolerated Dyson partly out
of good nature, and partly because he was a
regular customer. He was allowed to sit on an
empty cask, and to express his sentiments on
literary and artistic matters till he was tired,
or the time for closing came; and if no fresh
customers were attracted, it is believed that
none were turned away by his eloquence.
Dyson was addicted to wild experiments in
tobacco; he never wearied of trying new com-
binations; and one evening he had just entered
the shop, and given utterance to his last pre-
posterous formula, when a young fellow, of
about his own age, who had come in a moment
later, asked the shopman to duplicate the order
on his account, smiling politely, as he spoke, to
Mr. Dyson's address. Dyson felt profoundly
flattered, and after a few phrases the two
entered into conversation, and in an hour's time
the tobacconist saw the new friends sitting side
by side on a couple of casks, deep in talk.
'My dear sir,' said Dyson, 'I will give you


TO THE THREE IMPOSTORS
the task of the literary man in a phrase. He
has got to do simply this—to invent a wonderful
story, and to tell it in a wonderful manner.'
'I will grant you that,' said Mr. Phillipps,' but
you will allow me to insist that in the hands
of the true artist in words all stories are
marvellous, and every circumstance has its
peculiar wonder. The matter is of little con-
sequence, the manner is everything. Indeed,
the highest skill is shown in taking matter
apparently commonplace and transmuting it
by the high alchemy of style into the pure gold
of art.'
'That is indeed a proof of great skill, but it
is great skill exerted foolishly, or at least
unadvisedly. It is as if a great violinist were
to show us what marvellous harmonies he could
draw from a child's banjo.'
'No, no, you are really wrong. I see you
take a radically mistaken view of life. But we
must thresh this out. Come to my rooms; I
live not far from here.'
It was thus that Mr. Dyson became the
associate of Mr. Charles Phillipps, who lived in
a quiet square not far from Holborn. Thence-
forth they haunted each other's rooms at


THE GOLD TIBERIUS u
intervals, sometimes regular, and occasionally
the reverse, and made appointments to meet
at the shop in Queen Street, where their talk
robbed the tobacconist's profit of half its charm.
There was a constant jarring of literary
formulas, Dyson exalting the claims of the pure
imagination; while Phillipps, who was a student
of physical science, and something of an
ethnologist, insisted that all literature ought
to have a scientific basis. By the mistaken
benevolence of deceased relatives both young
men were placed out of reach of hunger, and
so, meditating high achievements, idled their
time pleasantly away, and revelled in the
careless joys of a Bohemianism devoid of the
sharp seasoning of adversity.
One night in June Mr. Phillipps was sitting
in his room in the calm retirement of Red Lion
Square. He had opened the window, and was
smoking placidly, while he watched the move-
ment of life below. The sky was clear, and
the afterglow of sunset had lingered long about
it. The flushing twilight of a summer even-
ing vied with the gas-lamps in the square,
had fashioned a chiaroscuro that had in it
something unearthly; and the children, racing


12 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
to and fro upon the pavement, the lounging
idlers by the public, and the casual passers-by
rather flickered and hovered in the play of
lights than stood out substantial things. By
degrees in the houses opposite one window
after another leapt out a square of light; now
and again a figure would shape itself against a
blind and vanish, and to all this semi-theatrical
magic the runs and flourishes of brave Italian
opera played a little distance off on a piano-
organ seemed an appropriate accompaniment,
while the deep-muttered bass of the traffic of
Holborn never ceased. Phillipps enjoyed the
scene and its effects; the light in the sky faded
and turned to darkness, and the square gradually
grew silent, and still he sat dreaming at the
window, till the sharp peal of the house-bell
roused him, and looking at his watch, he found
that it was past ten o'clock. There was a
knock at the door, and his friend Mr. Dyson
entered, and, according to his custom, sat down
in an arm-chair and began to smoke in silence.
'You know, Phillipps,' he said at length,
'that I have always battled for the marvellous.
I remember your maintaining in that chair
that one has no business to make use of the


THE GOLD TIBERIUS 13
wonderful, the improbable, the odd coincidence
in literature, and you took the ground that it
was wrong to do so, because as a matter of fact
the wonderful and the improbable don't happen,
and men's lives are not really shaped by odd
coincidence. Now, mind you, if that were so,
I would not grant your conclusion, because I
think the "criticism-of-life" theory is all
nonsense; but I deny your premiss. A most
singular thing has happened to me to-night.'
'Really, Dyson, I am very glad to hear it.
Of course, I oppose your argument, whatever
it may be; but if you would be good enough
to tell me of your adventure, I should be
delighted.'
'Well, it came about like this. I have had a
very hard day's work; indeed, Ij have scarcely
moved from my old bureau since seven o'clock
last night. I wanted to work out that idea we
discussed last Tuesday, you know, the notion
of the fetish-worshipper?'
'Yes, I remember. Have you been able to
do anything with it?'
'Yes; it came out better than I expected;
but there were great difficulties, the usual
agony between the conception and the exe-


THE GOLD TIBERIUS 15
where waggons were standing to be hired; it
was, one might almost say, a street devoid
of inhabitants, and scarce a window showed
the glimmer of a light. I was wondering
at the strange peace and dimness there,
where it must be close to some roaring main
artery of London life, when suddenly I heard
the noise of dashing feet tearing along the
pavement at full speed, and from a narrow
passage, a mews or something of that kind, a
man was discharged as from a catapult under
my very nose, and rushed past me, flinging
something from him as he ran. He was gone,
and down another street in an instant, almost
before I knew what had happened; but I didn't
much bother about him, I was watching some-
thing else. I told you he had thrown some-
thing away; well, I watched what seemed a
line of flame flash through the air and fly
quivering over the pavement, and in spite of
myself I could not help tearing after it. The
impetus lessened, and I saw something like a
bright halfpenny roll slower and slower, and
then deflect towards the gutter, hover for a
moment on the edge, and dance down into a
drain. I believe I cried out in positive despair,


16 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
though I hadn't the least notion what I was
hunting; and then, to my joy, I saw that, instead
of dropping into the sewer, it had fallen flat
across two bars. I stooped down and picked
it up and whipped it into my pocket, and I
was just about to walk on when I heard again
that sound of dashing footsteps. I don't know
why I did it, but as a matter of fact I dived
down into the mews, or whatever it was, and
stood as much in the shadow as possible. A
man went by with a rush a few paces from
where I was standing, and I felt uncommonly
pleased that I was in hiding. I couldn't make
out much feature, but I saw his eyes gleaming
and his teeth showing, and he had an ugly-
looking knife in one hand, and I thought things
would be very unpleasant for gentleman number
one if the second robber, or robbed, or what
you like, caught him up. I can tell you,
Phillipps, a fox-hunt is exciting enough, when
the horn blows clear on a winter morning, and
the hounds give tongue, and the red-coats
charge away, but it's nothing to a man-hunt,
and that's what I had a slight glimpse of
to-night. There was murder in the fellow's
eyes as he went by, and I don't think there


i8 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
'Do you know what you have found?' he said.
'Apparently a gold coin of some antiquity,'
said Dyson coolly.
'Quite so, a gold Tiberius. No, that is wrong.
You have found the gold Tiberius. Look at
the reverse.'
Dyson looked and saw the coin was stamped
with the figure of a faun standing amidst reeds
and flowing water. The features, minute as
they were, stood out in delicate outline; it was
a face lovely and yet terrible, and Dyson thought
of the well-known passage of the lad's playmate,
gradually growing with his growth and in-
creasing with his stature, till the air was filled
with the rank fume of the goat.
'Yes,' he said; 'it is a curious coin. Do you
know it?'
'I know about it. It is one of the com-
paratively few historical objects in existence;
it is all storied like those jewels we have read
of. A whole cycle of legend has gathered
round the thing; the tale goes that it formed
part of an issue struck by Tiberius to com-
memorate an infamous excess. You see the
legend on the reverse: "Victoria." It is said
that by an extraordinary accident the whole


THE GOLD TIBERIUS 19
issue was thrown into the melting-pot, and that
only this one coin escaped. It glints through
history and legend, appearing and disappearing,
with intervals of a hundred years in time, and
continents in place. It was "discovered" by
an Italian humanist, and lost and rediscovered.
It has not been heard of since 1727, when Sir
Joshua Byrde, a Turkey merchant, brought it
•home from Aleppo, and vanished with it a
month after he had shown it to the virtuosi, no
man knew or knows where. And here it is!
'Put it into your pocket, Dyson,1 he said,
after a pause. 'I would not let any one have
a glimpse of the thing if I were you. I would
not talk about it. Did either of the men you
saw see you?'
'Well, I think not. I don't think the first
man, the man who was vomited out of the
dark passage, saw anything at all; and I am
sure that the second could not have seen me.'
'And you didn't really see them. You
couldn't recognise either the one or the other
if you met him in the street to-morrow?'
'No, I don't think I could. The street, as I
said, was dimly lighted, and they ran like
madmen.'


20 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
The two men sat silent for some time, each
weaving his own fancies of the story; but lust
of the marvellous was slowly overpowering
Dyson's more sober thoughts.
'It is all more strange than I fancied,' he
said at last. 'It was queer enough what I
saw; a man is sauntering along a quiet, sober,
everyday London street, a street of grey
houses and blank walls, and there, for a mo-
ment, a veil seems drawn aside, and the very
fume of the pit steams up through the flag-
stones, the ground glows, red-hot, beneath his
feet, and he seems to hear the hiss of the
infernal caldron. A man flying in mad terror
for his life, and furious hate pressing hot on
his steps with knife drawn ready; here indeed
is horror; but what is all that to what you
have told me? I tell you, Phillipps, I see the
plot thicken; our steps will henceforth be
dogged with mystery, and the most ordinary
incidents will teem with significance. You
may stand out against it, and shut your eyes,
but they will be forced open; mark my words,
you will have to yield to the inevitable. A
clue, tangled if you like, has been placed by
chance in our hands; it will be our business to


THE GOLD TIBERIUS 21
follow it up. As for the guilty person or
persons in this strange case, they will be unable
to escape us, our nets will be spread far and
wide over this great city, and suddenly, in the
streets and places of public resort, we shall in
some way or other be made aware that we are
in touch with the unknown criminal. Indeed,
I almost fancy I see him slowly approaching
this quiet square of yours; he is loitering at
street corners, wandering, apparently without
aim, down far-reaching thoroughfares, but all
the while coming nearer and nearer, drawn by
an irresistible magnetism, as ships were drawn
to the Loadstone Rock in the Eastern tale.'
'I certainly think,' replied Phillipps,' that if
you pull out that coin and flourish it under
people's noses as you are doing at the present
moment, you will very probably find yourself
in touch with the criminal, or a criminal. You
will undoubtedly be robbed with violence.
Otherwise, I see no reason why either of us
should be troubled. No one saw you secure
the coin, and no one knows you have it. I, for
my part, shall sleep peacefully, and go about
my business with a sense of security and a
firm dependence on the natural order of things.


22 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
The events of the evening, the adventure in
the street, have been odd, I grant you, but I
resolutely decline to have any more to do with
the matter, and, if necessary, I shall consult
the police. I will not be enslaved by a gold
Tiberius, even though it swims into my ken in
a manner which is somewhat melodramatic.'
'And I, for my part,' said Dyson, 'go forth
like a knight-errant in search of adventure.
Not that I shall need to seek; rather adven-
ture will seek me; I shall be like a spider in
the midst of his web, responsive to every move-
ment, and ever on the alert.'
Shortly afterwards Dyson took his leave,
and Mr. Phillipps spent the rest of the night
in examining some flint arrow-heads which
he had purchased. He had every reason to
believe that they were the work of a modern
and not a palaeolithic man ; still he was far from
gratified when a close scrutiny showed him
that his suspicions were well founded. In his
anger at the turpitude which would impose on
an ethnologist, he completely forgot Dyson and
the gold Tiberius ; and when he went to bed at
first sunlight, the whole tale had faded utterly
from his thoughts.


THE ENCOUNTER OF THE
PAVEMENT
MR. DYSON, walking leisurely along Oxford
Street, and staring with bland inquiry at what-
ever caught his attention, enjoyed in all its
rare flavours the sensation that he was really
very hard at work. His observation of man-
kind, the traffic, and the shop windows tickled
his faculties with an exquisite bouquet; he
looked serious, as one looks on whom charges
of weight and moment are laid; and he was
attentive in his glances to right and left, for
fear lest he should miss some circumstance
of more acute significance. He had narrowly
escaped being run over at a crossing by a
charging van, for he hated to hurry his steps,
and indeed the afternoon was warm; and he
had just halted by a place of popular refresh-
ment, when the astounding gestures of a well-
dressed individual on the opposite pavement
23


24 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
held him enchanted and gasping like a fish.
A treble line of hansoms, carriages, vans, cabs,
and omnibuses was tearing east and west, and
not the most daring adventurer of the crossings
would have cared to try his fortune; but the
person who had attracted Dyson's attention
seemed to rage on the very edge of the pave-
ment, now and then darting forward at the
hazard of instant death, and at each repulse
absolutely dancing with excitement, to the
rich amusement of the passers-by. At last a
gap that would have tried the courage of a
street-boy appeared between the serried lines of
vehicles, and the man rushed across in a frenzy,
and escaping by a hair's-breadth, pounced upon
Dyson as a tiger pounces on her prey. 'I saw
you looking about you,' he said, sputtering out
his words in his intense eagerness; 'would you
mind telling me this! Was the man who came
out of the Aerated Bread Shop and jumped
into the hansom three minutes ago a youngish-
looking man with dark whiskers and spectacles?
Can't you speak, man? For heaven's sake,
can't you speak? Answer me; it 's a matter
of life and death."
The words bubbled and boiled out of the


ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT 25
man's mouth in the fury of his emotion, his
face went from red to white, and the beads
of sweat stood out on his forehead; he
stamped his feet as he spoke, and tore with
his hand at his coat, as if something swelled
and choked him, stopping the passage of his
breath.
'My dear sir,' said Dyson, 'I always like to
be accurate. Your observation was perfectly
correct. As you say, a youngish man—a man,
I should say, of somewhat timid bearing—ran
rapidly out of the shop here, and bounced into
a hansom that must have been waiting for him,
as it went eastwards at once. Your friend also
wore spectacles, as you say. Perhaps you
would like me to call a hansom for you to
follow the gentleman?'
'No, thank you; it would be a waste of
time.' The man gulped down something which
appeared to rise in his throat, and Dyson was
alarmed to see him shaking with hysterical
laughter; he clung hard to a lamp-post, and
swayed and staggered like a ship in a heavy
gale.
'How shall I face the doctor?' he murmured
to himself. 'It is too hard to fail at the last


26 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
moment.' Then he seemed to recollect him-
self; he stood straight again, and looked quietly
at Dyson.
'I owe you an apology for my violence,' he
said at last. 'Many men would not be so
patient as you have been. Would you mind
adding to your kindness by walking with me
a little way? I feel a little sick; I think it's
the sun."
Dyson nodded assent, and devoted himself
to a quiet scrutiny of this strange personage
as they moved on together. The man was
dressed in quiet taste, and the most scrupulous
observer could find nothing amiss with the
fashion or make of his clothes; yet, from his
hat to his boots, everything seemed inappropri-
ate. His silk hat, Dyson thought, should have
been a high bowler of odious pattern, worn
with a baggy morning-coat, and an instinct
told him that the fellow did not commonly
carry a clean pocket-handkerchief. The face
was not of the most agreeable pattern, and
was in no way improved by a pair of bulbous
chin-whiskers of a ginger hue, into which
moustaches of like colour merged impercept-
ibly. Yet, in spite of these signals hung out by


ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT 27
nature, Dyson felt that the individual beside
him was something more than compact of
vulgarity. He was struggling with himself,
holding his feelings in check; but now and
again passion would mount black to his face,
and it was evidently by a supreme effort that
he kept himself from raging like a madman.
Dyson found something curious, and a little
terrible, in the spectacle of an occult emotion
thus striving for the mastery, and threatening
to break out at every instant with violence ; and
they had gone some distance before the person
whom he had met by so odd a hazard was able
to speak quietly.
'You are really very good,' he said. 'I
apologise again; my rudeness was really most
unjustifiable. I feel my conduct demands an
explanation, and I shall be happy to give it
you. Do you happen to know of any place
near here where one could sit down. I should
really be very glad.'
'My dear sir,' said Dyson solemnly, 'the
only cafe in London is close by. Pray do not
consider yourself as bound to offer me any ex-
planation, but at the same time I should be most
happy to listen to you. Let us turn down here.'


28 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
They walked down a sober street and turned
into what seemed a narrow passage past an
iron-barred gate thrown back. The passage
was paved with flagstones, and decorated with
handsome shrubs in pots on either side, and
the shadow of the high walls made a coolness
which was very agreeable after the hot breath of
the sunny street. Presently the passage opened
out into a tiny square, a charming place, a
morsel of France transplanted into the heart of
London. High walls rose on either side, covered
with glossy creepers, flower-beds beneath were
gay with nasturtiums, geraniums, and marigolds,
and odorous with mignonette, and in the centre
of the square a fountain, hidden by greenery,
sent a cool shower continually plashing into
the basin beneath. The very noise made
this retreat delightful. Chairs and tables were
disposed at convenient intervals, and at the
other end of the court broad doors had been
thrown back; beyond was a long, dark
room, and the turmoil of traffic had be-
come a distant murmur. Within the room
one or two men were sitting at the tables,
writing and sipping, but the courtyard was
empty.


ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT 29
'You see, we shall be quiet,1 said Dyson.
'Pray sit down here, Mr.?'
'Wilkins. My name is Henry Wilkins.'
'Sit here, Mr. Wilkins. I think you will
find that a comfortable seat. I suppose you
have not been here before? This is the quiet
time; the place will be like a hive at six
o'clock, and the chairs and tables will overflow
into that little alley there.'
A waiter came in response to the bell; and
after Dyson had politely inquired after the
health of M. Annibault, the proprietor, he
ordered a bottle of the wine of Champigny.
'The wine of Champigny,' he observed to
Mr. Wilkins, who was evidently a good deal
composed by the influence of the place, 'is a
Tourainian wine of great merit. Ah, here it is;
let me fill your glass. How do you find it?'
'Indeed,' said Mr. Wilkins, 'I should have
pronounced it a fine Burgundy. The bouquet
is very exquisite. I am fortunate in lighting
upon such a good Samaritan as yourself: I
wonder you did not think me mad. But if
you knew the terrors that assailed me, I am
sure you would no longer be surprised at con-
duct which was certainly most unjustifiable.'


30 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
He sipped his wine, and leant back in his
chair, relishing the drip and trickle of the foun-
tain, and the cool greenness that hedged in
this little port of refuge.
'Yes,' he said at last, 'that is indeed an
admirable wine. Thank you; you will allow
me to offer you another bottle?'
The waiter was summoned, and descended
through a trap-door in the floor of the dark
apartment and brought up the wine. Mr.
Wilkins lit a cigarette, and Dyson pulled out
his pipe.
'Now,' said Mr. Wilkins, ' I promised to give
you an explanation of my strange behaviour.
It is rather a long story, but I see, sir, that
you are no mere cold observer of the ebb and
flow of life. You take, I think, a warm and
an intelligent interest in the chances of your
fellow-creatures, and I believe you will find
what I have to tell not devoid of interest.'
Mr. Dyson signified his assent to these pro-
positions; and though he thought Mr. Wilkins's
diction a little pompous, prepared to interest
himself in his tale. The other, who had so
raged with passion half an hour before, was
now perfectly cool, and when he had smoked


ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT 31
out his cigarette, he began in an even voice to
relate the
NOVEL OF THE DARK VALLEY.
I am the son of a poor but learned clergy-
man in the West of England But I am
forgetting, these details are not of special
interest. I will briefly state, then, that my
father, who was, as I have said, a learned man,
had never learnt the specious arts by which
the great are flattered, and would never con-
descend to the despicable pursuit of self-adver-
tisement. Though his fondness for ancient
ceremonies and quaint customs, combined with
a kindness of heart that was unequalled and
a primitive and fervent piety, endeared him
to his moorland parishioners, such were not
the steps by which clergy then rose in the
Church, and at sixty my father was still in-
cumbent of the little benefice he had accepted
in his thirtieth year. The income of the living
was barely sufficient to support life in the
decencies which are expected of the Anglican
parson; and when my father died a few years
ago, I, his only child, found myself thrown
upon the world with a slender capital of less


ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT 33
walk, all made me feel a sinking at heart. I
put up for the night at a small hotel in a street
leading from the Strand, where my father had
stayed on his few brief visits to town ; and when
I went out after dinner, the real gaiety and
bustle of the Strand and Fleet Street could
cheer me but little, for in all this great city
there was no single human being whom I
could claim even as an acquaintance. I will
not weary you with the history of the next
year, for the adventures of a man who sinks
are too trite to be worth recalling. My money
did not last me long; I found that I must be
neatly dressed, or no one to whom I applied
would so much as listen to me; and I must
live in a street of decent reputation if I wished
to be treated with common civility. I applied
for various posts, for which, as I now see, I was
completely devoid of qualification; I tried to
become a clerk without having the smallest
notion of business habits; and I found, to my
cost, that a general knowledge of literature and
an execrable style of penmanship are far from
being looked upon with favour in commercial
circles. I had read one of the most charming
of the works of a famous novelist of the present
C
i


34 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
day, and I frequented the Fleet Street taverns
in the hope of making literary friends, and so
getting the introductions which I understood
were indispensable in the career of letters.
I was disappointed; I once or twice ventured
to address gentlemen who were sitting in
adjoining boxes, and I was answered, politely
indeed, but in a manner that told me my
advances were unusual. Pound by pound, my
small resources melted; I could no longer think
of appearances; I migrated to a shy quarter,
and my meals became mere observances. I
went out at one and returned to my room at
two, but nothing but a milk-cake had occurred
in the interval. In short, I became acquainted
with misfortune; and as I sat amidst slush and
ice on a seat in Hyde Park, munching a piece
of bread, I realised the bitterness of poverty,
and the feelings of a gentleman reduced to
something far below the condition of a vagrant.
In spite of all discouragement I did not desist
in my efforts to earn a living. I consulted
advertisement columns, I kept my eyes open
for a chance, I looked in at the windows of
stationers' shops, but all in vain. One evening
I was sitting in a Free Library, and I saw an


ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT 35
advertisement in one of the papers. It was
something like this: 'Wanted by a gentleman
a person of literary taste and abilities as
secretary and amanuensis. Must not object to
travel.' Of course I knew that such an adver-
tisement would have answers by the hundred,
and I thought my own chances of securing the
post extremely small; however, I applied at the
address given, and wrote to Mr. Smith, who
was staying at a large hotel at the West End.
I must confess that my heart gave a jump when
I received a note a couple of days later, asking
me to call at the Cosmopole at my earliest
convenience. I do not know, sir, what your
experiences of life may have been, and so
I cannot tell whether you have known such
moments. A slight sickness, my heart beating
rather more rapidly than usual, a choking in
the throat, and a difficulty of utterance; such
were my sensations as I walked to the Cosmo-
pole; I had to mention the name twice before
the hall porter could understand me, and as I
went upstairs my hands were wet. I was a
good deal struck by Mr. Smith's appearance;
he looked younger than I did, and there was
something mild and hesitating about his


36 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
expression. He was reading when I came in,
and he looked up when I gave my name.
'My dear sir,' he said, 'I am really delighted
to see you. I have read very carefully the
letter you were good enough to send me. Am
I to understand that this document is in your
own handwriting? He showed me the letter
I had written, and I told him I was not so
fortunate as to be able to keep a secretary
myself. 'Then, sir,' he went on, 'the post
I advertised is at your service. You have no
objection to travel, I presume?' As you may
imagine, I closed pretty eagerly with the offer
he made, and thus I entered the service of Mr.
Smith. For the first few weeks I had no
special duties; I had received a quarter's
salary, and a handsome allowance was made me
in lieu of board and lodging. One morning,
however, when I called at the hotel according
to instructions, my master informed me that I
must hold myself in readiness for a sea-voyage,
and, to spare unnecessary detail, in the course
of a fortnight we had landed at New York.
Mr. Smith told me that he was engaged on a
work of a special nature, in the compilation of
which some peculiar researches had to be made;


ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT 37
in short, I was given to understand that we
were to travel to the far West.
After about a week had been spent in New
York we took our seats in the cars, and began
a journey tedious beyond all conception. Day
after day, and night after night, the great train
rolled on, threading its way through cities the
very names of which were strange to me, passing
at slow speed over perilous viaducts, skirting
mountain ranges and pine forests, and plunging
into dense tracks of wood, where mile after mile
and hour after hour the same monotonous
growth of brushwood met the eye, and all
along the continual clatter and rattle of the
wheels upon the ill-laid lines made it difficult
to hear the voices of our fellow-passengers.
We were a heterogeneous and ever-changing
company; often I woke up in the dead of
night with the sudden grinding jar of the
breaks, and looking out found that we had
stopped in the shabby street of some frame-
built town, lighted chiefly by the flaring
windows of the saloon. A few rough-looking
fellows would often come out to stare at the
cars, and sometimes passengers got down, and
sometimes there was a party of two or three


40 THE THREE IMPOSTORS

connection with those piles of lumbered rock,
when Mr. Smith touched me lightly on the
shoulder. 'You will be glad to be done with
the cars, I have no doubt, Mr. Wilkins,' he
said. 'You were looking at the mountains, I
think? Well, I hope we shall be there to-night
.
The train stops at Reading, and I dare say we
shall manage to find our way.'
A few hours later the breaksman brought
the train to a standstill at the Reading depot, and we got out. I noticed that the town,
though of course built almost entirely of frame-
houses, was larger and busier than any we had
passed for the last two days. The dep6t was
crowded; and as the bell and whistle sounded,
I saw that a number of persons were preparing
to leave the cars, while an even greater number
were waiting to get on board. Besides the
passengers, there was a pretty dense crowd of
people, some of whom had come to meet or to
see off their friends and relatives, while others
were mere loafers. Several of our English
fellow-passengers got down at Reading, but
the confusion was so great that they were lost
to my sight almost immediately. Mr. Smith
beckoned to me to follow him, and we were


42 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
'em when you choose. I know my orders, you
see, and I mean to run this business through.'
'Very well, Mr. Evans, that is what we want.
Our money is good, you know. Bring them
round.'
I had stood silent, listening to this dialogue
and wondering what it meant. Smith began
to walk impatiently up and down the street,
and the man Evans was still standing at his
door. He had given a sharp whistle, and I
saw him looking me over in a quiet, leisurely
way, as if to make sure of my face for another
time. I was thinking what all this could
mean, when an ugly, slouching lad came up a
side passage, leading two raw-boned horses.
'Get up, Mr. Wilkins, and be quick about it,'
said Smith; 'we ought to be on our way.'
We rode off together into the gathering
darkness, and before long I looked back and
saw the far plain behind us, with the lights of
the town glimmering faintly; and in front rose
the mountains. Smith guided his horse on the
rough track as surely as if he had been riding
along Piccadilly, and I followed him as well
as I could. I was weary and exhausted, and
scarcely took note of anything; I felt that the


ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT 43
track was a gradual ascent, and here and there
I saw great boulders by the road. The ride
made but little impression on me. I have a
faint recollection of passing through a dense
black pine forest, where our horses had to pick
their way among the rocks, and I remember
the peculiar effect of the rarified air as we kept
still mounting higher and higher. I think I
must have been half asleep for the latter half
of the ride, and it was with a shock that I
heard Smith saying—
'Here we are, Wilkins. This is Blue Rock
Park. You will enjoy the view to-morrow.
To-night we will have something to eat, and
then go to bed.'
A man came out of a rough-looking house
and took the horses, and we found some fried
steak and coarse whisky awaiting us inside.
I had come to a strange place. There were
three rooms—the room in which we had supper,
Smith's room, and my own. The deaf old
man who did the work slept in a sort of shed,
and when I woke up the next morning and
walked out I found that the house stood in a
sort of hollow amongst the mountains; the
clumps of pines and some enormous bluish-


44 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
grey rocks that stood here and there between
the trees had given the place the name of Blue
Rock Park. On every side the snow-covered
mountains surrounded its, the breath of the air
was as wine, and when I climbed the slope and
looked down, I could see that, so far as any
human fellowship was concerned, I might as
well have been wrecked on some small island
in mid-Pacific. The only trace of man I could
see was the rough log-house where I had slept,
and in my ignorance I did not know that there
were similar houses within comparatively easy
distance, as distance is reckoned in the Rockies.
But at the moment, the utter, dreadful lonelyness rushed upon me, and the thought of the
great plain and the great sea that parted me
from the world I knew caught me by the
throat, and I wondered if I should die there in
that mountain hollow. It was a terrible instant,
and I have not yet forgotten it. Of course, I
managed to conquer my horror; I said I should
be all the stronger for the experience, and I
made up my mind to make the best of every-
thing. It was a rough life enough, and rough
enough board and lodging. I was left entirely
to myself. Smith I scarcely ever saw, nor did


ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT 45
I know when he was in the house. I have
often thought he was far away, and have been
surprised to see him walking out of his room,
locking the door behind him, and putting the
key in his pocket; and on several occasions,
when I fancied he was busy in his room, I have
seen him come in with his boots covered with
dust and dirt. So far as work went I enjoyed
a complete sinecure; I had nothing to do but
to walk about the valley, to eat, and to sleep.
With one thing and another I grew accustomed
to the life, and managed to make myself pretty
comfortable, and by degrees I began to venture
farther away from the house, and to explore
the country. One day I had contrived to get
into a neighbouring valley, and suddenly I
came upon a group of men sawing timber. I
went up to them, hoping that perhaps some of
them might be Englishmen; at all events, they
were human beings, and I should hear articulate
speech; for the old man I have mentioned,
besides being half blind and stone deaf, was
wholly dumb so far as I was concerned. I
was prepared to be welcomed in a rough and
ready fashion, without much of the forms of
politeness, but the grim glances and the short,


ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT 47
One of the men put his hand to his belt, but
his neighbour checked him, and answered me—
'You 'll find we 've got some of the resources
of civilisation before very long, mister, and I
expect you 'll not fancy them extremely. But,
any way, there's an Englishman tarrying here,
and I Ve no doubt he 'll be glad to see you.
There you are; that's Mr. D'Aubernoun.'
A young man, dressed like an English country
squire, came and stood at the door, and looked
at me. One of the men pointed to me and
said—
'That's the individual we were talking about
last night. Thought you might like to have a
look at him, squire, and here he is.'
The young fellow's good-natured English
face clouded over, and he glanced sternly at
me, and turned away with a gesture of contempt
and aversion.
'Sir,' I cried, 'I do not know what I have
done to be treated in this manner. You are
my fellow-countryman, and I expected some
courtesy."
He gave me a black look and made as if he
would go in, but he changed his mind and
faced me,


48 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
'You are rather imprudent, I think, to behave
in this manner. You must be counting on a
forbearance which cannot last very long, which
may last a very short'time indeed. And let
me tell you this, sir, you may call yourself an
Englishman, and drag the name of England
through the dirt, but you need not count on
any English influence to help you. If I were
you, I would not stay here much longer.'
He went into the inn, and the men quietly
watched my face as I stood there, wondering
whether I was going mad. The woman of the
house came out and stared at me as if I were a
wild beast or a savage, and I turned to her, and
spoke quietly—
'I am very hungry and thirsty. I have
walked a long way. I have plenty of money.
Will you give me something to eat and drink?'
'No, I won't,' she said. 'You had better quit
this,' I crawled home like a wounded beast, and
lay down on my bed. It was all a hopeless
puzzle to me; I knew nothing but rage, and
shame, and terror, and I suffered little more
when I passed by a house in an adjacent
valley, and some children who were playing


ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT 49
outside ran from me shrieking. I was forced
to walk to find some occupation; I should
have died if I had sat down quietly in Blue
Rock Park and looked all day at the moun-
tains; but wherever I saw a human being I
saw the same glance of hatred and aversion,
and once as I was crossing a thick brake I
heard a shot and the venomous hiss of a bullet
close to my ear.
One day I heard a conversation which
astounded me; I was sitting behind a rock
resting, and two men came along the track
and halted. One of them had got his feet
entangled in some wild vines, and swore
fiercely, but the other laughed, and said they
were useful things sometimes.
'What the hell do you mean?'
'Oh, nothing much. But they 're uncommon
tough, these here vines, and sometimes rope
is skerse and dear.'
The man who had sworn chuckled at this,
and I heard them sit down and light their
pipes.
'Have you seen him lately?' asked the
humourist.
1I sighted him the other day, but the darned
D


ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT 51
tired myself out. It was a clear moonlight
night, and in a couple of hours I found I was
approaching a place of dismal reputation in
the mountains, a deep cleft in the rocks,
known as Black Gulf Canon. Many years
before an unfortunate party of Englishmen
and Englishwomen had camped here and had
been surrounded by Indians. They were
captured, outraged, and put to death with
almost inconceivable tortures, and the roughest
of the trappers or woodsmen gave the canon
a wide berth even in the daytime. As I
crushed through the dense brushwood which
grew above the canon I heard voices; and
wondering who could be in such a place at
such a time, I went on, walking more care-
fully, and making as little noise as possible.
There was a great tree growing on the very
edge of the rocks, and I lay down and looked
out from behind the trunk. Black Gulf Canon
was below me, the moonlight shining bright
into its very depths from mid-heaven, and
casting shadows as black as death from the
pointed rock, and all the sheer rock on the
other side, overhanging the canon, was in dark-
ness. At intervals a light veil obscured the


52 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
moonlight, as a filmy cloud fleeted across the
moon, and a bitter wind blew shrill across
the gulf. I looked down, as I have said, and
saw twenty men standing in a semicircle
round a rock; I counted them one by one,
and knew most of them. They were the very
vilest of the vile, more vile than any den in
London could show, and there was murder,
and worse than murder, on the heads of not
a few. Facing them and me stood Mr. Smith,
with the rock before him, and on the rock
was a great pair of scales, such as are used
in the stores. I heard his voice ringing down
the canon as I lay beside the tree, and my
heart turned cold as I heard it.
'Life for gold,' he cried, 'a life for gold.
The blood and the life of an enemy for every
pound of gold.'
A man stepped out and raised one hand,
and with the other flung a bright lump of
something into the pan of the scales, which
clanged down, and Smith muttered something
in his ear. Then he cried again—
'Blood for gold, for a pound of gold, the
life of an enemy. For every pound of gold
upon the scales, a life.'


ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT 53
One by one the men came forward, each
lifting up his right hand; and the gold was
weighed in the scales, and each time Smith
leant forward and spoke to each man in his
ear. Then he cried again—
'Desire and lust for gold on the scales.
For every pound of gold enjoyment of desire."
I saw the same thing happen as before; the
uplifted hand and the metal weighed, and the
mouth whispering, and black passion on every
face.
Then, one by one, I saw the men again step
up to Smith. A muttered conversation seemed
to take place. I could see that Smith was
explaining and directing, and I noticed that
he gesticulated a little as one who points out
the way, and once or twice he moved his
hands quickly as if he would show that the
path was clear and could not be missed. I
kept my eyes so intently on his figure that
I noted little else, and at last it was with a
start that I realised that the canon was empty.
A moment before I thought I had seen the
group of villainous faces, and the two standing,
a little apart, by the rock; I had looked down
a moment, and when I glanced again into the


54 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
caflon there was no one there. In dumb terror
I made my way home, and I fell asleep in an
instant from exhaustion. No doubt I should
have slept on for many hours, but when I
woke up the sun was only rising, and the
light shone in on my bed. I had started up
from sleep with the sensation of having received
a violent shock; and as I looked in confusion
about me, I saw, to my amazement, that there
were three men in the room. One of them
had his hand on my shoulder, and spoke to me—
'Come, mister, wake up. Your time's up
now, I reckon, and the boys are waiting for
you outside, and they 're in a big hurry. Come
on; you can put on your clothes; it's kind of
chilly this morning.'
I saw the other two men smiling sourly at
each other, but I understood nothing. I simply
pulled on my clothes and said I was ready.
'All right; come on, then. You go first,
Nichols, and Jim and I will give the gentleman
an arm.'
They took me out into the sunlight, and
then I understood the meaning of a dull mur-
mur that had vaguely perplexed me while I
was dressing. There were about two hundred


ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT 55
men waiting outside, and some women too,
and when they saw me there was a low mutter-
ing growl. I did not know what I had done,
but that noise made my heart beat and the
sweat come out on my face. I saw confusedly,
as through a veil, the tumult and tossing of
the crowd, discordant voices were speaking,
and amongst all those faces there was not one
glance of mercy, but a fury of lust that I did
not understand. I found myself presently
walking in a sort of procession up the slope
of the valley, and on every side of me there
were men with revolvers in their hands. Now
and then a voice struck me, and I heard words
and sentences of which I could form no con-
nected story. But I understood that there was
one sentence of execration; I heard scraps of
stories that seemed strange and improbable.
Some one was talking of men, lured by cunning
devices from their homes and murdered with
hideous tortures, found writhing like wounded
snakes in dark and lonely places, only crying
for some one to stab them to the heart, and
so end their torments; and I heard another
voice speaking of innocent girls who had
vanished for a day or two, and then had come
J


56 THE THREE IMPOSTORS

back and died, blushing red with shame even
in the agonies of death. I wondered what it
all meant, and what was to happen; but I was
so weary that I walked on in a dream, scarcely
longing for anything but sleep. At last we
stopped. We had reached the summit of the
hill overlooking Blue Rock Valley, and I saw
that I was standing beneath a clump of trees
where I had often sat. I was in the midst of
a ring of armed men, and I saw that two or
three men were very busy with piles of wood,
while others were fingering a rope. Then
there was a stir in the crowd, and a man was
pushed forward. His hands and feet were
tightly bound with cord; and though his face
was unutterably villainous, I pitied him for the
agony that worked his features and twisted
his lips. I knew him; he was amongst those
that had gathered round Smith in Black Gulf
Canon. In an instant he was unbound and
stripped naked, borne beneath one of the
trees, and his neck encircled by a noose that
went around the trunk. A hoarse voice gave
some kind of order; there was a rush of feet,
and the rope tightened; and there before me
I saw the blackened face and the writhing


58 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
'My name is not Smith," I said, with some hope
left in me. 'My name is Wilkins. I was Mr.
Smith's secretary, but I knew nothing of him.'
'Hark at the black liar,' said the man. 'Secre-
tary be damned! You were clever enough, I
dare say, to slink out at night and keep your
face in the dark, but we 've tracked you out at
last. But your time's up. Come along.'
I was dragged to the tree and bound to
it with chains; I saw the piles of wood
heaped all about me, and shut my eyes. Then
I felt myself drenched all over with some
liquid, and looked again, and a woman grinned
at me. She had just emptied a great can of
petroleum over me and over the wood. A
voice shouted,' Fire away!' and I fainted, and
knew nothing more.
When I opened my eyes I was lying on a
bed in a bare, comfortless room. A doctor
was holding some strong salts to my nostrils,
and a gentleman standing by the bed, whom I
afterwards found to be the sheriff, addressed me.
'Say, mister,' he began, 'you 've had an
uncommon narrow squeak for it. The boys
were just about lighting up when I came along
with the posse, and I had as much as I could


ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT 59
do to bring you off, I can tell you. And, mind
you, I don't blame them; they had made up
their minds, you see, that you were the head of
the Black Gulf gang, and at first nothing I
could say would persuade them you weren't
Jack Smith. Luckily, a man from here named
Evans, that came along with us, allowed he had
seen you with Jack Smith, and that you were
yourself. So we brought you along and gaoled
you, but you can go if you like when you 're
through with this faint turn.'
I got on the cars the next day, and in three
weeks I was in London ; again almost penniless.
But from that time my fortune seemed to
change; I made influential friends in all direc-
tions; bank directors courted my company,
and editors positively flung themselves into my
arms. I had only to choose my career, and
after a while I determined that I was meant
by nature for a life of comparative leisure.
With an ease that seemed almost ridiculous,
I obtained a well-paid position in connection
with a prosperous political club. I have
charming chambers in a central neighbourhood,
close to the parks, the club chef exerts himself
when I lunch or dine, and the rarest vintages


60 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
in the cellar are always at my disposal. Yet,
since my return to London, I have never
known a day's security or peace; I tremble
when I awake lest Smith should be standing at
my bed, and every step I take seems to bring
me nearer to the edge of the precipice. Smith,
I knew, had escaped free from the raid of the
Vigilantes, and I grew faint at the thought
that he would in all probability return to
London, and that suddenly and unprepared I
should meet him face to face. Every morning
as I left my house I would peer up and down
the street, expecting to see that dreaded figure
awaiting me; I have delayed at street-corners,
my heart in my mouth, sickening at the thought
that a few quick steps might bring us together;
I could not bear to frequent the theatres or
music-halls, lest by some bizarre chance he
should prove to be my neighbour. Sometimes
I have been forced, against my will, to walk out
at night, and then in silent squares the shadows
have made me shudder, and in the medley of
meetings in the crowded thoroughfares I have
said to myself,' It must come sooner or later;
he will surely return to town, and I shall see
him when I feel most secure.' I scanned the


ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT 61
newspapers for hint or intimation of approach-
ing danger, and no small type nor report of
trivial interest was allowed to pass unread.
Especially I read and re-read the advertise-
ment columns, but without result; months
passed by, and I was undisturbed till, though
I felt far from safe, I no longer suffered from
the intolerable oppression of instant and ever-
present terror. This afternoon, as I was walk-
ing quietly along Oxford Street, I raised my
eyes and looked across the road, and then at
last I saw the man who had so long haunted
my thoughts.
Mr. Wilkins finished his wine, and leant back
in his chair, looking sadly at Dyson; and then,
as if a thought struck him, fished out of an
inner pocket a leather letter-case, and handed
a newspaper cutting across the table.
Dyson glanced closely at the slip, and saw
that it had been extracted from the columns of
an evening paper. It ran as follows:—
WHOLESALE LYNCHING.
SHOCKING STORY.
'A Dalziel telegram from Reading (Colorado)
states that advices received there from Blue


62 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
Rock Park report a frightful instance of popular
vengeance. For some time the neighbourhood
has been terrorised by the crimes of a gang of
desperadoes, who, under the cover of a care-
fully planned organisation, have perpetrated
the most infamous cruelties on men and women.
A Vigilance Committee was formed, and it was
found that the leader of the gang was a person
named Smith, living in Blue Rock Park.
Action was taken, and six of the worst in the
band were summarily strangled in the presence
of two or three hundred men and women.
Smith is said to have escaped.'
'This is a terrible story,' said Dyson; 'I can
well believe that your days and nights are
haunted by such fearful scenes as you have
described. But surely you have no need to
fear Smith? He has much more cause to fear
you. Consider: you have only to lay your
information before the police, and a warrant
would be immediately issued for his arrest.
Besides, you will, I am sure, excuse me for
what I am going to say.'
'My dear sir,' said Mr. Wilkins, 'I hope you
will speak to me with perfect freedom.'


ENCOUNTER OF THE PAVEMENT 63
'Well, then, I must confess that my impres-
sion was that you were rather disappointed at
not being able to stop the man before he drove
off. I thought you seemed annoyed that you
could not get across the street.'
'Sir, I did not know what I was about. I
caught sight of the man, but it was only for a
moment, and the agony you witnessed was the
agony of suspense. I was not perfectly certain
of the face, and the horrible thought that
Smith was again in London overwhelmed me.
I shuddered at the idea of this incarnate fiend,
whose soul is black with shocking crimes,
mingling free and unobserved amongst the
harmless crowds, meditating perhaps a new
and more fearful cycle of infamies. I tell you,
sir, that an awful being stalks through the
streets, a being before whom the sunlight itself
should blacken, and the summer air grow chill
and dank. Such thoughts as these rushed upon
me with the force of a whirlwind; I lost my
senses.'
'I see. I partly understand your feelings,
but I would impress on you that you have
nothing really to fear. Depend upon it, Smith
will not molest you in any way. You must


64 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
remember he himself has had a warning; and
indeed, from the brief glance I had of him, he
seemed to me to be a frightened-looking man.
However, I see it is getting late, and if you
will excuse me, Mr. Wilkins, I think I will be
going. I dare say we shall often meet here.'
Dyson walked off smartly, pondering the
strange story chance had brought him, and
finding on cool reflection that there was some-
thing a little strange in Mr. Wilkins's manner,
for which not even so weird a catalogue of
experiences could altogether account.


ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING
BROTHER
MR. CHARLES PHILLIPPS was, as has been
hinted, a gentleman of pronounced scientific
tastes. In his early days he had devoted him-
self with fond enthusiasm to the agreeable
study of biology, and a brief monograph on
the Embryology of the Microscopic Holo-
thuria had formed his first contribution to the
belles lettres. Later he had somewhat relaxed
the severity of his pursuits, and had dabbled
in the more frivolous subjects of palaeontology
and ethnology; he had a cabinet in his sitting-
room whose drawers were stuffed with rude
flint implements, and a charming fetish from
the South Seas was the dominant note in the
decorative scheme of the apartment. Flatter-
ing himself with the title of materialist, he
was in truth one of the most credulous of men,
but he required a marvel to be neatly draped
E


66 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
in the robes of Science before he would give it
any credit, and the wildest dreams took solid
shape to him if only the nomenclature were
severe and irreproachable. He laughed at the
witch, but quailed before the powers of the hyp-
notist, lifting his eyebrows when Christianity
was mentioned, but adoring protyle and the
ether. For the rest, he prided himself on a
boundless scepticism; the average tale of
wonder he heard with nothing but contempt,
and he would certainly not have credited a
word or syllable of Dyson's story of the pursuer
and pursued, unless the gold coin had been
produced as visible and tangible evidence. As
it was, he half suspected that Dyson had im-
posed on him; he knew his friend's disordered
fancies, and his habit of conjuring up the
marvellous to account for the entirely common-
place; and, on the whole, he was inclined to
think that the so-called facts in the odd adven-
ture had been gravely distorted in the telling.
Since the evening on which he had listened to
the tale he had paid Dyson a visit, and had
delivered himself of some serious talk on the
necessity of accurate observation, and the folly,
as he put it, of using a kaleidoscope instead of


THE MISSING BROTHER 67
a telescope in the view of things, to which
remarks his friend had listened with a smile
that was extremely sardonic. 'My dear fellow,'
Dyson had remarked at last,'you will allow me
to tell you that I see your drift perfectly.
However, you will be astonished to hear that
I consider you to be the visionary, while I am
a sober and serious spectator of human life.
You have gone round the circle ; and while you
fancy yourself far in the golden land of new
philosophies, you are in reality a dweller in a
metaphorical Clapham; your scepticism has
defeated itself and become a monstrous credu-
lity; you are, in fact, in the position of the bat
or owl, I forget which it was, who denied the
existence of the sun at noonday, and I shall
be astonished if you do not one day come to
me full of contrition for your manifold intellec-
tual errors, with a humble resolution to see
things in their true light for the future.' This
tirade had left Mr. Phillipps unimpressed; he
considered Dyson as hopeless, and he went
home to gloat over some primitive stone
implements that a friend had sent him from
India. He found that his landlady, seeing
them displayed in all their rude formlessness


68 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
upon the table, had removed the collection to
the dustbin, and had replaced it by lunch; and
the afternoon was spent in malodorous research.
Mrs. Brown, hearing these stones spoken of as
very valuable knives, had called him in his
hearing ' poor Mr. Phillipps,' and between rage
and evil odours he spent a sorry afternoon. It
was four o'clock before he had completed his
work of rescue; and, overpowered with the
flavours of decaying cabbage leaves, Phillipps
felt that he must have a walk to gain an
appetite for the evening meal. Unlike Dyson,
he walked fast, with his eyes on the pavement,
absorbed in his thoughts, and oblivious of the
life around him; and he could not have told by
what streets he had passed, when he suddenly
lifted up his eyes and found himself in Leicester
Square. The grass and flowers pleased him,
and he welcomed the opportunity of resting
for a few minutes, and glancing round, he saw
a bench which had only one occupant, a lady,
and as she was seated at one end, Phillipps
took up a position at the other extremity, and
began to pass in angry review the events of the
afternoon. He had noticed as he came up to
the bench that the person already there was


THE MISSING BROTHER 69
neatly dressed, and to all appearance young;
her face he could not see, as it was turned away
in apparent contemplation of the shrubs, and,
moreover, shielded with her hand; but it would
be doing wrong to Mr. Phillipps to imagine
that his choice of a seat was dictated by any
hopes of an affair of the heart, he had simply
preferred the company of one lady to that of
five dirty children, and having seated himself,
was immersed directly in thoughts of his mis-
fortunes. He had meditated changing his
lodgings; but now, on a judicial review of the
case in all its bearings, his calmer judgment
told him that the race of landladies is like
to the race of the leaves, and that there was but
little to choose between them. He resolved,
however, to talk to Mrs. Brown, the offender,
very coolly and yet severely, to point out the
extreme indiscretion of her conduct, and to
express a hope for better things in the future.
With this decision registered in his mind,
Phillipps was about to get up from the seat
and move off, when he was intensely annoyed
to hear a stifled sob, evidently from the lady,
who still continued her contemplation of the
shrubs and flower-beds. He clutched his stick


70 THE THREE IMPOSTORS

desperately, and in a moment would have been
in full retreat, when the lady turned her face
towards him, and with a mute entreaty bespoke
his attention. She was a young girl with a
quaint and piquant rather than a beautiful face,
and she was evidently in the bitterest distress.
Mr. Phillipps sat down again, and cursed his
chances heartily. The young lady looked at
him with a pair of charming eyes of a shining
hazel, which showed no trace of tears, though a
handkerchief was in her hand; she bit her lip,
and seemed to struggle with some overpowering
grief, and her whole attitude was all beseeching
and imploring. Phillipps sat on the edge of
the bench gazing awkwardly at her, and
wondering what was to come next, and she
looked at him still without speaking.
'Well, madam,' he said at last,' I understood
from your gesture that you wished to speak
to me. Is there anything I can do for you?
Though, if you will pardon me, I cannot help
saying that that seems highly improbable.'
'Ah, sir,' she said in a low, murmuring voice,
'do not speak harshly to me. I am in sore
straits, and I thought from your face that I could
safely ask your sympathy, if not your help.'


THE MISSING BROTHER 71
'Would you kindly tell me what is the
matter?' said Phillipps. 'Perhaps you would
like some tea?'
'I knew I could not be mistaken,' the lady
replied. 'That offer of refreshment bespeaks
a generous mind. But tea, alas! is powerless
to console me. If you will let me, I shall
endeavour to explain my trouble.'
'I should be glad if you would.'
'I shall do so, and I shall try and be brief,
in spite of the numerous complications which
have made me, young as I am, tremble before
what seems the profound and terrible mystery
of existence. Yet the grief which now racks
my very soul is but too simple: I have lost my
brother.'
'Lost your brother! How on earth can that
be?'
'I see I must trouble you with a few
particulars. My brother, then, who is by some
years my elder, is a tutor in a private school in
the extreme north of London. The want of
means deprived him of the advantages of a
University education; and lacking the stamp
of a degree, he could not hope for that position
which his scholarship and his talents entitled


72 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
him to claim. He was thus forced to accept
the post of classical master at Dr. Saunderson's
Highgate Academy for the sons of gentlemen,
and he has performed his duties with perfect
satisfaction to his principal for some years.
My personal history need not trouble you;
it will be enough if I tell you that for the
last month I have been governess in a family
residing at Tooting. My brother and I have
always cherished the warmest mutual affection;
and though circumstances into which I need
not enter have kept us apart for some time, yet
we have never lost sight of one another. We
made up our minds that unless one of us was
absolutely unable to rise from a bed of sickness,
we should never let a week pass by without
meeting, and some time ago we chose this
square as our rendezvous on account of its
central position and its convenience of access.
And indeed, after a week of distasteful toil,
my brother felt little inclination for much
walking, and we have often spent two or three
hours on this bench, speaking of our prospects
and of happier days, when we were children.
In the early spring it was cold and chilly, still
we enjoyed the short respite, and I think that


THE MISSING BROTHER 73
we were often taken for a pair of lovers, as we
sat close together, eagerly talking. Saturday
after Saturday we have met each other here;
and though the doctor told him it was madness,
my brother would not allow the influenza to
break the appointment. That was some time
ago; last Saturday we had a long and happy
afternoon, and separated more cheerfully than
usual, feeling that the coming week would be
bearable, and resolving that our next meeting
should be if possible still more pleasant. I
arrived here at the time agreed upon, four
o'clock, and sat down and watched for my
brother, expecting every moment to see him
advancing towards me from that gate at the
north side of the square. Five minutes passed
by, and he had not arrived; I thought he must
have missed his train, and the idea that our
interview would be cut short by twenty minutes,
or perhaps half an hour, saddened me; I had
hoped we should be so happy together to-day.
Suddenly, moved by I know not what impulse, I
turned abruptly round, and how can I describe
to you my astonishment when I saw my brother
advancing slowly towards me from the southern
side of the square, accompanied by another


THE MISSING BROTHER 75
mask. They passed in front of me, and to my
unutterable astonishment, I heard my brother's
voice speaking to me, though his lips did not
move, nor his eyes look into mine. It was a
voice I cannot describe, though I knew it, but
the words came to my ears as if mingled with
plashing water and the sound of a shallow
brook flowing amidst stones. I heard, then,
the words, " I cannot stay," and for a moment
the heavens and the earth seemed to rush
together with the sound of thunder, and I was
thrust forth from the world into a black void
without beginning and without end. For, as
my brother passed me, I saw the hand that
held him by the arm, and seemed to guide him,
and in one moment of horror I realised that it
was as a formless thing that has mouldered for
many years in the grave. The flesh was peeled
in strips from the bones, and hung apart dry
and granulated, and the fingers that encircled
my brother's arm were all unshapen, claw-like
things, and one was but a stump from which
the end had rotted off. When I recovered my
senses I saw the two passing out by that gate.
I paused for a moment, and then with a rush as
of fire to my heart I knew that no horror could


76 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
stay me, but that I must follow my brother and
save him, even though all hell rose up against
me. I ran out, and looked up the pavement,
and saw the two figures walking amidst the
crowd. I ran across the road, and saw them
turn up that side street, and I reached the
corner a moment later. In vain I looked to
right and left, for neither my brother nor his
strange guardian was in sight; two elderly
men were coming down arm-in-arm, and a tele-
graph boy was walking lustily along whistling.
I remained there a moment horror-struck, and
then I bowed my head and returned to this
seat, where you found me. Now, sir, do you
wonder at my grief? Oh, tell me what has
happened to my brother, or I feel I shall go
mad!'
Mr. Phillipps, who had listened with exem-
plary patience to this tale, hesitated a moment
before he spoke.
'My dear madam,' he said at length, 'you
have known how to engage me in your service,
not only as a man, but as a student of science.
As a fellow-creature I pity you most pro-
foundly; you must have suffered extremely
from what you saw, or rather from what you


THE MISSING BROTHER 77
fancied you saw. For, as a scientific observer,
it is my duty to tell you the plain truth, which,
indeed, besides being true, must also console
you. Allow me to ask you then to describe
your brother.'
'Certainly,' said the lady eagerly; 'I can
describe him accurately. My brother is a some-
what young-looking man; he is pale, has small
black whiskers, and wears spectacles. He has
rather a timid, almost a frightened expression,
and looks about him nervously from side to
side. Think, think! Surely you must have
seen him. Perhaps you are an habitut of this
engaging quarter; you may have met him on
some previous Saturday. I may have been
mistaken in supposing that he turned up that
side street; he may have gone on, and you
may have passed each other. Oh, tell me, sir,
whether you have not seen him!'
'I am afraid I do not keep a very sharp
look-out when I am walking,' said Phillipps,
who would have passed his mother unnoticed;
'but I am sure your description is admirable.
And now will you describe the person who,
you say, held your brother by the arm?'
'I cannot do so. I told you his face seemed


78 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
devoid of expression or salient feature. It was
like a mask.'
'Exactly; you cannot describe what you
have never seen. I need hardly point out to
you the conclusion to be drawn; you have been
the victim of an hallucination. You expected
to see your brother, you were alarmed because
you did not see him, and unconsciously, no
doubt, your brain went to work, and finally you
saw a mere projection of your own morbid
thoughts—a vision of your absent brother, and
a mere confusion of terrors incorporated in a
figure which you can't describe. Of course
your brother has been in some way prevented
from coming to meet you as usual. I expect
you will hear from him in a day or two.'
The lady looked seriously at Mr. Phillipps,
and then for a second there seemed almost a
twinkling as of mirth about her eyes, but her
face clouded sadly at the dogmatic conclusions
to which the scientist was led so irresistibly.
'Ah!' she said,'you do not know. I cannot
doubt the evidence of my waking senses.
Besides, perhaps I have had experiences even
more terrible. I acknowledge the force of your
arguments, but a woman has intuitions which


THE MISSING BROTHER 79
never deceive her. Believe me, I am not
hysterical; feel my pulse, it is quite regular.'
She stretched out her hand with a dainty
gesture, and a glance that enraptured Phillipps
in spite of himself. The hand held out to him
was soft and white and warm, and as, in some
confusion, he placed his fingers on the purple
vein, he felt profoundly touched by the spectacle
of love and grief before him.
'No,' he said, as he released her wrist, 'as
you say, you are evidently quite yourself. Still,
you must be aware that living men do not
possess dead hands. That sort of thing doesn't
happen. It is, of course, barely possible that
you did see your brother with another gentle-
man, and that important business prevented
him from stopping. As for the wonderful hand,
there may have been some deformity, a finger
shot off by accident, or something of that sort.'
The lady shook her head mournfully.
'I see you are a determined rationalist,' she
said. 'Did you not hear me say that I have
had experiences even more terrible. I too was
once a sceptic, but after what I have known I
can no longer affect to doubt.'
'Madam,' replied Mr. Phillipps,'no one shall


8o THE THREE IMPOSTORS
make me deny my faith. I will never believe,
nor will I pretend to believe, that two and two
make five, nor will I on any pretences admit
the existence of two-sided triangles.'
'You are a little hasty, ' rejoined the lady.
'But may I ask you if you ever heard the name
of Professor Gregg, the authority on ethnology
and kindred subjects.'
'I have done much more than merely hear
of Professor Gregg,' said Phillipps. 'I always
regarded him as one of our most acute and
clear-headed observers; and his last publica-
tion, the Textbook of Ethnology, struck me as
being quite admirable in its kind. Indeed, the
book had but come into my hands when I
heard of the terrible accident which cut short
Gregg's career. He had, I think, taken a
country house in the West of England for the
summer, and is supposed to have fallen into
a river. So far as I remember, his body was
never recovered.'
'Sir, I am sure that you are discreet. Your
conversation seems to declare as much, and
the very title of that little work of yours which
you mentioned assures me that you are no
empty trifler. In a word, I feel that I may


THE MISSING BROTHER 81
depend on you. You appear to be under the
impression that Professor Gregg is dead; I
have no reason to believe that that is*the case."
'What?' cried Phillipps, astonished and per-
turbed. 'You do not hint that there was any-
thing disgraceful? I cannot believe it. Gregg
was a man of clearest character; his private
life was one of great benevolence; and though
I myself am free from delusions, I believe him
to have been a sincere and devout Christian.
Surely you cannot mean to insinuate that some
disreputable history forced him to flee the
country?'
'Again you are in a hurry,' replied the lady.
'I said nothing of all this. Briefly, then, I
must tell you that Professor Gregg left his
house one morning in full health both of mind
and body. He never returned, but his watch
and chain, a purse containing three sove-
reigns in gold, and some loose silver, with a
ring that he wore habitually, were found three
days later on a wild and savage hillside, many
miles from the river. These articles were
placed beside a limestone rock of fantastic
form; they had been wrapped into a parcel
with a kind of rough parchment which was
F


82 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
secured with gut. The parcel was opened, and
the inner side of the parchment bore an in-
scription done with some red substance; the
characters were undecipherable, but seemed to
be a corrupt cuneiform.'
'You interest me intensely,' said Phillipps.
'Would you mind continuing your story? The
circumstance you have mentioned seems to me
of the most inexplicable character, and I thirst
for an elucidation.'
The young lady seemed to meditate for a
moment, and she then proceeded to relate the
NOVEL OF THE BLACK SEAL.
I must now give you some fuller particulars
of my history. I am the daughter of a civil
engineer, Steven Lally by name, who was so
unfortunate as to die suddenly at the outset
of his career, and before he had accumulated
sufficient means to support his wife and her
two children. My mother contrived to keep
the small household going on resources which
must have been incredibly small; we lived in
a remote country village, because most of the
necessaries of life were cheaper than in a town,


THE MISSING BROTHER 83
but even so we were brought up with the
severest economy. My father was a clever and
well-read man, and left behind him a small
but select collection of books, containing the
best Greek, Latin, and English classics, and
these books were the only amusement we
possessed. My brother, I remember, learnt
Latin out of Descartes' Meditationes, and I, in
place of the little tales which children are
usually told to read, had nothing more charm-
ing than a translation of the Gesta Romanorum.
We grew up thus, quiet and studious children,
and in course of time my brother provided for
himself in the manner I have mentioned. I
continued to live at home; my poor mother
had become an invalid, and demanded my con-
tinual care, and about two years ago she died
after many months of painful illness. My
situation was a terrible one; the shabby furni-
ture barely sufficed to pay the debts I had
been forced to contract, and the books I
despatched to my brother, knowing how he
would value them. I was absolutely alone;
I was aware how poorly my brother was
paid; and though I came up to London in the
hope of finding employment, with the under-


84 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
standing that he would defray my expenses,
I swore it should only be for a month, and that
if I could not in that time find some work, I
would starve rather than deprive him of the
few miserable pounds he had laid by for his
day of trouble. I took a little room in a dis-
tant suburb, the cheapest that I could find; I
lived on bread and tea, and I spent my time
in vain answering of advertisements, and vainer
walks to addresses I had noted. Day followed
on day, and week on week, and still I was un-
successful, till at last the term I had appointed
drew to a close, and I saw before me the grim
prospect of slowly dying of starvation. My
landlady was good-natured in her way; she
knew the slenderness of my means, and I am
sure that she would not have turned me out of
doors; it remained for me then to go away,
and to try and die in some quiet place. It
was winter then, and a thick white fog gathered
in the early part of the afternoon, becoming
more dense as the day wore on; it was a
Sunday, I remember, and the people of the
house were at chapel. At about three o'clock
I crept out and walked away as quickly as I
could, for I was weak from abstinence. The


THE MISSING BROTHER 85
white mist wrapped all the streets in silence,
a hard frost had gathered thick upon the
bare branches of the trees, and frost crystals
glittered on the wooden fences, and on the
cold, cruel ground beneath my feet. I walked
on, turning to right and left in utter haphazard,
without caring to look up at the names of the
streets, and all that I remember of my walk on
that Sunday afternoon seems but the broken
fragments of an evil dream. In a confused
vision I stumbled on, through roads half-town
and half-country, grey fields melting into the
cloudy world of mist on one side of me, and on
the other comfortable villas with a glow of fire-
light flickering on the walls, but all unreal; red
brick walls and lighted windows, vague trees,
and glimmering country, gas-lamps beginning
to star the white shadows, the vanishing per-
spectives of the railway line beneath high em-
bankments, the green and red of the signal
lamps,—all these were but momentary pictures
flashed on my tired brain and senses numbed
by hunger. Now and then I would hear a
quick step ringing on the iron road, and men
would pass me well wrapped up, walking fast
for the sake of warmth, and no doubt eagerly


86 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
foretasting the pleasures of a glowing hearth,
with curtains tightly drawn about the frosted
panes, and the welcomes of their friends; but
as the early evening darkened and night
approached, foot-passengers got fewer and
fewer, and I passed through street after street
alone. In the white silence I stumbled on,
as desolate as if I trod the streets of a buried
city; and as I grew more weak and exhausted,
something of the horror of death was folding
thickly round my heart. Suddenly, as I turned
a corner, some one accosted me courteously
beneath the lamp-post, and I heard a voice
asking if I could kindly point the way to Avon
Road. At the sudden shock of human accents
I was prostrated, and my strength gave way;
I fell all huddled on the sidewalk, and wept
and sobbed and laughed in violent hysteria.
I had gone out prepared to die, and as I
stepped across the threshold that had sheltered
me, I consciously bade adieu to all hopes and
all remembrances ; the door clanged behind me
with the noise of thunder, and I felt that an
iron curtain had fallen on the brief passages
of my life, that henceforth I was to walk a
little way in a world of gloom and shadow;


THE MISSING BROTHER 87
I entered on the stage of the first act of death.
Then came my wandering in the mist, the
whiteness wrapping all things, the void streets,
and muffled silence, till when that voice spoke
to me it was as if I had died and life returned
to me. In a few minutes I was able to com-
pose my feelings, and as I rose I saw that I
was confronted by a middle-aged gentleman
of specious appearance, neatly and correctly
dressed. He looked at me with an expression
of great pity, but before I could stammer out
my ignorance of the neighbourhood, for indeed
I had not the slightest notion of where I had
wandered, he spoke.
'My dear madam,' he said, 'you seem in
some terrible distress. You cannot think how
you alarmed me. But may I inquire the nature
of your trouble? I assure you that you can
safely confide in me.'
'You are very kind,' I replied, 'but I fear
there is nothing to be done. My condition
seems a hopeless one.'
'Oh, nonsense, nonsense! You are too young
to talk like that. Come, let us walk down
here, and you must tell me your difficulty.
Perhaps I may be able to help you.'



88 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
There was something very soothing and per-
suasive in his manner, and as we walked to-
gether I gave him an outline of my story, and
told of the despair that had oppressed me
almost to death.
'You were wrong to give in so completely,'
he said, when I was silent. 'A month is too
short a time in which to feel one's way in
London. London, let me tell you, Miss Lally,
does not lie open and undefended; it is a
fortified place, fossed and double-moated with
curious intricacies. As must always happen in
large towns, the conditions of life have become
hugely artificial; no mere simple palisade is
run up to oppose the man or woman who
would take the place by storm, but serried
lines of subtle contrivances, mines, and pit-
falls which it needs a strange skill to overcome.
You, in your simplicity, fancied you had only
to shout for these walls to sink into nothing-
ness, but the time is gone for such startling
victories as these. Take courage; you will
learn the secret of success before very long.'
'Alas! sir," I replied,' I have no doubt your
conclusions are correct, but at the present
moment I seem to be in a fair way to die of


THE MISSING BROTHER 89
starvation. You spoke of a secret; for heaven's
sake tell it me, if you have any pity for my
distress.'
He laughed genially. 'There lies the strange-
ness of it all. Those who know the secret
cannot tell it if they would; it is positively as
ineffable as the central doctrine of Freemasonry.
But I may say this, that you yourself have
penetrated at least the outer husk of the
mystery,' and he laughed again.
'Pray do not jest with me,' I said. 'What
have I done, que sais-je? I am so far ignorant
that I have not the slightest idea of how my
next meal is to be provided.'
'Excuse me. You ask what you have done?
You have met me. Come, we will fence no
longer. I see you have self-education, the only
education which is not infinitely pernicious,
and I am in want of a governess for my two
children. I have been a widower for some
years; my name is Gregg. I offer you the
post I have named, and shall we say a salary
of a hundred a year?'
I could only stutter out my thanks, and
slipping a card with his address, and a bank-
note by way of earnest, into my hand, Mr. Gregg



90 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
bade me good-bye, asking me to call in a day
or two.
Such was my introduction to Professor
Gregg, and can you wonder that the remem-
brance of despair and the cold blast that had
blown from the gates of death upon me made
me regard him as a second father. Before the
close of the week I was installed in my new
duties. The professor had leased an old brick
manor-house in a western suburb of London,
and here, surrounded by pleasant lawns and
orchards, and soothed with the murmur of the
ancient elms that rocked their boughs above
the roof, the new chapter of my life began.
Knowing as you do the nature of the pro-
fessor's occupations, you will not be surprised
to hear that the house teemed with books,
and cabinets full of strange, and even hideous,
objects filled every available nook in the vast
low rooms. Gregg was a man whose one
thought was for knowledge, and I too before
long caught something of his enthusiasm, and
strove to enter into his passion for research.
In a few months I was perhaps more his
secretary than the governess of the two chil-
dren, and many a night I have sat at the desk


THE MISSING BROTHER 91
in the glow of the shaded lamp while he,
pacing up and down in the rich gloom of the
firelight, dictated to me the substance of his
Textbook of Ethnology. But amidst these
more sober and accurate studies I always
detected a something hidden, a longing and
desire for some object to which he did not
allude; and now and then he would break short
in what he was saying and lapse into reverie,
intranced, as it seemed to me, by some distant
prospect of adventurous discovery. The text-
book was at last finished, and we began to
receive proofs from the printers, which were
intrusted to me for a first reading, and then
underwent the final revision of the professor.
All the while his weariness of the actual
business he was engaged on increased, and it
was with the joyous laugh of a schoolboy when
term is over that he one day handed me a copy
of the book. 'There,' he said, 'I have kept
my word; I promised to write it, and it is done
with. Now I shall be free to live for stranger
things; I confess it, Miss Lally, I covet the
renown of Columbus; you will, I hope, see me
play the part of an explorer."
1 Surely,' I said,' there is little left to explore.


92 THE THREE IMPOSTORS

You have been born a few hundred years too
late for that.'
'I think you are wrong,' he replied; 'there
are still, depend upon it, quaint, undiscovered
countries and continents of strange extent.
Ah, Miss Lally! believe me, we stand amidst
sacraments and mysteries full of awe, and it
doth not yet appear what we shall be. Life,
believe me, is no simple thing, no mass of grey
matter and congeries of veins and muscles to
be laid naked by the surgeon's knife; man is
the secret which I am about to explore, and
before I can discover him I must cross over
weltering seas indeed, and oceans and the mists
of many thousand years. You know the myth
of the lost Atlantis; what if it be true, and I
am destined to be called the discoverer of that
wonderful land?'
I could see excitement boiling beneath his
words, and in his face was the heat of the
hunter; before me stood a man who believed
himself summoned to tourney with the un-
known. A pang of joy possessed me when
I reflected that I was to be in a way
associated with him in the adventure, and
I too burned with the lust of the chase, not


THE MISSING BROTHER 93
pausing to consider that I knew not what we
were to unshadow.
The next morning Professor Gregg took me
into his inner study, where, ranged against the
wall, stood a nest of pigeon-holes, every drawer
neatly labelled, and the results of years of toil
classified in a few feet of space.
'Here, ' he said, 'is my life; here are all the
facts which I have gathered together with so
much pains, and yet it is all nothing. No,
nothing to what I am about to attempt.
Look at this'; and he took me to an old
bureau, a piece fantastic and faded, which
stood in a corner of the room. He unlocked
the front and opened one of the drawers.
'A few scraps of paper,' he went on, pointing
to the drawer, 'and a lump of black stone,
rudely annotated with queer marks and
scratches—that is all that drawer holds. Here
you see is an old envelope with the dark red
stamp of twenty years ago, but I have pencilled
a few lines at the back; here is a sheet of
manuscript, and here some cuttings from
obscure local journals. And if you ask me
the subject-matter of the collection, it will not
seem extraordinary—a servant-girl at a farm-


94 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
house, who disappeared from her place and
has never been heard of, a child supposed to
have slipped down some old working on the
mountains, some queer scribbling on a lime-
stone rock, a man murdered with a blow from
a strange weapon; such is the scent I have to
go upon. Yes, as you say, there is a ready
explanation for all this; the girl may have run
away to London, or Liverpool, or New York;
the child may be at the bottom of the disused
shaft; and the letters on the rock may be the
idle whims of some vagrant. Yes, yes, I admit
all that; but I know I hold the true key.
Look! and he held me out a slip of yellow
paper.
Characters found inscribed on a limestone rock
on the Grey Hills, I read, and then there was a
word erased, presumably the name of a county,
and a date some fifteen years back. Beneath
was traced a number of uncouth characters,
shaped somewhat like wedges or daggers, as
strange and outlandish as the Hebrew alphabet.
'Now the seal," said Professor Gregg, and he
handed me the black stone, a thing about two
inches long, and something like an old-fashioned
tobacco-stopper, much enlarged.


THE MISSING BROTHER 95
I held it up to the light, and saw to my
surprise the characters on the paper repeated
on the seal.
'Yes,' said the professor, 'they are the same.
And the marks on the limestone rock were
made fifteen years ago, with some red sub-
stance. And the characters on the seal are
four thousand years old at least. Perhaps
much more.'
'Is it a hoax?' I said.
'No, I anticipated that. I was not to be led
to give my life to a practical joke. I have
tested the matter very carefully. Only one
person besides myself knows of the mere
existence of that black seal. Besides, there are
other reasons which I cannot enter into now.'
'But what does it all mean?' I said. 'I
cannot understand to what conclusion all this
leads.'
'My dear Miss Lally, that is a question I
would rather leave unanswered for some little
time. Perhaps I shall never be able to say
what secrets are held here in solution; a few
vague hints, the outlines of village tragedies, a
few marks done with red earth upon a rock,
and an ancient seal. A queer set of data to go


96 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
upon? Half a dozen pieces of evidence, and
twenty years before even so much could be got
together; and who knows what mirage or
terra incognita may be beyond all this? I
look across deep waters, Miss Lally, and the
land beyond may be but a haze after all. But
still I believe it is not so, and a few months
will show whether I am right or wrong.'
He left me, and alone I endeavoured to
fathom the mystery, wondering to what goal
such eccentric odds and ends of evidence could
lead. I myself am not wholly devoid of
imagination, and I had reason to respect the
professor's solidity of intellect; yet I saw in
the contents of the drawer but the materials of
fantasy, and vainly tried to conceive what
theory could be founded on the fragments that
had been placed before me. Indeed, I could
discover in what I had heard and seen but the
first chapter of an extravagant romance; and
yet deep in my heart I burned with curiosity,
and day after day I looked eagerly in Professor
Gregg's face for some hint of what was to
happen.
It was one evening after dinner that the
word came.


THE MISSING BROTHER 97
'I hope you can make your preparations
without much trouble,' he said suddenly to me.
'We shall be leaving here in a week's time.'
'Really!' I said in astonishment. 'Where
are we going?'
'I have taken a country house in the west of
England, not far from Caermaen, a quiet little
town, once a city, and the headquarters of a
Roman legion. It is very dull there, but the
country is pretty, and the air is wholesome.'
I detected a glint in his eyes, and guessed
that this sudden move had some relation to our
conversation of a few days before.
'I shall just take a few books with me,' said
Professor Gregg, 'that is all. Everything else
will remain here for our return. I have got a
holiday,' he went on, smiling at me, 'and I
shan't be sorry to be quit for a time of my old
bones and stones and rubbish. Do you know,'
he went on,' I have been grinding away at facts
for thirty years; it is time for fancies.'
The days passed quickly; I could see that
the professor was all quivering with suppressed
excitement, and I could scarce credit the eager
appetence of his glance as we left the old manor
house behind us and began our journey. We
G


98 THE THREE IMPOSTORS

set out at midday, and it was in the dusk of
the evening that we arrived at a little country
station. I was tired and excited, and the drive
through the lanes seems all a dream. First the
deserted streets of a forgotten village, while
I heard Professor Gregg's voice talking of the
Augustan Legion and the clash of arms, and
all the tremendous pomp that followed the
eagles; then the broad river swimming to full
tide with the last afterglow glimmering duskily
in the yellow water, the wide meadows, the
cornfields whitening, and the deep lane winding
on the slope between the hills and the water.
At last we began to ascend, and the air grew
rarer. I looked down and saw the pure white
mist tracking the outline of the river like a
shroud, and a vague and shadowy country;
imaginations and fantasy of swelling hills and
hanging woods, and half-shaped outlines of
hills beyond, and in the distance the glare of
the furnace fire on the mountain, growing by
turns a pillar of shining flame and fading to a
dull point of red. We were slowly mounting
a carriage drive, and then there came to me the
cool breath and the secret of the great wood
that was above us; I seemed to wander in


THE MISSING BROTHER 99
its deepest depths, and there was the sound
of trickling water, the scent of the green
leaves, and the breath of the summer night.
The carriage stopped at last, and I could scarcely
distinguish the form of the house as I waited a
moment at the pillared porch. The rest of
the evening seemed a dream of strange things
bounded by the great silence of the wood and
the valley and the river.
The next morning, when I awoke and looked
out of the bow window of the big, old-fashioned
bedroom, I saw under a grey sky a country
that was still all mystery. The long, lovely
valley, with the river winding in and out below,
crossed in mid-vision by a mediaeval bridge of
vaulted and buttressed stone, the clear presence
of the rising ground beyond, and the woods that
I had only seen in shadow the night before,
seemed tinged with enchantment, and the soft
breath of air that sighed in at the opened pane
was like no other wind. I looked across the
valley, and beyond, hill followed on hill as wave
on wave, and here a faint blue pillar of smoke
rose still in the morning air from the chimney
of an ancient grey farmhouse, there was a
rugged height crowned with dark firs, and in


TOO THE THREE IMPOSTORS
the distance I saw the white streak of a road
that climbed and vanished into some unima-
gined country. But the boundary of all was a
great wall of mountain, vast in the west, and
ending like a fortress with a steep ascent and a
domed tumulus clear against the sky.
I saw Professor Gregg walking up and down
the terrace path below the windows, and it was
evident that he was revelling in the sense of
liberty, and the thought that he had for a
while bidden good-bye to task-work. When I
joined him there was exultation in his voice as
he pointed out the sweep of valley and the
river that wound beneath the lovely hills.
'Yes,' he said, 'it is a strangely beautiful
country; and to me, at least, it seems full of
mystery. You have not forgotten the drawer
I showed you, Miss Lally? No; and you have
guessed that I have come here not merely for
the sake of the children and the fresh air?'
'I think I have guessed as much as that,' I
replied; 'but you must remember I do not
know the mere nature of your investigations;
and as for the connection between the search
and this wonderful valley, it is past my
guessing.'


THE MISSING BROTHER 101
He smiled queerly at me, 'You must not
think I am making a mystery for the sake of
mystery,' he said. 'I do not speak out because,
so far, there is nothing to be spoken, nothing
definite, I mean, nothing that can be set down
in hard black and white, as dull and sure and
irreproachable as any blue-book. And then I
have another reason: Many years ago a chance
paragraph in a newspaper caught my attention,
and focused in an instant the vagrant thoughts
and half-formed fancies of many idle and
speculative hours into a certain hypothesis. I
saw at once that I was treading on a thin crust;
my theory was wild and fantastic in the extreme,
and I would not for any consideration have
written a hint of it for publication. But I
thought that in the company of scientific men
like myself, men who knew the course of
discovery, and were aware that the gas that
blazes and flares in the gin-palace was once a
wild hypothesis—I thought that with such men
as these I might hazard my dream—let us say
Atlantis, or the philosopher's stone, or what you
like—without danger of ridicule. I found I
was grossly mistaken; my friends looked
blankly at me and at one another, and I


102 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
could see something of pity, and something
also of insolent contempt, in the glances they
exchanged. One of them called on me next
day, and hinted that I must be suffering from
overwork and brain exhaustion. "In plain
terms," I said, "you think I am going mad. I
think not"; and I showed him out with some
little appearance of heat. Since that day I
vowed that I would never whisper the nature of
my theory to any living soul; to no one but
yourself have I ever shown the contents of that
drawer. After all, I may be following a rainbow;
I may have been misled by the play of co-
incidence; but as I stand here in this mystic
hush and silence amidst the woods and wild
hills, I am more than ever sure that I am hot
on the scent. Come, it is time we went in.'
To me in all this there was something both
of wonder and excitement; I knew how in his
ordinary work Professor Gregg moved step by
step, testing every inch of the way, and never
venturing on assertion without proof that was
impregnable. Yet I divined more from his
glance and the vehemence of his tone than
from the spoken word, that he had in his every
thought the vision of the almost incredible


THE MISSING BROTHER 103
continually with him; and I, who was with
some share of imagination no little of a sceptic,
offended at a hint of the marvellous, could not
help asking myself whether he was cherishing
a monomania, and barring out from this one
subject all the scientific method of his other
life.
Yet, with this image of mystery haunting my
thoughts, I surrendered wholly to the charm of
the country. Above the faded house on the
hillside began the great forest—a long, dark
line seen from the opposing hills, stretching
above the river for many a mile from north
to south, and yielding in the north to even
wilder country, barren and savage hills, and
ragged common-land, a territory all strange and
unvisited, and more unknown to Englishmen
than the very heart of Africa. The space of a
couple of steep fields alone separated the house
from the wood, and the children were delighted
to follow me up the long alleys of undergrowth,
between smooth pleached walls of shining
beech, to the highest point in the wood, whence
one looked on one side across the river and the
rise and fall of the country to the great western
mountain wall, and on the other over the surge



104 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
and dip of the myriad trees of the forest, over
level meadows and the shining yellow sea to the
faint coast beyond. I used to sit at this point
on the warm sunlit turf which marked the
track of the Roman Road, while the two
children raced about hunting for the whin-
berries that grew here and there on the banks.
Here beneath the deep blue sky and the great
clouds rolling, like olden galleons with sails
full-bellied, from the sea to the hills, as I
listened to the whispered charm of the great
and ancient wood, I lived solely for delight,
and only remembered strange things when we
would return to the house and find Professor
Gregg either shut up in the little room he had
made his study, or else pacing the terrace with
the look, patient and enthusiastic, of the deter-
mined seeker.
One morning, some eight or nine days after
our arrival, I looked out of my window and
saw the whole landscape transmuted before
me. The clouds had dipped low and hidden
the mountain in the west; a southern wind
was driving the rain in shifting pillars up the
valley, and the little brooklet that burst the
hill below the house now raged, a red torrent,


THE MISSING BROTHER 105
down to the river. We were perforce obliged
to keep snug within-doors; and when I had
attended to my pupils, I sat down in the
morning-room where the ruins of a library
still encumbered an old-fashioned bookcase.
I had inspected the shelves once or twice, but
their contents had failed to attract me; volumes
of eighteenth-century sermons, an old book on
farriery, a collection of Poems by 'persons
of quality,' Prideaux's Connection, and an
odd volume of Pope, were the boundaries of
the library, and there seemed little doubt
that everything of interest or value had been
removed. Now, however, in desperation, I
began to re-examine the musty sheepskin and
calf bindings, and found, much to my delight,
a fine old quarto printed by the Stephani,
containing the three books of Pomponius Mela,
De Situ Orbis, and other of the ancient geo-
graphers. I knew enough of Latin to steer my
way through an ordinary sentence, and I soon
became absorbed in the odd mixture of fact
and fancy—light shining on a little of the space
of the world, and beyond, mist and shadow and
awful forms. Glancing over the clear-printed
pages, my attention was caught by the head-


io6 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
ing of a chapter in Solinus, and I read the
words:—
'MIRA DE INTIMIS GENTIBUS LlBYAE, DE
LAPIDE HEXECONTALITHO,'
—' The wonders of the people that inhabit
the inner parts of Libya, and of the stone
called Sixtystone.'
The odd title attracted me, and I read on :—
'Gens ista avia et secreta habitat, in montibus
horrendis fceda mysteria celebrat. De homini-
bus nihil aliud illi praeferunt quam figuram, ab
humano ritu prorsus exulant, oderunt deum
lucis. Stridunt potius quam loquuntur; vox
absona nee sine horrore auditur. Lapide quo-
dam gloriantur, quern Hexecontalithon vocant;
dicunt enim hunc lapidem sexaginta notas
ostendere. Cujus lapidis nomen secretum in-
effabile colunt: quod Ixaxar.'
'This folk," I translated to myself,' dwells in
remote and secret places, and celebrates foul
mysteries on savage hills. Nothing have they
in common with men save the face, and the
customs of humanity are wholly strange to
them; and they hate the sun. They hiss
rather than speak; their voices are harsh, and
1


io8 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
your eyes. This glass is pretty good, but not
like my old one that I left in town. Would
you mind examining the thing yourself, and
telling me how many characters are cut on it?'
He handed me the object in his hand. I
saw that it was the black seal he had shown me
in London, and my heart began to beat with
the thought that I was presently to know
something. I took the seal, and, holding it up
to the light, checked off the grotesque dagger-
shaped characters one by one.
'I make sixty-two,' I said at last.
'Sixty-two? Nonsense ; it's impossible. Ah,
I see what you have done, you have counted
that and that,' and he pointed to two marks
which I had certainly taken as letters with the
rest
1 Yes, yes,' Professor Gregg went on, 'but
those are obvious scratches, done accidentally;
I saw that at once. Yes, then that's quite
right. Thank you very much, Miss Lally.'
I was going away, rather disappointed at my
having been called in merely to count a number
of marks on the black seal, when suddenly there
flashed into my mind what I had read in the
morning.


THE MISSING BROTHER 109
'But, Professor Gregg,' I cried, breathless,
'the seal, the seal. Why, it is the stone Hexe-
contalithos that Solinus writes of; it is Ixaxar.'
'Yes,' he said,' I suppose it is. Or it may be
a mere coincidence. It never does to be too
sure, you know, in these matters. Coincidence
killed the professor.'
I went away puzzled by what I had heard,
and as much as ever at a loss to find the ruling
clue in this maze of strange evidence. For
three days the bad weather lasted, changing
from driving rain to a dense mist, fine and
dripping, and we seemed to be shut up in a
white cloud that veiled all the world away from
us. All the while Professor Gregg was darkling
in his room, unwilling, it appeared, to dispense
confidences or talk of any kind, and I heard
him walking to and fro with a quick, impatient
step, as if he were in some way wearied of
inaction. The fourth morning was fine, and at
breakfast the professor said briskly—
'We want some extra help about the house;
a boy of fifteen or sixteen, you know. There
are a lot of little odd jobs that take up the
maids' time which a boy could do much
better.'


no THE THREE IMPOSTORS
'The girls have not complained to me in any
way,' I replied. 'Indeed, Anne said there was
much less work than in London, owing to there
being so little dust.'
'Ah, yes, they are very good girls. But I
think we shall do much better with a boy. In
fact, that is what has been bothering me for the
last two days.'
'Bothering you?' I said in astonishment, for
as a matter of fact the professor never took the
slightest interest in the affairs of the house.
'Yes,' he said, 'the weather, you know. I
really couldn't go out in that Scotch mist;
I don't know the country very well, and I
should have lost my way. But I am going
to get the boy this morning.'
'But how do you know there is such a boy
as you want anywhere about?'
'Oh, I have no doubt as to that. I may
have to walk a mile or two at the most, but I
am sure to find just the boy I require.'
I thought the professor was joking, but
though his tone was airy enough there was
something grim and set about his features that
puzzled me. He got his stick, and stood at
the door looking meditatively before him,



THE MISSING BROTHER in
and as I passed through the hall he called to
me.
'By the way, Miss Lally, there was one
thing I wanted to say to you. I dare say you
may have heard that some of these country lads
are not over bright; idiotic would be a harsh
word to use, and they are usually called
"naturals," or something of the kind. I hope
you won't mind if the boy I am after should
turn out not too keen-witted; he will be per-
fectly harmless, of course, and blacking boots
doesn't need much mental effort.'
With that he was gone, striding up the road
that led to the wood, and I remained stupefied;
and then for the first time my astonishment
was mingled with a sudden note of terror,
arising I knew not whence, and all unexplained
even to myself, and yet I felt about my heart
for an instant something of the chill of death,
and that shapeless, formless dread of the un-
known that is worse than death itself. I tried
to find courage in the sweet air that blew up
from the sea, and in the sunlight after rain,
but the mystic woods seemed to darken around
me; and the vision of the river coiling between
the reeds, and the silver grey of the ancient



ii2 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
bridge, fashioned in my mind symbols of vague
dread, as the mind of a child fashions terror
from things harmless and familiar.
Two hours later Professor Gregg returned.
I met him as he came down the road, and
asked quietly if he had been able to find a boy.
'Oh yes, he answered; 'I found one easily
enough. His name is Jervase Cradock, and I
expect he will make himself very useful. His
father has been dead for many years, and the
mother, whom I saw, seemed very glad at the
prospect of a few shillings extra coming in on
Saturday nights. As I expected, he is not too
sharp, has fits at times, the mother said; but as
he will not be trusted with the china, that doesn't
much matter, does it? And he is not in any
way dangerous, you know, merely a little weak.'
'When is he coming?'
'To-morrow morning at eight o'clock. Anne
will show him what he has to do, and how to
do it. At first he will go home every night,
but perhaps it may ultimately turn out more
convenient for him to sleep here, and only go
home for Sundays.'
I found nothing to say to all this; Professor
Gregg spoke in a quiet tone of matter-of-fact,


THE MISSING BROTHER 113
as indeed was warranted by the circumstance;
and yet I could not quell my sensation of
astonishment at the whole affair. I knew that
in reality no assistance was wanted in the
housework, and the professor's prediction that
the boy he was to engage might prove a little
'simple,' followed by so exact a fulfilment,
struck me as bizarre in the extreme. The next
morning I heard from the housemaid that the
boy Cradock had come at eight, and that she
had been trying to make him useful. 'He
doesn't seem quite all there, I don't think, miss,'
was her comment, and later in the day I saw
him helping the old man who worked in the
garden. He was a youth of about fourteen,
with black hair and black eyes and an olive
skin, and I saw at once from the curious
vacancy of his expression that he was mentally
weak. He touched his forehead awkwardly as
I went by, and I heard him answering the
gardener in a queer, harsh voice that caught
my attention; it gave me the impression of
some one speaking deep below under the earth,
and there was a strange sibilance, like the
hissing of the phonograph as the pointer travels
over the cylinder. I heard that he seemed
H


H4 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
anxious to do what he could, and was quite
docile and obedient, and Morgan the gardener,
who knew his mother, assured me he was per-
fectly harmless. 'He's always been a bit
queer,' he said, 'and no wonder, after what his
mother went through before he was born. I
did know his father, Thomas Cradock, well,
and a very fine workman he was too, indeed.
He got something wrong with his lungs owing
to working in the wet woods, and never got
over it, and went off quite sudden like. And
they do say as how Mrs. Cradock was quite
off her head; anyhow, she was found by Mr.
Hillyer, Ty Coch, all crouched up on the Grey
Hills, over there, crying and weeping like a lost
soul. And Jervase, he was born about eight
months afterwards, and as I was saying, he
was a bit queer always; and they do say when
he could scarcely walk he would frighten the
other children into fits with the noises he would
make.'
A word in the story had stirred up some
remembrance within me, and, vaguely curious,
I asked the old man where the Grey Hills
were.
'Up there,' he said, with the same gesture


THE MISSING BROTHER 115
he had used before; 'you go past the Fox and
Hounds, and through the forest, by the old
ruins. It's a good five mile from here, and a
strange sort of a place. The poorest soil
between this and Monmouth, they do say,
though it's good feed for sheep. Yes, it was
a sad thing for poor Mrs. Cradock.'
The old man turned to his work, and I
strolled on down the path between the espaliers,
gnarled and gouty with age, thinking of the
story I had heard, and groping for the point in
it that had some key to my memory. In an
instant it came before me; I had seen the
phrase 'Grey Hills' on the slip of yellowed
paper that Professor Gregg had taken from the
drawer in his cabinet. Again I was seized
with pangs of mingled curiosity and fear; I
remembered the strange characters copied from
the limestone rock, and then again their identity
with the inscription on the age-old seal, and
the fantastic fables of the Latin geographer.
I saw beyond doubt that, unless coincidence
had set all the scene and disposed all these
bizarre events with curious art, I was to be a
spectator of things far removed from the usual
and customary traffic and jostle of life. Pro-


n6 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
fessor Gregg I noted day by day; he was hot
on his trail, growing lean with eagerness; and
in the evenings, when the sun was swimming
on the verge of the mountain, he would pace
the terrace to and fro with his eyes on the
ground, while the mist grew white in the valley,
and the stillness of the evening brought far
voices near, and the blue smoke rose a straight
column from the diamond-shaped chimney of
the grey farmhouse, just as I had seen it on
the first morning. I have told you I was of
sceptical habit; but though I understood little
or nothing, I began to dread, vainly proposing
to myself the iterated dogmas of science that
all life is material, and that in the system of
things there is no undiscovered land, even
beyond the remotest stars, where the super-
natural can find a footing. Yet there struck
in on this the thought that matter is as really
awful and unknown as spirit, that science itself
but dallies on the threshold, scarcely gaining
more than a glimpse of the wonders of the
inner place.
There is one day that stands up from amidst
the others as a grim red beacon, betokening
evil to come. I was sitting on a bench in the


THE MISSING BROTHER 117
garden, watching the boy Cradock weeding,
when I was suddenly alarmed by a harsh and
choking sound, like the cry of a wild beast in ,
anguish, and I was unspeakably shocked to see
the unfortunate lad standing in full view before
me, his whole body quivering and shaking at
short intervals as though shocks of electricity
were passing through him, his teeth grind-
ing, foam gathering on his lips, and his
face all swollen and blackened to a hideous
mask of humanity. I shrieked with terror,
and Professor Gregg came running; and as I
pointed to Cradock, the boy with one con-
vulsive shudder fell face forward, and lay on
the wet earth, his body writhing like a wounded
blind-worm, and an inconceivable babble of
sounds bursting and rattling and hissing from
his lips. He seemed to pour forth an infamous
jargon, with words, or what seemed words, that
might have belonged to a tongue dead since
untold ages, and buried deep beneath Nilotic
mud, or in the inmost recesses of the Mexican
forest. For a moment the thought passed
through my mind, as my ears were still revolted
with that infernal clamour, 'Surely this is the
very speech of hell," and then I cried out again


u8 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
and again, and ran away shuddering to my
inmost soul. I had seen Professor Gregg's
face as he stooped over the wretched boy and
raised him, and I was appalled by the glow
of exultation that shone on every lineament
and feature. As I sat in my room with drawn
blinds, and my eyes hidden in my hands, I
heard heavy steps beneath, and I was told
afterwards that Professor Gregg had carried
Cradock to his study, and had locked the door.
I heard voices murmur indistinctly, and I
trembled to think of what might be passing
within a few feet of where I sat; I longed to
escape to the woods and sunshine, and yet I
dreaded the sights that might confront me on
the way; and at last, as I held the handle
of the door nervously, I heard Professor
Gregg's voice calling to me with a cheerful
ring. 'It's all right now, Miss Lally,' he said.
'The poor fellow has got over it, and I have
been arranging for him to sleep here after to-
morrow. Perhaps I may be able to do some-
thing for him.'
'Yes,' he said later, 'it was a very painful
sight, and I don't wonder you were alarmed.
We may hope that good food will build him


THE MISSING BROTHER 119
up a little, but I am afraid he will never be
really cured,' and he affected the dismal and
conventional air with which one speaks of
hopeless illness; and yet beneath it I detected
the delight that leapt up rampant within him,
and fought and struggled to find utterance. It
was as if one glanced down on the even surface
of the sea, clear and immobile, and saw beneath
raging depths, and a storm of contending
billows. It was indeed to me a torturing and
offensive problem that this man, who had so
bounteously rescued me from the sharpness
of death, and showed himself in all the relations
of life full of benevolence, and pity, and kindly
forethought, should so manifestly be for once
on the side of the demons, and take a ghastly
pleasure in the torments of an afflicted fellow-
creature. Apart, I struggled with the horned
difficulty, and strove to find the solution; but
without the hint of a clue, beset by mystery and
contradiction, I saw nothing that might help me,
and began to wonder whether, after all, I had
not escaped from the white mist of the suburb
at too dear a rate. I hinted something of my
thought to the professor; I said enough to let
him know that I was in the most acute per-



120 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
plexity, but the moment after regretted what
I had done when I saw his face contort with
a spasm of pain.
'My dear Miss Lally,' he said, 'you surely
do not wish to leave us? No, no, you would
not do it. You do not know how I rely on
you; how confidently I go forward, assured
that you are here to watch over my children.
You, Miss Lally, are my rearguard ; for let me
tell you that the business in which I am en-
gaged is not wholly devoid of peril. You have
not forgotten what I said the first morning
here; my lips are shut by an old and firm
resolve till they can open to utter no ingenious
hypothesis or vague surmise but irrefragable
fact, as certain as a demonstration in mathe-
matics. Think over it, Miss Lally: not for a
moment would I endeavour to keep you here
against your own instincts, and yet I tell you
frankly that I am persuaded it is here, here
amidst the woods, that your duty lies.'
I was touched by the eloquence of his tone,
and by the remembrance that the man, after all,
had been my salvation, and I gave him my
hand on a promise to serve him loyally and
without question. A few days later the rector


THE MISSING BROTHER 121
of our church—a little church, grey and severe
and quaint, that hovered on the very banks of
the river and watched the tides swim and return
—came to see us, and Professor Gregg easily
persuaded him to stay and share our dinner.
Mr. Meyrick was a member of an antique
family of squires, whose old manor-house stood
amongst the hills some seven miles away, and
thus rooted in the soil, the rector was a living
store of all the old, fading customs and lore
of the country. His manner, genial, with a
deal of retired oddity, won on Professor Gregg;
and towards the cheese, when a curious Bur-
gundy had begun its incantations, the two men
glowed like the wine, and talked of philology
with the enthusiasm of a burgess over the
peerage. The parson was expounding the
pronunciation of the Welsh //, and producing
sounds like the gurgle of his native brooks,
when Professor Gregg struck in.
'By the way,' he said, 'that was a very odd
word I met with the other day; you know
my boy, poor Jervase Cradock. Well, he has
got the bad habit of talking to himself, and the
day before yesterday I was walking in the
garden here and heard him ; he was evidently


122 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
quite unconscious of my presence. A lot of
what he said I couldn't make out, but one word
struck me distinctly. It was such an odd sound,
half-sibilant, half-guttural, and as quaint as
those double Is you have been demonstrating.
I do not know whether I can give you an idea
of the sound; "Ishakshar" is perhaps as near
as I can get. But the k ought to be a Greek
chi or a Spanish j. Now what does it mean in
Welsh?'
'In Welsh ?' said the parson. 'There is no
such word in Welsh, nor any word remotely
resembling it. I know the book-Welsh, as they
call it, and the colloquial dialects as well as any
man, but there's no word like that from Angle-
sea to Usk. Besides, none of the Cradocks speak
a word of Welsh; it's dying out about here.'
'Really. You interest me extremely, Mr.
Meyrick. I confess the word didn't strike me
as having the Welsh ring. But I thought
it might be some local corruption.'
'No, I never heard such a word, or anything
like it. Indeed,' he added, smiling whimsically,
'if it belongs to any language, I should say
it must be that of the fairies—the Tylwydd
TSg, as we call them.'


THE MISSING BROTHER 123
The talk went on to the discovery of a
Roman villa in the neighbourhood; and soon
after I left the room, and sat down apart to
wonder at the drawing together of such strange
clues of evidence. As the professor had spoken
of the curious word, I had caught the glint
of his eye upon me ; and though the pronuncia-
tion he gave was grotesque in the extreme, I
recognised the name of the stone of sixty
characters mentioned by Solinus, the black
seal shut up in some secret drawer of the study,
stamped for ever by a vanished race with signs
that no man could read, signs that might, for
all I knew, be the veils of awful things done
long ago, and forgotten before the hills were
moulded into form.
When the next morning I came down, I
found Professor Gregg pacing the terrace in
his eternal walk.
'Look at that bridge,' he said when he saw
me; 'observe the quaint and Gothic design, the
angles between the arches, and the silvery grey
of the stone in the awe of the morning light.
I confess it seems to me symbolic; it should
illustrate a mystical allegory of the passage
from one world to another.'


124 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
'Professor Gregg,' I said quietly, 'it is time
that I knew something of what has happened,
and of what is to happen.'
For the moment he put me off, but I returned
again with the same question in the evening,
and then Professor Gregg flamed with excite-
ment. 'Don't you understand yet?' he cried.
'But I have told you a good deal; yes, and
shown you a good deal; you have heard pretty
nearly all that I have heard, and seen what I
have seen; or at least,' and his voice chilled as
he spoke, 'enough to make a good deal clear
as noonday. The servants told you, I have no
doubt, that the wretched boy Cradock had
another seizure the night before last; he awoke
me with cries in that voice you heard in the
garden, and I went to him, and God forbid you
should see what I saw that night. But all this
is useless; my time here is drawing to a close;
I must be back in town in three weeks, as
I have a course of lectures to prepare, and
need all my books about me. In a very few
days it will be all over, and I shall no longer
hint, and no longer be liable to ridicule as
a madman and a quack. No, I shall speak
plainly, and I shall be heard with such emotions


THE MISSING BROTHER 125
as perhaps no other man has ever drawn from
the breasts of his fellows.'
He paused, and seemed to grow radiant with
the joy of great and wonderful discovery.
'But all that is for the future, the near future
certainly, but still the future,' he went on at
length. 'There is something to be done yet;
you will remember my telling you that my
researches were not altogether devoid of peril?
Yes, there is a certain amount of danger to
be faced; I did not know how much when
I spoke on the subject before, and to a certain
extent I am still in the dark. But it will be
a strange adventure, the last of all, the last
demonstration in the chain.'
He was walking up and down the room as he
spoke, and I could hear in his voice the con-
tending tones of exultation and despondence,
or perhaps I should say awe, the awe of a man
who goes forth on unknown waters, and I
thought of his allusion to Columbus on the
night he had laid his book before me. The
evening was a little chilly, and a fire of logs
had been lighted in the study where we were;
the remittent flame and the glow on the
walls reminded me of the old days. I was


THE MISSING BROTHER 127
confusion of thought. There was, so far as I
knew, no such thing as a step-ladder in the house,
for I had asked for one to make some altera-
tions in the curtains of my room, and a tall
man standing on a chair would have found
it impossible to take down the bust. It had
been placed, not on the edge of the cupboard,
but far back against the wall; and Professor
Gregg was, if anything, under the average
height.
'How on earth did you manage to get down
Pitt?' I said at last.
The professor looked curiously at me, and
seemed to hesitate a little.
'They must have found you a step-ladder, or
perhaps the gardener brought in a short ladder
from outside?'
'No, I have had no ladder of any kind.
Now, Miss Lally,' he went on with an awkward
simulation of jest, 'there is a little puzzle for
you; a problem in the manner of the inimitable
Holmes; there are the facts, plain and patent;
summon your acuteness to the solution of the
puzzle. For Heaven's sake,' he cried with a
breaking voice, 'say no more about it! I tell
you, I never touched the thing,' and he went out


128 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
of the room with horror manifest on his face,
and his hand shook and jarred the door behind
him.
I looked round the room in vague surprise,
not at all realising what had happened, making
vain and idle surmises by way of explanation,
and wondering at the stirring of black waters
by an idle word and the trivial change of an
ornament. 'This is some petty business, some
whim on which I have jarred,' I reflected; 'the
professor is perhaps scrupulous and superstitious
over trifles, and my question may have outraged
unacknowledged fears, as though one killed a
spider or spilled the salt before the very eyes
of a practical Scotchwoman.' I was immersed
in these fond suspicions, and began to plume
myself a little on my immunity from such
empty fears, when the truth fell heavily as lead
upon my heart, and I recognised with cold
terror that some awful influence had been at
work. The bust was simply inaccessible; with-
out a ladder no one could have touched it.
I went out to the kitchen and spoke as
quietly as I could to the housemaid.
'Who moved that bust from the top of the
cupboard, Anne?' I said to her. 'Professor


130 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
just the same sort of a smell; very sick it made
me feel, I remember, and I got Barker to take
me out. And it was just the same kind of a
smell in the study, as I was saying, and I was
wondering what it could be from, when I see
that bust with Pitt cut in it, standing on the
master's desk, and I thought to myself, Now
who has done that, and how have they done it?
And when I came to dust the things, I looked
at the bust, and I saw a great mark on it where
the dust was gone, for I don't think it can have
been touched with a duster for years and years,
and it wasn't like finger-marks, but a large
patch like, broad and spread out. So I passed
my hand over it, without thinking what I was
doing, and where that patch was it was all
sticky and slimy, as if a snail had crawled over
it. Very strange, isn't it, miss? and I wonder
who can have done it, and how that mess was
made.'
The well-meant gabble of the servant touched
me to the quick; I lay down upon my bed, and
bit my lip that I should not cry out loud in the
sharp anguish of my terror and bewilderment.
Indeed, I was almost mad with dread; I believe
that if it had been daylight I should have fled


THE MISSING BROTHER 131
hot foot, forgetting all courage and all the debt
of gratitude that was due to Professor Gregg,
not caring whether my fate were that I must
starve slowly, so long as I might escape from
the net of blind and panic fear that every day
seemed to draw a little closer round me. If I
knew, I thought, if I knew what there were to
dread, I could guard against it; but here, in
this lonely house, shut in on all sides by the
olden woods and the vaulted hills, terror seems
to spring inconsequent from every covert, and
the flesh is aghast at the half-heard murmurs of
horrible things. All in vain I strove to summon
scepticism to my aid, and endeavoured by cool
common-sense to buttress my belief in a world
of natural order, for the air that blew in at the
open window was a mystic breath, and in the
darkness I felt the silence go heavy and sorrow-
ful as a mass of requiem, and I conjured images
of strange shapes gathering fast amidst the
reeds, beside the wash of the river.
In the morning, from the moment that I set
foot in the breakfast-room, I felt that the un-
known plot was drawing to a crisis; the pro-
fessor's face was firm and set, and he seemed
hardly to hear our voices when we spoke.


132 THE THREE IMPOSTORS

'I am going out for rather a long walk,' he said
when the meal was over. 'You mustn't be
expecting me, now, or thinking anything has
happened if I don't turn up to dinner. I have
been getting stupid lately, and I dare say a
miniature walking tour will do me good.
Perhaps I may even spend the night in some
little inn, if I find any place that looks clean
and comfortable.'
I heard this, and knew by my experience of
Professor Gregg's manner that it was no ordinary
business or pleasure that impelled him. I knew
not, nor even remotely guessed, where he was
bound, nor had I the vaguest notion of his
errand, but all the fear of the night before
returned; and as he stood, smiling, on the
terrace, ready to set out, I implored him to
stay, and to forget all his dreams of the un-
discovered continent.
'No, no, Miss Lally,' he replied, still smiling,
'it's too late now. Vestigia nulla retrorsum,
you know, is the device of all true explorers,
though I hope it won't be literally true in my
case. But, indeed, you are wrong to alarm
yourself so; I look upon my little expedition
as quite commonplace; no more exciting than


THE MISSING BROTHER 133
a day with the geological hammers. There is a
risk, of course, but so there is on the commonest
excursion. I can afford to be jaunty; I am
doing nothing so hazardous as 'Arry does a
hundred times over in the course of every Bank
Holiday. Well, then, you must look more
cheerfully; and so good-bye till to-morrow at
latest.'
He walked briskly up the road, and I saw
him open the gate that marks the entrance of
the wood, and then he vanished in the gloom
of the trees.
All the day passed heavily with a strange
darkness in the air, and again I felt as if im-
prisoned amidst the ancient woods, shut in an
olden land of mystery and dread, and as if all
was long ago and forgotten by the living
outside. I hoped and dreaded; and when
the dinner-hour came I waited, expecting to
hear the professor's step in the hall, and his
voice exulting at I knew not what triumph. I
composed my face to welcome him gladly, but
the night descended dark, and he did not come.
In the morning, when the maid knocked at
my door, I called out to her, and asked if her
master had returned ; and when she replied that


134 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
his bedroom stood open and empty, I felt the
cold clasp of despair. Still, I fancied he might
have discovered genial company, and would
return for luncheon, or perhaps in the afternoon,
and I took the children for a walk in the forest,
and tried my best to play and laugh with them,
and to shut out the thoughts of mystery and
veiled terror. Hour after hour I waited, and
my thoughts grew darker; again the night
came and found me watching, and at last, as
I was making much ado to finish my dinner, I
heard steps outside and the sound of a man's
voice.
The maid came in and looked oddly at me.
'Please, miss,' she began, 'Mr. Morgan the
gardener wants to speak to you for a minute,
if you didn't mind.'
'Show him in, please,' I answered, and I set
my lips tight.
The old man came slowly into the room, and
the servant shut the door behind him.
'Sit down, Mr. Morgan,' I said; 'what is it
that you want to say to me?'
'Well, miss, Mr. Gregg he gave me something
for you yesterday morning, just before he went
off; and he told me particular not to hand it


136 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
will consent to accept the small remembrance
addressed to you, and my sincere thanks for
the way in which you joined your fortunes to
mine. The fate which has come upon me is
desperate and terrible beyond the remotest
dreams of man; but this fate you have a right
to know—if you please. If you look in the
left-hand drawer of my dressing-table, you will
find the key of the escritoire, properly labelled.
In the well of the escritoire is a large envelope
sealed and addressed to your name. I advise
you to throw it forthwith into the fire; you will
sleep better of nights if you do so. But if you
must know the history of what has happened,
it is all written down for you to read.'
The signature was firmly written below, and
again I turned the page and read out the words
one by one, aghast and white to the lips, my
hands cold as ice, and sickness choking me.
The dead silence of the room, and the thought
of the dark woods and hills closing me in on
every side, oppressed me, helpless and without
capacity, and not knowing where to turn for
counsel. At last I resolved that though
knowledge should haunt my whole life and
all the days to come, I must know the meaning


THE MISSING BROTHER 137
of the strange terrors that had so long tormented
me, rising grey, dim, and awful, like the shadows
in the wood at dusk. I carefully carried out
Professor Gregg's directions, and not without
reluctance broke the seal of the envelope, and
spread out his manuscript before me. That
manuscript I always carry with me, and I see
that I cannot deny your unspoken request to
read it. This, then, was what I read that night,
sitting at the desk, with a shaded lamp beside
me.
The young lady who called herself Miss
Lally then proceeded to recite
The Statement of William Gregg, F.R.S., etc.
It is many years since the first glimmer of
the theory which is now almost, if not quite,
reduced to fact dawned first on my mind. A
somewhat extensive course of miscellaneous
and obsolete reading had done a good deal to
prepare the way, and, later, when I became
somewhat of a specialist, and immersed myself
in the studies known as ethnological, I was now
and then startled by facts that would not square
with orthodox scientific opinion, and by dis-


138 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
coveries that seemed to hint at something still
hidden for all our research. More particularly
I became convinced that much of the folk-lore
of the world is but an exaggerated account of
events that really happened, and I was especially
drawn to consider the stories of the fairies, the
good folk of the Celtic races. Here I thought
I could detect the fringe of embroidery and
exaggeration, the fantastic guise, the little
people dressed in green and gold sporting in
the flowers, and I thought I saw a distinct
analogy between the name given to this race
(supposed to be imaginary) and the description
of their appearance and manners. Just as our
remote ancestors called the dreaded beings
'fair' and 'good' precisely because they dreaded
them, so they had dressed them up in charming
forms, knowing the truth to be the very reverse.
Literature, too, had gone early to work, and had
lent a powerful hand in the transformation,
so that the playful elves of Shakespeare are
already far removed from the true original, and
the real horror is disguised in a form of prankish
mischief. But in the older tales, the stories
that used to make men cross themselves as
they sat round the burning logs, we tread a


THE MISSING BROTHER 139
different stage; I saw a widely opposed spirit
in certain histories of children and of men and
women who vanished strangely from the earth.
They would be seen by a peasant in the fields
walking towards some green and rounded
hillock, and seen no more on earth; and there
are stories of mothers who have left a child
quietly sleeping, with the cottage door rudely
barred with a piece of wood, and have returned,
not to find the plump and rosy little Saxon,
but a thin and wizened creature, with sallow
skin and black, piercing eyes, the child of
another race. Then, again, there were myths
darker still; the dread of witch and wizard,
the lurid evil of the Sabbath, and the hint of
demons who mingled with the daughters of
men. And just as we have turned the terrible
'fair folk' into a company of benignant, if
freakish, elves, so we have hidden from us the
black foulness of the witch and her companions
under a popular diablerie of old women and
broomsticks and a comic cat with tail on end.
So the Greeks called the hideous furies bene-
volent ladies, and thus the northern nations
have followed their example. I pursued my
investigations, stealing odd hours from other


THE THREE IMPOSTORS
and more imperative labours, and I asked
myself the question: Supposing these traditions
to be true, who were the demons who are
reported to have attended the Sabbaths? I
need not say that I laid aside what I may call
the supernatural hypothesis of the middle ages,
and came to the conclusion that fairies and
devils were of one and the same race and
origin; invention, no doubt, and the Gothic
fancy of old days, had done much in the way
of exaggeration and distortion; yet I firmly
believed that beneath all this imagery there
was a black background of truth. As for some
of the alleged wonders, I hesitated. While I
should be very loath to receive any one specific
instance of modern spiritualism as containing
even a grain of the genuine, yet I was not
wholly prepared to deny that human flesh may
now and then, once perhaps in ten million
cases, be the veil of powers which seem magical
to us—powers which, so far from proceeding
from the heights and leading men thither, are
in reality survivals from the depths of being.
The amoeba and the snail have powers which
we do not possess; and I thought it possible
that the theory of reversion might explain


142 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
Thus I stood, satisfied that my conjecture
was at all events not far removed from fact,
when a chance paragraph in a small country
print one day arrested my attention. It was a
short account of what was to all appearance the
usual sordid tragedy of the village—a young
girl unaccountably missing, and evil rumour
blatant and busy with her reputation. Yet I
could read between the lines that all this
scandal was purely hypothetical, and in all
probability invented to account for what was
in any other manner unaccountable. A flight
to London or Liverpool, or an undiscovered
body lying with a weight about its neck in the
foul depths of a woodland pool, or perhaps
murder—such were the theories of the wretched
girl's neighbours. But as I idly scanned the
paragraph, a flash of thought passed through
me with the violence of an electric shock: what
if the obscure and horrible race of the hills still
survived, still remained haunting wild places
and barren hills, and now and then repeating
the evil of Gothic legend, unchanged and
unchangeable as the Turanian Shelta, or the
Basques of Spain. I have said that the thought
came with violence; and indeed I drew in my


THE MISSING BROTHER 143
breath sharply, and clung with both hands to
my elbow-chair, in a strange confusion of
horror and elation. It was as if one of my
confreres of physical science, roaming in a quiet
English wood, had been suddenly stricken
aghast by the presence of the slimy and loath-
some terror of the icthyosaurus, the original of
the stories of the awful worms killed by valorous
knights, or had seen the sun darkened by the
pterodactyl, the dragon of tradition. Yet as a
resolute explorer of knowledge, the thought of
such a discovery threw me into a passion of
joy, and I cut out the slip from the paper and
put it in a drawer in my old bureau, resolved
that it should be but the first piece in a collection
of the strangest significance. I sat long that
evening dreaming of the conclusions I should
establish, nor did cooler reflection at first dash
my confidence. Yet as I began to put the
case fairly, I saw that I might be building
on an unstable foundation; the facts might
possibly be in accordance with local opinion,
and I regarded the affair with a mood of some
reserve. Yet I resolved to remain perched on
the look-out, and I hugged to myself the
thought that I alone was watching and wakeful,


144 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
while the great crowd of thinkers and searchers
stood heedless and indifferent, perhaps letting
the most prerogative facts pass by unnoticed.
Several years elapsed before I was enabled
to add to the contents of the drawer; and the
second find was in reality not a valuable one,
for it was a mere repetition of the first, with
only the variation of another and distant
locality. Yet I gained something; for in the
second case, as in the first, the tragedy took
place in a desolate and lonely country, and
so far my theory seemed justified. But the
third piece was to me far more decisive. Again,
amongst outland hills, far even from a main
road of traffic, an old man was found done to
death, and the instrument of execution was left
beside him. Here, indeed, there was rumour
and conjecture, for the deadly tool was a
primitive stone axe, bound by gut to the
wooden handle, and surmises the most extra-
vagant and improbable were indulged in. Yet,
as I thought with a kind of glee, the wildest
conjectures went far astray; and I took the
pains to enter into correspondence with the
local doctor, who was called at the inquest.
He, a man of some acuteness, was dum-


THE MISSING BROTHER 145
foundered. 'It will not do to speak of these
things in country places,' he wrote to me; 'but
frankly, Professor Gregg, there is some hideous
mystery here. I have obtained possession of
the stone axe, and have been so curious as to
test its powers. I took it into the back-garden
of my house one Sunday afternoon when my
family and the servants were all out, and there,
sheltered by the poplar hedges, I made my
experiments. I found the thing utterly un-
manageable; whether there is some peculiar
balance, some nice adjustment of weights,
which require incessant practice, or whether
an effectual blow can be struck only by a
certain trick of the muscles, I do not know;
but I assure you that I went into the house with
but a sorry opinion of my athletic capacities.
It was like an inexperienced man trying
"putting the hammer"; the force exerted seemed
to return on oneself, and I found myself hurled
backwards with violence, while the axe fell
harmless to the ground. On another occasion
I tried the experiment with a clever woodman
of the place; but this man, who had handled
his axe for forty years, could do nothing with
the stone implement, and missed every stroke
K



THE MISSING BROTHER 147
intolerable puzzle. Somewhat of the cuneiform
pattern, there were yet striking differences,
which I detected at the first glance, and all
efforts to read the inscription on the hypothesis
that the rules for deciphering the arrow-headed
writing would apply proved futile. A riddle
such as this stung my pride, and at odd
moments I would take the Black Seal out of
the cabinet, and scrutinise it with so much idle
perseverance that every letter was familiar to
my mind, and I could have drawn the inscrip-
tion from memory without the slightest error.
Judge, then, of my surprise when I one day
received from a correspondent in the west
of England a letter and an enclosure that
positively left me thunderstruck. I saw care-
fully traced on a large piece of paper the very
characters of the Black Seal, without alteration
of any kind, and above the inscription my
friend had written: Inscription found on a
limestone rock on the Grey Hills, Monmouth-
shire. Done in some red earth, and quite recent.
I turned to the letter. My friend wrote: 'I
send you the enclosed inscription with all due
reserve. A shepherd who passed by the stone
a week ago swears that there was then no


148 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
mark of any kind. The characters, as I have
noted, are formed by drawing some red earth
over the stone, and are of an average height of
one inch. They look to me like a kind of
cuneiform character, a good deal altered, but
this, of course, is impossible. It may be either
a hoax, or more probably some scribble of the
gypsies, who are plentiful enough in this wild
country. They have, as you are aware, many
hieroglyphics which they use in communicating
with one another. I happened to visit the
stone in question two days ago in connection
with a rather painful incident which has
occurred here.'
As may be supposed, I wrote immediately to
my friend, thanking him for the copy of the
inscription, and asking him in a casual manner
the history of the incident he mentioned. To
be brief, I heard that a woman named Cradock,
who had lost her husband a day before, had
set out to communicate the sad news to a
cousin who lived some five miles away. She
took a short cut which led by the Grey Hills.
Mrs. Cradock, who was then quite a young
woman, never arrived at her relative's house.
Late that night a farmer who had lost a couple


THE MISSING BROTHER 149
of sheep, supposed to have wandered from the
flock, was walking over the Grey Hills, with
a lantern and his dog. His attention was
attracted by a noise, which he described as a
kind of wailing, mournful and pitiable to hear;
and, guided by the sound, he found the un-
fortunate Mrs. Cradock crouched on the ground
by the limestone rock, swaying her body to
and fro, and lamenting and crying in so heart-
rending a manner that the farmer was, as he
says, at first obliged to stop his ears, or he
would have run away. The woman allowed
herself to be taken home, and a neighbour
came to see to her necessities. All the night
she never ceased her crying, mixing her lament
with words of some unintelligible jargon, and
when the doctor arrived he pronounced her
insane. She lay on her bed for a week, now
wailing, as people said, like one lost and damned
for eternity, and now sunk in a heavy coma;
it was thought that grief at the loss of her
husband had unsettled her mind, and the
medical man did not at one time expect her
to live. I need not say that I was deeply
interested in this story, and I made my friend
write to me at intervals with all the particulars


ISO THE THREE IMPOSTORS
of the case. I heard then that in the course
of six weeks the woman gradually recovered
the use of her faculties, and some months later
she gave birth to a son, christened Jervase,
who unhappily proved to be of weak intellect.
Such were the facts known to the village; but
to me, while I whitened at the suggested
thought of the hideous enormities that had
doubtless been committed, all this was nothing
short of conviction, and I incautiously hazarded
a hint of something like the truth to some
scientific friends. The moment the words had
left my lips I bitterly regretted having spoken,
and thus given away the great secret of my
life, but with a good deal of relief mixed
with indignation I found my fears altogether
misplaced, for my friends ridiculed me to my
face, and I was regarded as a madman; and
beneath a natural anger I chuckled to myself,
feeling as secure amidst these blockheads as if
I had confided what I knew to the desert
sands.
But now, knowing so much, I resolved I
would know all, and I concentrated my efforts
on the task of deciphering the inscription on
the Black Seal. For many years I made this


THE MISSING BROTHER 153
hand, when I saw, to my astonishment, that
the under side was inscribed. I said, quietly
enough, to my friend the curator that the
specimen interested me, and that I should be
much obliged if he would allow me to take
it with me to my hotel for a couple of days.
He, of course, made no objection, and I hurried
to my rooms and found that my first glance
had not deceived me. There were two inscrip-
tions; one in the regular cuneiform character,
another in the character of the Black Seal, and
I realised that my task was accomplished. I
made an exact copy of the two inscriptions;
and when I got to my London study, and had
the Seal before me, I was able seriously to
grapple with the great problem. The inter-
preting inscription on the museum specimen,
though in itself curious enough, did not bear
on my quest, but the transliteration made me
master of the secret of the Black Seal. Con-
jecture, of course, had to enter into my calcula-
tions; there was here and there uncertainty
about a particular ideograph, and one sign
recurring again and again on the seal baffled
me for many successive nights. But at last
the secret stood open before me in plain


154 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
English, and I read the key of the awful
transmutation of the hills. The last word was
hardly written, when with fingers all trembling
and unsteady I tore the scrap of paper into the
minutest fragments, and saw them flame and
blacken in the red hollow of the fire, and then
I crushed the grey films that remained into
finest powder. Never since then have I written
those words; never will I write the phrases
which tell me how man can be reduced to the
slime from which he came, and be forced to
put on the flesh of the reptile and the snake.
There was now but one thing remaining. I
knew, but I desired to see, and I was after
some time able to take a house in the neigh-
bourhood of the Grey Hills, and not far from
the cottage where Mrs. Cradock and her son
Jervase resided. I need not go into a full and
detailed account of the apparently inexplicable
events which have occurred here, where I am
writing this. I knew that I should find in
Jervase Cradock something of the blood of the
'Little People,' and I found later that he had
more than once encountered his kinsmen in
lonely places in that lonely land. When I
was summoned one day to the garden, and


THE MISSING BROTHER 155
found him in a seizure speaking or hissing the
ghastly jargon of the Black Seal, I am afraid
that exultation prevailed over pity. I heard
bursting from his lips the secrets of the under-
world, and the word of dread,' Ishakshar,' the
signification of which I must be excused from
giving.
But there is one incident I cannot pass over
unnoticed. In the waste hollow of the night
I awoke at the sound of those hissing syllables
I knew so well; and on going to the wretched
boy's room, I found him convulsed and foaming
at the mouth, struggling on the bed as if he
strove to escape the grasp of writhing demons.
I took him down to my room and lit the lamp,
while he lay twisting on the floor, calling on
the power within his flesh to leave him. I saw
his body swell and become distended as a
bladder, while the face blackened before my
eyes; and then at the crisis I did what was
necessary according to the directions on the
Seal, and putting all scruple on one side, I
became a man of science, observant of what
was passing. Yet the sight I had to witness
was horrible, almost beyond the power of
human conception and the most fearful fantasy.


156 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
Something pushed out from the body there on
the floor, and stretched forth, a slimy, wavering
tentacle, across the room, grasped the bust upon
the cupboard, and laid it down on my desk.
When it was over, and I was left to walk up
and down all the rest of the night, white and
shuddering, with sweat pouring from my flesh,
I vainly tried to reason with myself: I said,
truly enough, that I had seen nothing really
supernatural, that a snail pushing out his horns
and drawing them in was but an instance on a
smaller scale of what I had witnessed; and yet
horror broke through all such reasonings and
left me shattered and loathing myself for the
share I had taken in the night's work.
There is little more to be said. I am going
now to the final trial and encounter; for I have
determined that there shall be nothing wanting,
and I shall meet the 'Little People' face to
face. I shall have the Black Seal and the
knowledge of its secrets to help me, and if I
unhappily do not return from my journey, there
is no need to conjure up here a picture of the
awfulness of my fate.
Pausing a little at the end of Professor


THE MISSING BROTHER 157
Gregg's statement, Miss Lally continued her
tale in the following words:—
Such was the almost incredible story that
the professor had left behind him. When I
had finished reading it, it was late at night, but
the next morning I took Morgan with me, and
we proceeded to search the Grey Hills for some
trace of the lost professor. I will not weary
you with a description of the savage desolation
of that tract of country, a tract of utterest
loneliness, of bare green hills dotted over with
grey limestone boulders, worn by the ravages
of time into fantastic semblances of men and
beasts. Finally, after many hours of weary
searching, we found what I told you—the watch
and chain, the purse, and the ring—wrapped in a
piece of coarse parchment. When Morgan cut
the gut that bound the parcel together, and I
saw the professor's property, I burst into tears,
but the sight of the dreaded characters of the
Black Seal repeated on the parchment froze me
to silent horror, and I think I understood for
the first time the awful fate that had come
upon my late employer.
I have only to add that Professor Gregg's
lawyer treated my account of what had hap-



158 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
pened as a fairy tale, and refused even to glance
at the documents I laid before him. It was
he who was responsible for the statement that
appeared in the public press, to the effect that
Professor Gregg had been drowned, and that his
body must have been swept into the open sea.
Miss Lally stopped speaking, and looked at
Mr. Phillipps, with a glance of some inquiry.
He, for his part, was sunken in a deep reverie
of thought; and when he looked up and saw the
bustle of the evening gathering in the square,
men and women hurrying to partake of dinner,
and crowds already besetting the music-halls,
all the hum and press of actual life seemed
unreal and visionary, a dream in the morning
after an awakening.
'I thank you,' he said at last,' for your most
interesting story; interesting to me, because I
feel fully convinced of its exact truth.'
'Sir,' said the lady, with some energy of
indignation, 'you grieve and offend me. Do
you think I should waste my time and yours
by concocting fictions on a bench in Leicester
Square?'
'Pardon me, Miss Lally, you have a little
misunderstood me. Before you began I knew


THE MISSING BROTHER 159
that whatever you told would be told in good
faith, but your experiences have a far higher
value than that of bona fides. The most extraor-
dinary circumstances in your account are perfect
harmony with the very latest scientific theories.
Professor Lodge would, I am sure, value a
communication from you extremely; I was
charmed from the first by his daring hypothesis
in explanation of the wonders of Spiritualism
(so called), but your narrative puts the whole
matter out of the range of mere hypothesis.'
'Alas! sir, all this will not help me. You
forget, I have lost my brother under the most
startling and dreadful circumstances. Again, I
ask you, did you not see him as you came here?
His black whiskers, his spectacles, his timid
glance to right and left; think, do not these
particulars recall his face to your memory?'
'I am sorry to say I have never seen any one
of the kind,' said Phillipps, who had forgotten
all about the missing brother. 'But let me
ask you a few questions. Did you notice
whether Professor Gregg . . .'
'Pardon me, sir, I have stayed too long.
My employers will be expecting me. I thank
you for your sympathy. Good-bye.'



160 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
Before Mr. Phillipps had recovered from his
amazement at this abrupt departure Miss Lally
had disappeared from his gaze, passing into the
crowd that now thronged the approaches to the
Empire. He walked home in a pensive frame
of mind, and drank too much tea. At ten
o'clock he had made his third brew, and had
sketched out the outlines of a little work to be
called Protoplasmic Reversion.


INCIDENT OF THE PRIVATE
BAR
MR. DYSON often meditated at odd moments
over the singular tale he had listened to at
the Caf£ de la Touraine. In the first place,
he cherished a profound conviction that the
words of truth were scattered with a too
niggardly and sparing hand over the agreeable
history of Mr. Smith and the Black Gulf
Canon; and secondly, there was the undeniable
fact of the profound agitation of the narrator,
and his gestures on the pavement, too violent
to be simulated. The idea of a man going
about London haunted by the fear of meeting
a young man with spectacles struck Dyson as
supremely ridiculous; he searched his memory
for some precedent in romance, but without
success; he paid visits at odd times to the
little cafe', hoping to find Mr. Wilkins there;
and he kept a sharp watch on the great
L


162 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
generation of the spectacled men, without
much doubt that he would remember the face
of the individual whom he had seen dart out
of the aerated bread shop. All his peregrin-
ations and researches, however, seemed to
lead to nothing of value, and Dyson needed
all his warm conviction of his innate detective
powers and his strong scent for mystery to
sustain him in his endeavours. In fact, he
had two affairs on hand; and every day, as
he passed through streets crowded or de-
serted, lurked in the obscure districts and
watched at corners, he was more than sur-
prised to find that the affair of the gold coin
persistently avoided him, while the ingenious
Wilkins, and the young man with spectacles
whom he dreaded, seemed to have vanished
from the pavements.
He was pondering these problems one even-
ing in a house of call in the Strand, and the
obstinacy with which the persons he so ardently
desired to meet hung back gave the modest
tankard before him an additional touch of
bitter. As it happened, he was alone in his
compartment, and, without thinking, he uttered
aloud the burden of his meditations. 'How


INCIDENT OF THE PRIVATE BAR 163
bizarre it all is!' he said, 'a man walking the
pavement with the dread of a timid-looking
young man with spectacles continually hover-
ing before his eyes. And there was some
tremendous feeling at work, I could swear
to that.' Quick as thought, before he had
finished the sentence, a head popped round
the barrier, and was withdrawn again; and
while Dyson was wondering what this could
mean, the door of the compartment was swung
open, and a smooth, clean-shaven, and smiling
gentleman entered.
'You will excuse me, sir,' he said politely,
'for intruding on your thoughts, but you made
a remark a minute ago.'
'I did,' said Dyson; 'I have been puzzling
over a foolish matter, and I thought aloud.
As you heard what I said, and seem interested,
perhaps you may be able to relieve my per-
plexity?'
'Indeed, I scarcely know; it is an odd coin-
cidence. One has to be cautious. I suppose,
sir, that you would have no repulsion in
assisting the ends of justice.'
'Justice,' replied Dyson, ' is a term of such
wide meaning, that I too feel doubtful about


164 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
giving an answer. But this place is not alto-
gether fit for such a discussion; perhaps you
would come to my rooms?'
'You are very kind; my name is Burton,
but I am sorry to say I have not a card with
me. Do you live near here?'
'Within ten minutes' walk.'
Mr. Burton took out his watch, and seemed
to be making a rapid calculation.
'I have a train to catch,' he said; 'but after
all, it is a late one. So if you don't mind, I
think I will come with you. I am sure we
should have a little talk together. We turn
up here?'
The theatres were filling as they crossed
the Strand; the street seemed alive with
voices, and Dyson looked fondly about him.
The glittering lines of gas-lamps, with here
and there the blinding radiance of an electric
light, the hansoms that flashed to and fro
with ringing bells, the laden 'buses, and the
eager hurrying east and west of the foot-
passengers, made his most enchanting picture;
and the graceful spire of St. Mary le Strand on
the one hand, and the last flush of sunset on
the other, were to him a cause of thanksgiving,


INCIDENT OF THE PRIVATE BAR 165
as the gorse blossom to Linnaeus. Mr. Burton
caught his look of fondness as they crossed
the street
'I see you can find the picturesque in
London,' he said. 'To me this great town is
as I see it is to you—the study and the love
of life. Yet how few there are that can pierce
the veils of apparent monotony and meanness!
I have read in a paper, which is said to have
the largest circulation in the world, a com-
parison between the aspects of London and
Paris, a comparison which should be positively
laureat, as the great masterpiece of fatuous
stupidity. Conceive if you can a human being
of ordinary intelligence preferring the Boule-
vards to our London streets; imagine a man
calling for the wholesale destruction of our
most charming city, in order that the dull
uniformity of that whited sepulchre called
Paris should be reproduced here in London.
Is it not positively incredible?'
• 'My dear sir,' said Dyson, regarding Burton
with a good deal of interest, 'I agree most
heartily with your opinions, but I really cannot
share your wonder. Have you heard how
much George Eliot received for Romola? Do


166 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
you know what the circulation of Robert
Elsmere was? Do you read Tit Bits regularly?
To me, on the contrary, it is constant matter
both for wonder and thanksgiving that London
was not boulevardised twenty years ago. I
praise that exquisite jagged skyline that stands
up against the pale greens and fading blues
and flushing clouds of sunset, but I wonder
even more than I praise. As for St. Mary le
Strand, its preservation is a miracle, nothing
more nor less. A thing of exquisite beauty
versus four 'buses abreast! Really, the con-
clusion is too obvious. Didn't you read the
letter of the man who proposed that the
whole mysterious system, the immemorial plan
of computing Easter, should be abolished off-
hand, because he doesn't like his son having
his holidays as early as March 25th? But
shall we be going on?'
They had lingered at the corner of a street
on the north side of the Strand, enjoying the
contrasts and the glamour of the scene. Dyson
pointed the way with a gesture, and they
strolled up the comparatively deserted streets,
slanting a little to the right, and thus arriving
at Dyson's lodging on the verge of Blooms-


INCIDENT OF THE PRIVATE BAR 167
bury. Mr. Burton took a comfortable arm-
chair by the open window, while Dyson lit the
candles and produced the whisky and soda and
cigarettes.
'They tell me these cigarettes are very good,'
he said; 'but I know nothing about it myself.
I hold at last that there is only one tobacco,
and that is shag. I suppose I could not tempt
you to try a pipeful?'
Mr. Burton smilingly refused the offer, and
picked out a cigarette from the box. When
he had smoked it half through, he said with
some hesitation—
'It is really kind of you to have me here,
Mr. Dyson; the fact is that the interests at
issue are far too serious to be discussed in a
bar, where, as you found for yourself, there may
be listeners, voluntary or involuntary, on each
side. I think the remark I heard you make
was something about the oddity of an indi-
vidual going about London in deadly fear of
a young man with spectacles?'
'Yes; that was it.'
'Well, would you mind confiding to me the
circumstances that gave rise to the reflection?'
'Not in the least. It was like this.' And he


168 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
ran over in brief outline the adventure in Ox-
ford Street, dwelling on the violence of Mr.
Wilkins's gestures, but wholly suppressing the
tale told in the cafe". 'He told me he lived in
constant terror of meeting this man; and I left
him when I thought he was cool enough to look
after himself,' said Dyson, ending his narrative.
'Really,' said Mr. Burton. 'And you actually
saw this mysterious person?'
'Yes.'
'And could you describe him?'
'Well, he looked to me a youngish man, pale
and nervous. He had small black side-whiskers,
and wore rather large spectacles.'
'But this is simply marvellous! You astonish
me. For I must tell you that my interest in
the matter is this. I 'm not in the least in terror
of meeting a dark young man with spectacles,
but I shrewdly suspect a person of that descrip-
tion would much rather not meet me. And yet
the account you give of the man tallies exactly.
A nervous glance to right and left—is it not
so? And, as you observed, he wears prominent
spectacles, and has small black whiskers. There
cannot be, surely, two people exactly identical—
one a cause of terror, and the other, I should



170 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
and add to my income. Since those early days
I have been in most quarters of the world, and
some very valuable things have passed through
my hands, and I have had to engage in difficult
and delicate negotiations. You have possibly
heard of the Khan opal—called in the East
"The Stone of a Thousand and One Colours "?
Well, perhaps the conquest of that stone was
my greatest achievement. I call it myself the
stone of the thousand and one lies, for I assure
you that I had to invent a cycle of folk-lore
before the Rajah who owned it would consent
to sell the thing. I subsidised wandering story-
tellers, who told tales in which the opal played
a frightful part; I hired a holy man—a great
ascetic—to prophesy against the thing in the
language of Eastern symbolism; in short, I
frightened the Rajah out of his wits. So, you
see, there is room for diplomacy in the traffic
I am engaged in. I have to be ever on my
guard, and I have often been sensible that
unless I watched every step and weighed every
word, my life would not last me much longer.
Last April I became aware of the existence
of a highly valuable antique gem; it was in
southern Italy, and in the possession of persons


INCIDENT OF THE PRIVATE BAR 171
who were ignorant of its real value. It has
always been my experience that it is precisely
the ignorant who are most difficult to deal with.
I have met farmers who were under the impres-
sion that a shilling of George I. was a find of
almost incalculable value; and all the defeats
I have sustained have been at the hands of
people of this description. Reflecting on these
facts, I saw that the acquisition of the gem I
have mentioned would be an affair demanding
the nicest diplomacy; I might possibly have
got it by offering a sum approaching its real
value, but I need not point out to you that such
a proceeding would be most unbusinesslike.
Indeed, I doubt whether it would have been
successful; for the cupidity of such persons is
aroused by a sum which seems enormous, and
the low cunning which serves them in place
of intelligence immediately suggests that the
object for which such an amount is offered
must be worth at least double. Of course,
when it is a matter of an ordinary curiosity—
an old jug, a carved chest, or a queer brass
lantern—one does not much care; the cupidity
of the owner defeats its object; the collector
laughs and goes away, for he is aware that


172 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
such things are by no means unique. But this
gem I fervently|desired to possess; and as I did
not see my way to giving more than a
hundredth part of its value, I was conscious
that all my, let us say, imaginative and diplo-
matic powers would have to be exerted. I
am sorry to say that I came to the conclusion
that I could not undertake to carry the matter
through single-handed, and I determined to
confide in my assistant, a young man named
William Robbins, whom I judged to be by no
means devoid of capacity. My idea was that
Robbins should get himself up as a low-class
dealer in precious stones; he could patter a
little Italian, and would go to the town in
question and manage to see the gem we were
after, possibly by offering some trifling articles
of jewellery for sale, but that I left to be
decided. Then my work was to begin, but I
will not trouble you with a tale told twice over.
In due course, then, Robbins went off to Italy
with an assortment of uncut stones and a few
rings, and some jewellery I bought in Bir-
mingham on purpose for his expedition. A
week later I followed him, travelling leisurely,
so that I was a fortnight later in arriving


INCIDENT OF THE PRIVATE BAR 173
at our common destination. There was a
decent hotel in the town, and on my inquiring
of the landlord whether there were many
strangers in the place, he told me very few;
he had heard there was an Englishman staying
in a small tavern, a pedlar, he said, who sold
beautiful trinkets very cheaply, and wanted to
buy old rubbish. For five or six days I took
life leisurely, and I must say I enjoyed myself.
It was part of my plan to make the people
think I was an enormously rich man; and I
knew that such items as the extravagance of
my meals, and the price of every bottle of wine
I drank, would not be suffered, as Sancho
Panza puts it, to rot in the landlord's breast.
At the end of the week I was fortunate enough
to make the acquaintance of Signer Melini,
the owner of the gem I coveted, at the cafe",
and with his ready hospitality, and my
geniality, I was soon established as a friend
of the house. On my third or fourth visit I
managed to make the Italians talk about the
English pedlar, who, they said, spoke a most
detestable Italian. "But that does not matter,"
said the Signora Melini, " for he has beautiful
things, which he sells very very cheap." "I


174 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
hope you may not find he has cheated you," I
said, "for I must tell you that English people
give these fellows a very wide berth. They
usually make a great parade of the cheapness
of their goods, which often turn out to be
double the price of better articles in the shops."
They would not hear of this, and Signora
Melini insisted on showing me the three rings
and the bracelet she had bought of the pedlar.
She told me the price she had paid; and after
scrutinising the articles carefully, I had to
confess that she had made a bargain, and
indeed Robbins had sold her the things at
about fifty per cent, below market value. I
admired the trinkets as I gave them back to
the lady, and I hinted that the pedlar must be
a somewhat foolish specimen of his class. Two
days later, as I was taking my vermouth at the
caf£ with Signor Melini, he led the conversation
back to the pedlar, and mentioned casually
that he had shown the man a little curiosity,
for which he had made rather a handsome
offer. "My dear sir," I said, " I hope you will
be careful. I told you that the travelling
tradesman does not bear a very high reputa-
tion in England; and notwithstanding his


INCIDENT OF THE PRIVATE BAR 175
apparent simplicity, this fellow may turn out
to be an arrant cheat. May I ask you what is
the nature of the curiosity you have shown
him?" He told me it was a little thing, a
pretty little stone with some figures cut on it:
people said it was old. "I should like to
examine it," I replied, " as it happens I have
seen a good deal of these gems. We have a
fine collection of them in our Museum at
London." In due course I was shown the
article, and I held the gem I so coveted between
my fingers. I looked at it coolly, and put it
down carelessly on the table. "Would you
mind telling me, Signor," I said, "how much
my fellow-countryman offered you for this?"
"Well," he said, "my wife says the man must
be mad; he said he would give me twenty lire
for it."
'I looked at him quietly, and took up the
gem and pretended to examine it in the light
more carefully; I turned it over and over, and
finally pulled out a magnifying glass from my
pocket, and seemed to search every line in the
cutting with minutest scrutiny. "My dear sir,"
I said at last, " I am inclined to agree with
Signora Melini. If this gem were genuine, it


176 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
would be worth some money; but as it happens
to be a rather bad forgery, it is not worth
twenty centesimi. It was sophisticated, I should
imagine, some time in the last century, and by
a very unskilful hand." "Then we had better
get rid of it," said Melini. "I never thought
it was worth anything myself. Of course, I
am sorry for the pedlar, but one must let a
man know his own trade. I shall tell him we
will take the twenty lire." "Excuse me," I
said, "the man wants a lesson. It would be
a charity to give him one. Tell him that you
will not take anything under eighty lire, and
I shall be much surprised if he does not close
with you at once."
'A day or two later I heard that the English
pedlar had gone away, after debasing the
minds of the country people with Birmingham
art jewellery; for I admit that the gold sleeve-
links like kidney beans, the silver chains
made apparently after the pattern of a dog-
chain, and the initial brooches have always
been heavy on my conscience. I cannot
acquit myself of having indirectly contributed
to debauch the taste of a simple folk; but I
hope that the end I had in view may finally


INCIDENT OF THE PRIVATE BAR 177

outbalance this heavy charge. Soon after-
wards I paid a farewell visit at the Melinis,
and the signor informed me with an oily
chuckle that the plan I had suggested had
been completely successful. I congratulated
him on his bargain, and went away after
expressing a wish that Heaven might send
many such pedlars in his path.
'Nothing of interest occurred on my return
journey. I had arranged that Robbins was to
meet me at a certain place on a certain day,
and I went to the appointment full of the
coolest confidence; the gem had been con-
quered, and I had only to reap the fruits of
victory. I am sorry to shake that trust in our
common human nature which I am sure you
possess, but I am compelled to tell you that up
to the present date I have never set eyes on
my man Robbins, or on the antique gem in his
custody. I have found out that he actually
arrived in London, for he was seen three days
before my arrival in England by a pawnbroker
of my acquaintance consuming his favourite
beverage—four ale—in the tavern where we
met to-night. Since then he has not been
heard of. I hope you will now pardon my
M


INCIDENT OF THE PRIVATE BAR 179
these questions of ethics. I have been com-
pelled to do so myself, just as I was forced
to master a simple system of book-keeping.
Without book-keeping, and still more without
a system of ethics, it is impossible to conduct
a business such as mine. But I assure you
that I am often profoundly saddened as I pass
through the crowded streets and watch the
world at work by the thought of how few
amongst all these hurrying individuals, black-
hatted, well dressed, educated we may presume
sufficiently,—how few amongst them have any
reasoned system of morality. Even you have
not weighed the question; although you study
life and affairs, and to a certain extent pene-
trate the veils and masks of the comedy of
man, even you judge by empty conventions,
and the false money which is allowed to pass
current as sterling coin. Allow me to play the
part of Socrates; I shall teach you nothing
that you do not know. I shall merely lay
aside the wrappings of prejudice and bad logic,
and show you the real image which you possess
in your soul. Come, then. Do you allow that
happiness is anything?'
'Certainly,' said Dyson.


i8o THE THREE IMPOSTORS
'And happiness is desirable or undesir-
able?'
'Desirable, of course.'
'And what shall we call the man who gives
happiness? Is he not a philanthropist?'
'I think so.'
'And such a person is praiseworthy, and the
more praiseworthy in the proportion of the
persons whom he makes happy?'
'By all means.'
'So that he who makes a whole nation
happy is praiseworthy in the extreme, and the
action by which he gives happiness is the
highest virtue?'
'It appears so, O Burton,' said Dyson, who
found something very exquisite in the character
of his visitor.
'Quite so; you find the several conclusions
inevitable. Well, apply them to the story I
have told you. I conferred happiness on myself
by obtaining (as I thought) possession of the
gem; I conferred happiness on the Melinis by
getting them eighty lire instead of an object
for which they had not the slightest value, and
I intended to confer happiness on the whole
British nation by selling the thing to the


INCIDENT OF THE PRIVATE BAR 181
British Museum, to say nothing of the happi-
ness a profit of about nine thousand per cent,
would have conferred on me. I assure you,
I regard Robbins as an interferer with the
cosmos and fair order of things. But that is
nothing; you perceive that I am an apostle
of the very highest morality; you have been
forced to yield to argument.'
'There certainly seems a great deal in what
you advance,' said Dyson. 'I admit that I am
a mere amateur of ethics, while you, as you
say, have brought the most acute scrutiny to
bear on these perplexed and doubtful questions.
I can well understand your anxiety to meet
the fallacious Robbins, and I congratulate
myself on the chance which has made us
acquainted. But you will pardon my seeming
inhospitality; I see it is half-past eleven, and
I think you mentioned a train.'
'A thousand thanks, Mr. Dyson, I have just
time, I see. I will look you up some evening
if I may. Good night.'



THE DECORATIVE
IMAGINATION
IN the course of a few weeks Dyson became
accustomed to the constant incursions of the in-
genious Mr. Burton, who showed himself ready
to drop in at all hours, not averse to refresh-
ment, and a profound guide in the complicated
questions of life. His visits at once terrified
and delighted Dyson, who could no longer seat
himself at his bureau secure from interruption
while he embarked on literary undertakings,
each one of which was to be a masterpiece.
On the other hand, it was a vivid pleasure to
be confronted with views so highly original;
and if here and there Mr. Burton's reasonings
seemed tinged with fallacy, yet Dyson freely
yielded to the joy of strangeness, and never
failed to give his visitor a frank and hearty
welcome. Mr. Burton's first inquiry was
always after the unprincipled Robbins, and
he seemed to feel the stings of disappointment


THE DECORATIVE IMAGINATION 183
when Dyson told him that he had failed to
meet this outrage on all morality, as Burton
styled him, vowing that sooner or later he
would take vengeance on such a shameless
betrayal of trust.
One evening they had sat together for some
time discussing the possibility of laying down
for this present generation and our modern and
intensely complicated order of society some
rules of social diplomacy, such as Lord Bacon
gave to the courtiers of King James I. 'It is
a book to make," said Mr. Burton, 'but who is
there capable of making it? I tell you, people
are longing for such a book; it would bring
fortune to its publisher. Bacon's Essays are
exquisite, but they have now no practical
application; the modern strategist can find
but little use in a treatise De Re Militari,
written by a Florentine in the fifteenth cen-
tury. Scarcely more dissimilar are the social
conditions of Bacon's time and our own; the
rules that he lays down so exquisitely for the
courtier and diplomatist of James the First's
age will avail us little in the rough-and-tumble
struggle of to-day. Life, I am afraid, has
deteriorated; it gives little play for fine strokes


184 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
such as formerly advanced men in the state.
Except in such businesses as mine, where a
chance does occur now and then, it has all
become, as I said, an affair of rough and
tumble; men still desire to attain, it is true,
but what is their may en de parvenirt A mere
imitation—and not a gracious one—of the
arts of the soap vendor and the proprietor
of baking-powder. When I think of these
things, my dear Dyson, I confess that I am
tempted to despair of my century.'
'You are too pessimistic, my dear fellow;
you set up too high a standard. Certainly, I
agree with you, that the times are decadent
in many ways. I admit a general appearance
of squalor; it needs much philosophy to ex-
tract the wonderful and the beautiful from the
Cromwell Road or the Nonconformist con-
science. Australian wines of fine Burgundy
character, the novels alike of the old women
and the new women, popular journalism,—these
things, indeed, make for depression. Yet we
have our advantages: before us is unfolded the
greatest spectacle the world has ever seen—the
mystery of the innumerable, unending streets,
the strange adventures that must infallibly


THE DECORATIVE IMAGINATION 185
arise from so complicated a press of interests.
Nay, I will say that he who has stood in the
ways of a suburb, and has seen them stretch
before him all shining, void, and desolate at
noonday, has not lived in vain. Such a sight
is in reality more wonderful than any per-
spective of Bagdad or Grand Cairo. And, to
set on one side the entertaining history of the
gem which you told me, surely you must have
had many singular adventures in your own
career?'
'Perhaps not so many as you would think;
a good deal—the larger part of my business—
has been as commonplace as linen-drapery.
But, of course, things happen now and then.
It is ten years since I established my agency,
and I suppose that a house- and estate-agent
who had been in trade for an equal time
could tell you some queer stories. But I must
give you a sample of my experiences some
night.'
'Why not to-night?' said Dyson. 'This
evening seems to me admirably adapted for
an odd chapter. Look out into the street; you
can catch a view of it if you crane your neck
from that chair of yours. Is it not charming?



i86 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
The double row of lamps growing closer in the
distance, the hazy outline of the plane-tree in
the square, and the lights of the hansoms swim-
ming to and fro, gliding and vanishing; and
above, the sky all clear and blue and shining.
Come, let us have one of your cent nouvelles
nouvelles'
'My dear Dyson, I am delighted to amuse
you." With these words Mr. Burton prefaced
the
NOVEL OF THE IRON MAID.
I think the most extraordinary event which
I can recall took place about five years ago.
I was then still feeling my way; I had declared
for business, and attended regularly at my
office; but I had not succeeded in establishing
a really profitable connection, and consequently
I had a good deal of leisure time on my hands.
I have never thought fit to trouble you with
the details of my private life; they would be
entirely devoid of interest. I must briefly say,
however, that I had a numerous circle of ac-
quaintance, and was never at a loss as to how
to spend my evenings. I was so fortunate as
to have friends in most of the ranks of the


i88 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
'A good nine miles to Waterloo Bridge.'
And with that he went off.
Before me was the long suburban street, its
dreary distance marked by rows of twinkling
lamps, and the air was poisoned by the faint,
sickly smell of burning bricks; it was not a
cheerful prospect by any means, and I had to
walk through nine miles of such streets, deserted
as those of Pompeii. I knew pretty well what
direction to take, so I set out wearily, looking
at the stretch of lamps vanishing in perspective;
and as I walked, street after street branched off
to right and left, some far-reaching, to distances
that seemed endless, communicating with other
systems of thoroughfare, and some mere proto-
plasmic streets, beginning in orderly fashion
with serried two-storied houses, and ending
suddenly in waste, and pits, and rubbish-heaps,
and fields whence the magic had departed. I
have spoken of systems of thoroughfare, and I
assure you that walking alone through these
silent places I felt fantasy growing on me, and
some glamour of the infinite. There was here,
I felt, an immensity as in the outer void of the
universe; I passed from unknown to unknown,
my way marked by lamps like stars, and on


THE DECORATIVE IMAGINATION 189
either hand was an unknown world where
myriads of men dwelt and slept, street leading
into street, as it seemed to world's end. At
first the road by which I was travelling was
lined with houses of unutterable monotony, a
wall of grey brick pierced by two stories of
windows, drawn close to the very pavement;
but by degrees I noticed an improvement, there
were gardens, and these grew larger; the sub-
urban builder began to allow himself a wider
scope; and for a certain distance each flight of
steps was guarded by twin lions of plaster, and
scents of flowers prevailed over the fume of
heated bricks. The road began to climb a hill,
and looking up a side street I saw the half
moon rise over plane-trees, and there on the
other side was as if a white cloud had fallen,
and the air around it was sweetened as with
incense; it was a may-tree in full bloom, I
pressed on stubbornly, listening for the wheels
and the clatter of some belated hansom; but
into that land of men who go to the city in the
morning and return in the evening the hansom
rarely enters, and I had resigned myself once
more to the walk, when I suddenly became
aware that some one was advancing to meet


THE DECORATIVE IMAGINATION 191
casual club acquaintance. I suppose I had not
spoken to Mr. Mathias half a dozen times; he
was a man who would sit silent in an arm-chair
for hours, neither reading nor smoking, but now
and again moistening his lips with his tongue
and smiling queerly to himself. I confess he
had never attracted me, and on the whole I
should have preferred to continue my walk.
But he took my arm and led me up a side
street, and stopped at a door in a high wall.
We passed through the still, moonlit garden,
beneath the black shadow of an old cedar, and
into an old red-brick house with many gables.
I was tired enough, and I sighed with relief as
I let myself fall into a great leather arm-chair.
You know the infernal grit with which they
strew the sidewalk in those suburban districts;
it makes walking a penance, and I felt my four-
mile tramp had made me more weary than
ten miles on an honest country road. I looked
about the room with some curiosity; there was
a shaded lamp, which threw a circle of brilliant
light on a heap of papers lying on an old brass-
bound secretaire of the last century, but the
room was all vague and shadowy, and I could
only see that it was long and low, and that it


192 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
was filled with indistinct objects which might
be furniture. Mr. Mathias sat down in a second
arm-chair, and looked about him with that odd
smile of his. He was a queer-looking man,
clean shaven, and white to the lips. I should
think his age was something between fifty and
sixty.
'Now I have got you here,' he began, 'I
must inflict my hobby on you. You knew I
was a collector? Oh yes, I have devoted many
years to collecting curiosities, which I think
are really curious. But we must have a better
light-
He advanced into the middle of the room,
and lit a lamp which hung from the ceiling;
and as the bright light flashed round the wick,
from every corner and space there seemed to
start a horror. Great wooden frames, with
complicated apparatus of ropes and pulleys,
stood against the wall; a wheel of strange
shape had a place beside a thing that looked
like a gigantic gridiron; little tables glittered
with bright steel instruments carelessly put
down as if ready for use; a screw and vice
loomed out, casting ugly shadows, and in an-
other nook was a saw with cruel jagged teeth.


THE DECORATIVE IMAGINATION 193

'Yes,' said Mr. Mathias, 'they are, as you
suggest, instruments of torture—of torture and
death. Some—many, I may say—have been
used; a few are reproductions after ancient
examples. Those knives were used for flay-
ing; that frame is a rack, and a very fine
specimen. Look at this; it comes from Venice.
You see that sort of collar, something like a
big horse-shoe? Well, the patient, let us call
him, sat down quite comfortably, and the
horse-shoe was neatly fitted round his neck.
Then the two ends were joined with a silken
band, and the executioner began to turn a
handle connected with the band. The horse-
shoe contracted very gradually as the band
tightened, and the turning continued till the
man was strangled. It all took place quietly,
in one of those queer garrets under the leads.
But these things are all European; the Orientals
are, of course, much more ingenious. These
are the Chinese contrivances; you have heard
of the " Heavy Death "? It is my hobby, this
sort of thing. Do you know, I often sit here,
hour after hour, and meditate over the collec-
tion. I fancy I see the faces of the men who
have suffered, faces lean with agony, and wet
N


194 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
with sweats of death growing distinct out of
the gloom, and I hear the echoes of their
cries for mercy. But I must show you my
latest acquisition. Come into the next room.'
I followed Mr. Mathias out. The weariness
of the walk, the late hour, and the strangeness
of it all made me feel like a man in a dream;
nothing would have surprised me very much.
The second room was as the first, crowded
with ghastly instruments; but beneath the
lamp was a wooden platform, and a figure
stood on it. It was a large statue of a naked
woman, fashioned in green bronze, the arms
were stretched out, and there was a smile on
the lips; it might well have been intended
for a Venus, and yet there was about the
thing an evil and a deadly look.
Mr. Mathias looked at it complacently.
'Quite a work of art, isn't it?' he said. 'It's
made of bronze, as you see, but it has long
had the name of the Iron Maid. I got it
from Germany, and it was only unpacked
this afternoon; indeed, I have not yet had
time to open the letter of advice. You see
that very small knob between the breasts?
Well, the victim was bound to the Maid, the


THE DECORATIVE IMAGINATION 195
knob was pressed, and the arms slowly
tightened round the neck. You can imagine
the result'
As Mr. Mathias talked, he patted the figure
affectionately. I had turned away, for I
sickened at the sight of the man and his
loathsome treasure. There was a slight click,
of which I took no notice; it was not much
louder than the tick of a clock; and then I
heard a sudden whirr, the noise of machinery
in motion, and I faced round. I have never
forgotten the hideous agony on Mathias's face
as those relentless arms tightened about his
neck; there was a wild struggle as of a beast
in the toils, and then a shriek that ended in
a choking groan. The whirring noise had
suddenly changed into a heavy droning. I
tore with all my might at the bronze arms,
and strove to wrench them apart, but I could
do nothing. The head had slowly bent down,
and the green lips were on the lips of Mathias.
Of course, I had to attend at the inquest.
The letter which had accompanied the figure
was found unopened on the study table. The
German firm of dealers cautioned their client
to be most careful in touching the Iron Maid,


196 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
as the machinery had been put in thorough
working order.
For many revolving weeks Mr. Burton
delighted Dyson by his agreeable conversation,
diversified by anecdote, and interspersed with
the narration of singular adventures. Finally,
however, he vanished as suddenly as he had
appeared, and on the occasion of his last visit
he contrived to loot a copy of his namesake's
Anatomy. Dyson, considering this violent
attack on the rights of property, and certain
glaring inconsistencies in the talk of his late
friend, arrived at the conclusion that his stories
were fabulous, and that the Iron Maid only
existed in the sphere of a decorative imagina-
tion.


THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER
AMONGST the many friends who were favoured
with the occasional pleasure of Mr. Dyson's
society was Mr. Edgar Russell, realist and
obscure struggler, who occupied a small back
room on the second floor of a house in
Abingdon Grove, Netting Hill. Turning off
from the main street, and walking a few paces
onward, one was conscious of a certain calm,
a drowsy peace, which made the feet inclined
to loiter, and this was ever the atmosphere of
Abingdon Grove. The houses stood a little
back, with gardens where the lilac, and
laburnum, and blood-red may blossomed gaily
in their seasons, and there was a corner where
an older house in another street had managed
to keep a back garden of real extent, a walled-
in garden, whence there came a pleasant scent
of greenness after the rains of early summer,
where old elms held memories of the open
197


198 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
fields, where there was yet sweet grass to
walk on. The houses in Abingdon Grove
belonged chiefly to the nondescript stucco
period of thirty-five years ago, tolerably built,
with passable accommodation for moderate
incomes; they had largely passed into the state
of lodgings, and cards bearing the inscription
'Furnished apartments' were not infrequent
over the doors. Here, then, in a house of
sufficiently good appearance, Mr. Russell had
established himself; for he looked upon the
traditional dirt and squalor of Grub Street as
a false and obsolete convention, and preferred,
as he said, to live within sight of green leaves.
Indeed, from his room one had a magnificent
view of a long line of gardens, and a screen of
poplars shut out the melancholy back premises
of Wilton Street during the summer months.
Mr. Russell lived chiefly on bread and tea, for
his means were of the smallest; but when
Dyson came to see him, he would send out
the slavey for six ale, and Dyson was always
at liberty to smoke as much of his own tobacco
as he pleased. The landlady had been so un-
fortunate as to have her drawing-room floor
vacant for many months; a card had long


THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER 199
proclaimed the void within; and Dyson, when
he walked up the steps one evening in early
autumn, had a sense that something was miss-
ing, and, looking at the fanlight, saw the appeal-
ing card had disappeared.
'You have let your first floor, have you?' he
said, as he greeted Mr. Russell.
'Yes; it was taken about a fortnight ago by
a lady.'
'Indeed,' said Dyson, always curious; 'a
young lady?'
'Yes; I believe so. She is a widow, and
wears a thick crape veil. I have met her once
or twice on the stairs and in the street; but I
should not know her face.'
'Well,' said Dyson, when the beer had
arrived, and the pipes were in full blast, 'and
what have you been doing? Do you find the
work getting any easier?'
'Alas!' said the young man, with an expres-
sion of great gloom, 'the life is a purgatory,
and all but a hell. Is write, picking out my
words, weighing and balancing the force of
every syllable, calculating the minutest effects
that language can produce, erasing and re-
writing, and spending a whole evening over




200 THE THREE IMPOSTORS

a page of manuscript. And then, in the morn-
ing, when I read what I have written Well,
there is nothing to be done but to throw it in
the wastepaper basket, if the verso has been
already written on, or to put it in the drawer
if the other side happens to be clean. When
I have written a phrase which undoubtedly
embodies a happy turn of thought, I find it
dressed up in feeble commonplace; and when
the style is good, it serves only to conceal the
baldness of superannuated fancies. I sweat
over my work, Dyson—every finished line
means so much agony. I envy the lot of the
carpenter in the side street who has a craft
which he understands. When he gets an order
for a table he does not writhe with anguish;
but if I were so unlucky as to get an order for
a book, I think I should go mad.'
'My dear fellow, you take it all too seriously.
You should let the ink flow more readily.
Above all, firmly believe, when you sit down
to write, that you are an artist, and that what-
ever you are about is a masterpiece. Suppose
ideas fail you, say, as I heard one of our most
exquisite artists say, " It's of no consequence;
the ideas are all there, at the bottom of that


THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER 201
box of cigarettes!" You, indeed, smoke tobacco,
but the application is the same. Besides, you
must have some happy moments; and these
should be ample consolation.'
'Perhaps you are right. But such moments
are so few; and then there is the torture of a
glorious conception matched with execution
beneath the standard of the Family Story
Paper. For instance, I was happy for two
hours a night or two ago; I lay awake and
saw visions. But then the morning!'
'What was your idea?'
'It seemed to me a splendid one: I thought
of Balzac and the Comtdie Humaine, of Zola
and the Rougon-Macquart family. It dawned
upon me that I would write the history of a
street. Every house should form a volume.
I fixed upon the street, I saw each house, and
read as clearly as in letters the physiology and
psychology of each; the little byway stretched
before me in its actual shape—a street that I
know and have passed down a hundred times,
with some twenty houses, prosperous and mean,
and lilac bushes in purple blossom. And yet it
was, at the same time, a symbol, a via dolorosa
of hopes cherished and disappointed, of years


202 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
of monotonous existence without content or
discontent, of tragedies and obscure sorrows;
and on the door of one of those houses I saw
the red stain of blood, and behind a window two
shadows, blackened and faded, on the blind, as
they swayed on tightened cords—the shadows
of a man and a woman hanging in a vulgar
gaslit parlour. These were my fancies; but
when pen touched paper they shrivelled and
vanished away.1
'Yes,' said Dyson, 'there is a lot in that.
I envy you the pains of transmuting vision into
reality, and, still more, I envy you the day
when you will look at your bookshelf and see
twenty goodly books upon the shelves—the
series complete and done for ever. Let me
entreat you to have them bound in solid parch-
ment, with gold lettering. It is the only real
cover for a valiant book. When I look in at
the windows of some choice shop, and see the
bindings of Levant morocco, with pretty tools
and panellings, and your sweet contrasts of red
and green, I say to myself, "These are not
books, but bibelots" A book bound so—a true
book, mind you—is like a Gothic statue draped
in brocade of Lyons.'


THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER 203
'Alas!' said Russell, 'we need not discuss
the binding—the books are not begun.1
The talk went on as usual till eleven o'clock,
when Dyson bade his friend good night. He
knew the way downstairs, and walked down
by himself; but, greatly to his surprise, as
he crossed the first-floor landing the door
opened slightly, and a hand was stretched
out, beckoning.
Dyson was not the man to hesitate under
such circumstances. In a moment he saw him-
self involved in adventure; and, as he told
himself, the Dysons had never disobeyed a
lady's summons. Softly, then, with due regard
for the lady's honour, he would have entered
the room, when a low but clear voice spoke to
him—
'Go downstairs and open the door and shut
it again rather loudly. Then come up to me;
and for Heaven's sake, walk softly.'
Dyson obeyed her commands, not without
some hesitation, for he was afraid of meeting
the landlady or the maid on his return journey.
But, walking like a cat, and making each step
he trod on crack loudly, he flattered himself
that he had escaped observation; and as he


THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER 205
of life, and I am rarely mistaken. Yet man
is too often so vile and so misjudging that
I trembled even as I resolved to take this step,
which, for all I knew, might prove to be both
desperate and ruinous.'
'With me you have nothing to fear,' said
Dyson. 'I was nurtured in the faith of
chivalry, and I have always endeavoured to
remember the proud traditions of my race.
Confide in me, then, and count upon my
secrecy, and if it prove possible, you may
rely on my help.'
'Sir, I will not waste your time, which I am
sure is valuable, by idle parleyings. Learn,
then, that I am a fugitive, and in hiding here;
I place myself in your power; you have but to
describe my features, and I fall into the hands
of my relentless enemy.'
Mr. Dyson wondered for a passing instant
how this could be, but he only renewed his
promise of silence, repeating that he would
be the embodied spirit of dark concealment.
'Good,' said the lady, 'the Oriental fervour
of your style is delightful. In the first place,
I must disabuse your mind of the conviction
that I am a widow. These gloomy vestments


206 THE THREE IMPOSTO

have been forced on me by strange circum-
stance; in plain language, I have deemed it
expedient to go disguised. You have a friend,
I think, in the house, Mr. Russell? He seems
of a coy and retiring nature.'
'Excuse me, madam,' said Dyson,'he is not
coy, but he is a realist; and perhaps you are
aware that no Carthusian monk can emulate
the cloistral seclusion in which a realistic
novelist loves to shroud himself. It is his way
of observing human nature."
'Well, well,' said the lady; 'all this, though
deeply interesting, is not germane to our affair.
I must tell you my history.'
With these words the young lady proceeded
to relate the
NOVEL OF THE WHITE POWDER.
My name is Leicester; my father, Major-
General Wyn Leicester, a distinguished officer
of artillery, succumbed five years ago to a
complicated liver complaint acquired in the
deadly climate of India. A year later my only
brother, Francis, came home after an excep-
tionally brilliant career at the University, and


THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER 207
settled down with the resolution of a hermit
to master what has been well called the great
legend of the law. He was a man who seemed
to live in utter indifference to everything that
is called pleasure; and though he was hand-
somer than most men, and could talk as
merrily and wittily as if he were a mere
vagabond, he avoided society, and shut himself
up in a large room at the top of the house to
make himself a lawyer. Ten hours a day of
hard reading was at first his allotted portion;
from the first light in the east to the late
afternoon he remained shut up with his books,
taking a hasty half-hour's lunch with me as if
he grudged the wasting of the moments, and
going out for a short walk when it began to
grow dusk. I thought that such relentless
application must be injurious, and tried to
cajole him from the crabbed text-books, but
his ardour seemed to grow rather than diminish,
and his daily tale of hours increased. I spoke
to him seriously, suggesting some occasional
relaxation, if it were but an idle afternoon with
a harmless novel; but he laughed, and said that
he read about feudal tenures when he felt in
need of amusement, and scoffed at the notion



208 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
of theatres, or a month's fresh air. I confessed
that he looked well, and seemed not to suffer
from his labours, but I knew that such un-
natural toil would take revenge at last, and I
was not mistaken. A look of anxiety began
to lurk about his eyes, and he seemed languid,
and at last he avowed that he was no longer in
perfect health; he was troubled, he said, with
a sensation of dizziness, and awoke now and
then of nights from fearful dreams, terrified
and cold with icy sweats. 'I am taking care
of myself,' he said,' so you must not trouble;
I passed the whole of yesterday afternoon in
idleness, leaning back in that comfortable chair
you gave me, and scribbling nonsense on a
sheet of paper. No, no; I will not overdo
my work; I shall be well enough in a week or
two, depend upon it.'
Yet in spite of his assurances I could see
that he grew no better, but rather worse; he
would enter the drawing-room with a face all
miserably wrinkled and despondent, and en-
deavour to look gaily when my eyes fell on
him, and I thought such symptoms of evil
omen, and was frightened sometimes at the
nervous irritation of his movements, and at


210 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
It was an innocent-looking white powder, of
which a little was dissolved in a glass of cold
water; I stirred it in, and it seemed to dis-
appear, leaving the water clear and colourless.
At first Francis seemed to benefit greatly; the
weariness vanished from his face, and he be-
came more cheerful than he had ever been
since the time when he left school; he talked
gaily of reforming himself, and avowed to me
that he had wasted his time.
'I have given too many hours to law,' he
said, laughing; 'I think you have saved me
in the nick of time. Come, I shall be Lord
Chancellor yet, but I must not forget life. You
and I will have a holiday together before long;
we will go to Paris and enjoy ourselves, and
keep away from the Bibliotheque Nationale.'
I confessed myself delighted with the pro-
spect.
'When shall we go?' I said. 'I can start
the day after to-morrow if you like.'
'Ah! that is perhaps a little too soon; after
all, I do not know London yet, and I suppose a
man ought to give the pleasures of his own
country the first choice. But we will go off
together in a week or two, so try and furbish


THE RECLUSE OF BAYS WATER 211
up your French. I only know law French
myself, and I am afraid that wouldn't do.'
We were just finishing dinner, and he quaffed
off his medicine with a parade of carousal as if
it had been wine from some choicest bin.
'Has it any particular taste?' I said.
'No; I should not know I was not drinking
water,' and he got up from his chair and began
to pace up and down the room as if he were
undecided as to what he should do next.
'Shall we have coffee in the drawing-room?'
I said; 'or would you like to smoke?'
'No, I think I will take a turn; it seems a
pleasant evening. Look at the afterglow; why,
it is as if a great city were burning in flames,
and down there between the dark houses it is
raining blood fast, fast. Yes, I will go out; I
may be in soon, but I shall take my key; so
good night, dear, if I don't see you again."
The door slammed behind him, and I saw
him walk lightly down the street, swinging
his malacca cane, and I felt grateful to Dr.
Haberden for such an improvement.
I believe my brother came home very late
that night, but he was in a merry mood the
next morning.


212 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
'I walked on without thinking where I was
going,' he said, 'enjoying the freshness of the
air, and livened by the crowds as I reached
more frequented quarters. And then I met
an old college friend, Orford, in the press of
the pavement, and then—well, we enjoyed
ourselves. I have felt what it is to be young
and a man; I find I have blood in my veins,
as other men have. I made an appointment
with Orford for to-night; there will be a
little party of us at the restaurant. Yes; I
shall enjoy myself for a week or two, and hear
the chimes at midnight, and then we will go
for our little trip together.'
Such was the transmutation of my brother's
character that in a few days he became a lover
of pleasure, a careless and merry idler of
western pavements, a hunter out of snug re-
staurants, and a fine critic of fantastic dancing;
he grew fat before my eyes, and said no more
of Paris, for he had clearly found his paradise
in London. I rejoiced, and yet wondered a
little ; for there was, I thought, something in his
gaiety that indefinitely displeased me, though
I could not have defined my feeling. But by
degrees there came a change; he returned still


THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER 213
in the cold hours of the morning, but I heard
no more about his pleasures, and one morning
as we sat at breakfast together I looked sud-
denly into his eyes and saw a stranger before
me.
'O Francis!' I cried. 'O Francis, Francis,
what have you done?' and rending sobs cut
the words short. I went weeping out of the
room; for though I knew nothing, yet I knew
all, and by some odd play of thought I remem-
bered the evening when he first went abroad to
prove his manhood, and the picture of the
sunset sky glowed before me; the clouds like
a city in burning flames, and the rain of blood.
Yet I did battle with such thoughts, resolving
that perhaps, after all, no great harm had been
done, and in the evening at dinner I resolved
to press him to fix a day for our holiday in
Paris. We had talked easily enough, and my
brother had just taken his medicine, which he
had continued all the while. I was about to
begin my topic, when the words forming in my
mind vanished, and I wondered for a second
what icy and intolerable weight oppressed my
heart and suffocated me as with the unutterable
horror of the coffin-lid nailed down on the living.



214 THE THREE IMPOSTORS

We had dined without candles; the room
had slowly grown from twilight to gloom, and
the walls and corners were indistinct in the
shadow. But from where I sat I looked out
into the street; and as I thought of what I
would say to Francis, the sky began to flush
and shine, as it had done on a well-remembered
evening, and in the gap between two dark
masses that were houses an awful pageantry
of flame appeared—lurid whorls of writhed
cloud, and utter depths burning, grey masses
like the fume blown from a smoking city,
and an evil glory blazing far above shot with
tongues of more ardent fire, and below as if
there were a deep pool of blood. I looked
down to where my brother sat facing me, and
the words were shaped on my lips, when I saw
his hand resting on the table. Between the
thumb and forefinger of the closed hand there
was a mark, a small patch about the size of a
sixpence, and somewhat of the colour of a bad
bruise. Yet, by some sense I cannot define, I
knew that what I saw was no bruise at all;
oh! if human flesh could burn with flame, and
if flame could be black as pitch, such was that
before me. Without thought or fashioning of


THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER 215
words grey horror shaped within me at the
sight, and in an inner cell it was known to be
a brand. For a moment the stained sky became
dark as midnight, and when the light returned
to me I was alone in the silent room, and soon
after I heard my brother go out.
Late as it was, I put on my bonnet and went
to Dr. Haberden, and in his great consulting
room, ill lighted by a candle which the doctor
brought in with him, with stammering lips, and
a voice that would break in spite of my resolve,
I told him all, from the day on which my
brother began to take the medicine down to
the dreadful thing I had seen scarcely half an
hour before.
When I had done, the doctor looked at me
for a minute with an expression of great pity
on his face.
'My dear Miss Leicester,' he said,'you have
evidently been anxious about your brother;
you have been worrying over him, I am sure.
Come, now, is it not so?'
'I have certainly been anxious,' I said. 'For
the last week or two I have not felt at ease.'
'Quite so; you know, of course, what a queer
thing the brain is?'


216 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
'I understand what you mean; but I was
not deceived. I saw what I have told you
with my own eyes.'
'Yes, yes, of course. But your eyes had
been staring at that very curious sunset we had
to-night. That is the only explanation. You
will see it in the proper light to-morrow, I am
sure. But, remember, I am always ready to
give any help that is in my power; do not
scruple to come to me, or to send for me if you
are in any distress.'
I went away but little comforted, all con-
fusion and terror and sorrow, not knowing
where to turn. When my brother and I met
the next day, I looked quickly at him, and
noticed, with a sickening at heart, that the
right hand, the hand on which I had clearly
seen the patch as of a black fire, was wrapped
up with a handkerchief.
'What is the matter with your hand,
Francis?' I said in a steady voice.
'Nothing of consequence. I cut a finger
last night, and it bled rather awkwardly.
So I did it up roughly to the best of my
ability.'
'I will do it neatly for you, if you like.'


THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER 217
'No, thank you, dear; this will answer very
well. Suppose we have breakfast; I am quite
hungry.'
We sat down, and I watched him. He
scarcely ate or drank at all, but tossed his
meat to the dog when he thought my eyes
were turned away; there was a look in his
eyes that I had never yet seen, and the
thought flashed across my mind that it was a
look that was scarcely human. I was firmly
convinced that awful and incredible as was the
thing I had seen the night before, yet it was
no illusion, no glamour of bewildered sense,
and in the course of the morning I went again
to the doctor's house.
He shook his head with an air puzzled and
incredulous, and seemed to reflect for a few
minutes.
'And you say he still keeps up the medicine?
But why? As I understand, all the symptoms
he complained of have disappeared long ago;
why should he go on taking the stuff when
he is quite well. And, by the bye, where did
he get it made up? At Sayce's? I never
send any one there; the old man is getting
careless. Suppose you come with me to the


220 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
is far from easy. We will put aside, if you
please, what you told me last night and this
morning, but the fact remains that for the last
few weeks Mr. Leicester has been impregnating
his system with a drug which is completely
unknown to me. I tell you, it is not what I
ordered; and what that stuff in the bottle
really is remains to be seen.'
He undid the wrapper, and cautiously tilted
a few grains of the white powder on to a piece
of paper, and peered curiously at it.
'Yes,' he said, 'it is like the sulphate of
quinine, as you say; it is flaky. But smell it.'
He held the bottle to me, and I bent over
it. It was a strange, sickly smell, vaporous
and overpowering, like some strong anaesthetic.
'I shall have it analysed,' said Haberden; 'I
have a friend who has devoted his whole life
to chemistry as a science. Then we shall have
something to go upon. No, no; say no more
about that other matter; I cannot listen to
that; and take my advice and think no more
about it yourself.'
That evening my brother did not go out as
usual after dinner.
'I have had my fling,' he said with a queer


THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER 221
laugh, 'and I must go back to my old ways.
A little law will be quite a relaxation after so
sharp a dose of pleasure,' and he grinned to
himself, and soon after went up to his room.
His hand was still all bandaged.
Dr. Haberden called a few days later.
'I have no special news to give you,' he said.
'Chambers is out of town, so I know no more
about that stuff than you do. But I should
like to see Mr. Leicester if he is in.'
'He is in his room,' I said; 'I will tell him
you are here.'
'No, no, I will go up to him; we will have
a little quiet talk together. I dare say that we
have made a good deal of fuss about very
little; for, after all, whatever the white powder
may be, it seems to have done him good.'
The doctor went upstairs, and standing in
the hall I heard his knock, and the opening
and shutting of the door; and then I waited in
the silent house for an hour, and the stillness
grew more and more intense as the hands of
the clock crept round. Then there sounded
from above the noise of a door shut sharply,
and the doctor was coming down the stairs.
His footsteps crossed the hall, and there was




222 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
a pause at the door; I drew a long, sick breath
with difficulty, and saw my face white in a
little mirror, and he came in and stood at
the door. There was an unutterable horror
shining in his eyes; he steadied himself by
holding the back of a chair with one hand,
his lower lip trembled like a horse's, and
he gulped and stammered unintelligible sounds
before he spoke.
'I have seen that man,' he began in a dry
whisper. 'I have been sitting in his presence
for the last hour. My God! And I am alive
and in my senses! I, who have dealt with
death all my life, and have dabbled with the
melting ruins of the earthly tabernacle. But
not this, oh! not this,' and he covered his face
with his hands as if to shut out the sight of
something before him.
'Do not send for me again, Miss Leicester,'
he said with more composure. 'I can do
nothing in this house. Good-bye.'
As I watched him totter down the steps,
and along the pavement towards his house, it
seemed to me that he had aged by ten years
since the morning.
My brother remained in his room. He


THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER 223
called out to me in a voice I hardly recognised
that he was very busy, and would like his
meals brought to his door and left there, and
I gave the order to the servants. From that
day it seemed as if the arbitrary conception
we call time had been annihilated for me; I
lived in an ever-present sense of horror, going
through the routine of the house mechanically,
and only speaking a few necessary words to
the servants. Now and then I went out and
paced the streets for an hour or two and came
home again; but whether I were without or
within, my spirit delayed before the closed door
of the upper room, and, shuddering, waited
for it to open. I have said that I scarcely
reckoned time; but I suppose it must have
been a fortnight after Dr. Haberden's visit
that I came home from my stroll a little
refreshed and lightened. The air was sweet
and pleasant, and the hazy form of green
leaves, floating cloudlike in the square, and
the smell of blossoms, had charmed my senses,
and I felt happier and walked more briskly.
As I delayed a moment at the verge of the
pavement, waiting for a van to pass by before
crossing over to the house, I happened to look


226 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
ever on my brain. It was not a hand ; there
were no fingers that held the blind, but a black
stump pushed it aside, the mouldering outline
and the clumsy movement as of a beast's paw
had glowed into my senses before the darkling
waves of terror had overwhelmed me as I went
down quick into the pit. My mind was aghast
at the thought of this, and of the awful
presence that dwelt with my brother in his
room; I went to his door and cried to him
again, but no answer came. That night one of
the servants came up to me and told me in a
whisper that for three days food had been
regularly placed at the door and left un-
touched; the maid had knocked, but had
received no answer; she had heard the noise
of shuffling feet that I had noticed. Day after
day went by, and still my brother's meals were
brought to his door and left untouched ; and
though I knocked and called again and again,
I could get no answer. The servants began to
talk to me; it appeared they were as alarmed
as I; the cook said that when my brother first
shut himself up in his room she used to hear
him come out at night and go about the house;
and once, she said, the hall door had opened


THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER 227
and closed again, but for several nights she
had heard no sound. The climax came at
last; it was in the dusk of the evening, and I
was sitting in the darkening dreary room when
a terrible shriek jarred and rang harshly out of
the silence, and I heard a frightened scurry of
feet dashing down the stairs. I waited, and
the servant-maid staggered into the room and
faced me, white and trembling.
'O Miss Helen !' she whispered; 'oh! for
the Lord's sake, Miss Helen, what has hap-
pened? Look at my hand, miss; look at
that hand!'
I drew her to the window, and saw there was
a black wet stain upon her hand.
'I do not understand you,' I said. 'Will you
explain to me?'
'I was doing your room just now,' she began.
'I was turning down the bed-clothes, and all of
a sudden there was something fell upon my
hand, wet, and I looked up, and the ceiling
was black and dripping on me.'
I looked hard at her and bit my lip.
'Come with me,' I said. 'Bring your candle
with you.'
The room I slept in was beneath my brother's,


228 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
and as I went in I felt I was trembling. I
looked up at the ceiling, and saw a patch, all
black and wet, and a dew of black drops upon
it, and a pool of horrible liquor soaking into
the white bed-clothes.
I ran upstairs, and knocked loudly.
'O Francis, Francis, my dear brother,' I
cried,'what has happened to you?'
And I listened. There was a sound of
choking, and a noise like water bubbling and
regurgitating, but nothing else, and I called
louder, but no answer came.
In spite of what Dr. Haberden had said, I
went to him; with tears streaming down my
cheeks I told him of all that had happened,
and he listened to me with a face set hard and
grim.
'For your father's sake,' he said at last,
'I will go with you, though I can do no-
thing.'
We went out together; the streets were dark
and silent, and heavy with heat and a drought
of many weeks, I saw the doctor's face white
under the gas-lamps, and when we reached the
house his hand was shaking.
We did not hesitate, but went upstairs


THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER 229
directly. I held the lamp, and he called out
in a loud, determined voice—
'Mr. Leicester, do you hear me? I insist on
seeing you. Answer me at once.'
There was no answer, but we both heard that
choking noise I have mentioned.
'Mr. Leicester, I am waiting for you. Open
the door this instant, or I shall break it down.'
And he called a third time in a voice that rang
and echoed from the walls—
'Mr. Leicester! For the last time I order
you to open the door.'
'Ah!' he said, after a pause of heavy silence,
'we are wasting time here. Will you be so
kind as to get me a poker, or something of the
kind.'
I ran into a little room at the back where
odd articles were kept, and found a heavy
adze-like tool that I thought might serve the
doctor's purpose.
'Very good,' he said,' that will do, I dare say.
I give you notice, Mr. Leicester,' he cried loudly
at the keyhole,'that I am now about to break
into your room.'
Then I heard the wrench of the adze, and
the woodwork split and cracked under it;


230 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
with a loud crash the door suddenly burst
open, and for a moment we started back
aghast at a fearful screaming cry, no human
voice, but as the roar of a monster, that burst
forth inarticulate and struck at us out of the
darkness.
'Hold the lamp,' said the doctor, and we
went in and glanced quickly round the room.
'There it is,' said Dr. Haberden, drawing a
quick breath; 'look, in that corner.'
I looked, and a pang of horror seized my
heart as with a white-hot iron. There upon
the floor was a dark and putrid mass, seething
with corruption and hideous rottenness, neither
liquid nor solid, but melting and changing
before our eyes, and bubbling with unctuous
oily bubbles like boiling pitch. And out of
the midst of it shone two burning points like
eyes, and I saw a writhing and stirring as of
limbs, and something moved and lifted up that
might have been an arm. The doctor took a
step forward, raised the iron bar and struck
at the burning points; he drove in the weapon,
and struck again and again in a fury of
loathing. At last the thing was quiet.


THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER 231
A week or two later, when I had to some
extent recovered from the terrible shock, Dr.
Haberden came to see me.
'I have sold my practice,' he began, 'and
to-morrow I am sailing on a long voyage. I
do not know whether I shall ever return to
England; in all probability I shall buy a little
land in California, and settle there for the
remainder of my life. I have brought you
this packet, which you may open and read
when you feel able to do so. It contains the
report of Dr. Chambers on what I submitted
to him. Good-bye, Miss Leicester, good-
bye.'
When he was gone I opened the envelope;
I could not wait, and proceeded to read the
papers within. Here is the manuscript, and if
you will allow me, I will read you the astound-
ing story it contains.
'My dear Haberden,' the letter began, 'I
have delayed inexcusably in answering your
questions as to the white substance you sent
me. To tell you the truth, I have hesitated
for some time as to what course I should adopt,
for there is a bigotry and an orthodox standard
in physical science as in theology, and I knew




232 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
that if I told you the truth I should offend
rooted prejudices which I once held dear
myself. However, I have determined to be
plain with you, and first I must enter into a
short personal explanation.
'You have known me, Haberden, for many
years as a scientific man; you and I have often
talked of our profession together, and discussed
the hopeless gulf that opens before the feet of
those who think to attain to truth by any
means whatsoever except the beaten way of
experiment and observation in the sphere of
material things. I remember the scorn with
which you have spoken to me of men of science
who have dabbled a little in the unseen, and
have timidly hinted that perhaps the senses
are not, after all, the eternal, impenetrable
bounds of all knowledge, the everlasting walls
beyond which no human being has ever passed.
We have laughed together heartily, and I think
justly, at the "occult" follies of the day, dis-
guised under various names—the mesmerisms,
spiritualisms, materialisations, theosophies, all
the rabble rant of imposture, with their
machinery of poor tricks and feeble conjuring,
the true back-parlour magic of shabby London



THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER 233
streets. Yet, in spite of what I have said, I
must confess to you that I am no materialist,
taking the word of course in its usual signifi-
cation. It is now many years since I have
convinced myself, convinced myself a sceptic
remember, that the old iron-bound theory is
utterly and entirely false. Perhaps this con-
fession will not wound you so sharply as it
would have done twenty years ago; for I think
you cannot have failed to notice that for some
time hypotheses have been advanced by men
of pure science which are nothing less than
transcendental, and I suspect that most modern
chemists and biologists of repute would not
hesitate to subscribe the dictum of the old
Schoolman, Omnia exeunt in mysterium, which
means, I take it, that every branch of human
knowledge if traced up to its source and final
principles vanishes into mystery. I need not
trouble you now with a detailed account of the
painful steps which led me to my conclusions;
a few simple experiments suggested a doubt as
to my then standpoint, and a train of thought
that rose from circumstances comparatively
trifling brought me far; my old conception of the
universe has been swept away, and I stand in a


234 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
world that seems as strange and awful to me
as the endless waves of the ocean seen for the
first time, shining, from a peak in Darien.
Now I know that the walls of sense that seemed
so impenetrable, that seemed to loom up above
the heavens and to be founded below the depths,
and to shut us in for evermore, are no such
everlasting impassable barriers as we fancied,
but thinnest and most airy veils that melt away
before the seeker, and dissolve as the early
mist of the morning about the brooks. I know
that you never adopted the extreme materialistic
position; you did not go about trying to prove
a universal negative, for your logical sense with-
held you from that crowning absurdity; but I
am sure that you will find all that I am saying
strange and repellent to your habits of thought
Yet, Haberden, what I tell you is the truth, nay,
to adopt our common language, the sole and
scientific truth, verified by experience; and
the universe is verily more splendid and more
awful than we used to dream. The whole
universe, my friend, is a tremendous sacrament;
a mystic, ineffable force and energy, veiled by
an outward form of matter; and man, and the
sun and the other stars, and the flower of the


236 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
to yield any results to your analysis. It is a
substance which was known to a few many
hundred years ago, but which I never expected
to have submitted to me from the shop of a
modern apothecary. There seems no reason to
doubt the truth of the man's tale; he no doubt
got, as he says, the rather uncommon salt you
prescribed from the wholesale chemist's; and it
has probably remained on his shelf for twenty
years, or perhaps longer. Here what we call
chance and coincidence begin to work; during
all these years the salt in the bottle was exposed
to certain recurring variations of temperature,
variations probably ranging from 40° to 80°.
And, as it happens, such changes, recurring
year after year at irregular intervals, and with
varying degrees of intensity and duration, have
constituted a process, and a process so compli-
cated and so delicate, that I question whether
modern scientific apparatus directed with the
utmost precision could produce the same result
The white powder you sent me is something
very different from the drug you prescribed ; it
is the powder from which the wine of the
Sabbath, the Vinum Sabbati, was prepared.
No doubt you have read of the Witches'


THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER 239
Garden was done anew. Such was the nuptice
Sabbati.
I prefer to say no more; you, Haberden,
know as well as I do that the most trivial laws
of life are not to be broken with impunity;
and for so terrible an act as this, in which the
very inmost place of the temple was broken
open and defiled, a terrible vengeance followed.
What began with corruption ended also with
corruption.'
Underneath is the following in Dr. Haber-
den's writing:—
'The whole of the above is unfortunately
strictly and entirely true. Your brother con-
fessed all to me on that morning when I saw
him in his room. My attention was first at-
tracted to the bandaged hand, and I forced
him to show it me. What I saw made me,
a medical man of many years standing, grow
sick with loathing, and the story I was forced
to listen to was infinitely more frightful than
I could have believed possible. It has tempted
me to doubt the Eternal Goodness which can
permit nature to offer such hideous possi-
bilities; and if you had not with your own


240 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
eyes seen the end, I should have said to you
—disbelieve it all. I have not, I think, many
more weeks to live, but you are young, and
may forget all this.
'JOSEPH HABERDEN, M.D.1
In the course of two or three months I heard
that Dr. Haberden had died at sea shortly
after the ship left England.
Miss Leicester ceased speaking, and looked
pathetically at Dyson, who could not refrain
from exhibiting some symptoms of uneasiness.
He stuttered out some broken phrases ex-
pressive of his deep interest in her extra-
ordinary history, and then said with a better
grace—
'But, pardon me, Miss Leicester, I under-
stood you were in some difficulty. You were
kind enough to ask me to assist you in some way.'
'Ah,' she said, 'I had forgotten that; my
own present trouble seems of such little con-
sequence in comparison with what I have told
you. But as you are so good to me, I will
go on. You will scarcely believe it, but I
found that certain persons suspected, or rather


THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER 241
pretended to suspect, that I had murdered my
brother. These persons were relatives of mine,
and their motives were extremely sordid ones;
but I actually found myself subject to the
shameful indignity of being watched. Yes, sir,
my steps were dogged when I went abroad,
and at home I found myself exposed to con-
stant if artful observation. With my high
spirit this was more than I could brook, and
I resolved to set my wits to work and elude
the persons who were shadowing me. I was
so fortunate as to succeed; I assumed this
disguise, and for some time have lain snug
and unsuspected. But of late I have reason
to believe that the pursuer is on my track;
unless I am greatly deceived, I saw yesterday
the detective who is charged with the odious
duty of observing my movements. You, sir,
are watchful and keen-sighted; tell me, did
you see any one lurking about this evening?'
'I hardly think so,' said Dyson,'but perhaps
you would give me some description of the
detective in question.'
'Certainly; he is a youngish man, dark,
with dark whiskers. He has adopted spectacles
of large size in the hope of disguising himself
Q
1



242 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
effectually, but he cannot disguise his uneasy
manner, and the quick, nervous glances he casts
to right and left.'
This piece of description was the last straw
for the unhappy Dyson, who was foaming with
impatience to get out of the house, and would
gladly have sworn eighteenth-century oaths,
if propriety had not frowned on such a course.
'Excuse me, Miss Leicester,' he said with
cold politeness, ' I cannot assist you.'
'Ah,' she said sadly, 'I have offended you
in some way. Tell me what I have done, and
I will ask you to forgive me.'
'You are mistaken,' said Dyson, grabbing
his hat, but speaking with some difficulty;
'you have done nothing. But, as I say, I
cannot help you. Perhaps,' he added, with
some tinge of sarcasm, 'my friend Russell
might be of service.'
'Thank you,' she replied; 'I will try him,'
and the lady went off into a shriek of laughter,
which filled up Mr. Dyson's cup of scandal and
confusion.
He left the house shortly afterwards, and
had the peculiar delight of a five-mile walk,
through streets which slowly changed from



THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER 243
black to grey, and from grey to shining pas-
sages of glory for the sun to brighten. Here
and there he met or overtook strayed revellers,
but he reflected that no one could have spent
the night in a more futile fashion than himself;
and when he reached his home he had made
resolves for reformation. He decided that he
would abjure all Milesian and Arabian methods
of entertainment, and subscribe to Mudie's for
a regular supply of mild and innocuous romance.


246 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
and the technique of his work intensely; and if,
as has been hinted, he deluded himself a little
with the name of artist, yet his amusements
were eminently harmless, and, so far as can
be ascertained, he (or the publishers) had
chosen the good part of not tiring the world
with printed matter.
Here, then, Dyson would shut himself up
with his fancies, experimenting with words,
and striving, as his friend the recluse of Bays-
water strove, with the almost invincible pro-
blem of style, but always with a fine confidence,
extremely different from the chronic depression
of the realist. He had been almost continu-
ously at work on some scheme that struck him
as wellnigh magical in its possibilities since
the night of his adventure with the ingenious
tenant of the first floor in Abingdon Grove;
and as he laid down the pen with a glow of
triumph, he reflected that he had not viewed
the streets for five days in succession. With
all the enthusiasm of his accomplished labour
still working in his brain, he put away his
papers and went out, pacing the pavement
at first in that rare mood of exultation which
finds in every stone upon the way the possi-


STRANGE OCCURRENCE 247
bilities of a masterpiece. It was growing late,
and the autumn evening was drawing to a close
amidst veils of haze and mist, and in the stilled
air the voices, and the roaring traffic, and in-
cessant feet seemed to Dyson like the noise
upon the stage when all the house is silent.
In the square the leaves rippled down as quick
as summer rain, and the street beyond was be-
ginning to flare with the lights in the butcher's
shops and the vivid illumination of the green-
grocer. It was a Saturday night, and the
swarming populations of the slums were turn-
ing out in force; the battered women in rusty
black had begun to paw the lumps of cagmag,
and others gloated over unwholesome cabbages,
and there was a brisk demand for four-ale.
Dyson passed through these night-fires with
some relief; he loved to meditate, but his
thoughts were not as De Quincey's after his
dose; he cared not two straws whether onions
were dear or cheap, and would not have exulted
if meat had fallen to twopence a pound. Ab-
sorbed in the wilderness of the tale he had
been writing, weighing nicely the points of
plot and construction, relishing the recollection
of this and that happy phrase, and dreading



248 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
failure here and there, he left the rush and
whistle of the gas-flares behind him, and
began to touch upon pavements more deserted.
He had turned, without taking note, to the
northward, and was passing through an ancient
fallen street, where now notices of floors and
offices to let hung out, but still about it there
was the grace and the stiffness of the Age of
Wigs—a broad roadway, a broad pavement,
and on each side a grave line of houses with
long and narrow windows flush with the walls,
all of mellowed brickwork. Dyson walked
with quick steps, as he resolved that short work
must be made of a certain episode; but he was
in that happy humour of invention, and another
chapter rose in the inner chamber of his brain,
and he dwelt on the circumstances he was to
write down with curious pleasure. It was
charming to have the quiet streets to walk in,
and in his thought he made a whole district the
cabinet of his studies, and vowed he would
come again. Heedless of his course, he struck
off to the east again, and soon found himself
involved in a squalid network of grey two-
storied houses, and then in the waste void and
elements of brickwork, the passages and un-


THE THREE IMPOSTORS

some benighted little country town. These
surprises and discoveries began to exhaust
Dyson, and he hailed with delight the blazing
windows of a public-house, and went in with
the intention of testing the beverage provided
for the dwellers in this region, as remote as
Libya and Pamphylia and the parts about
Mesopotamia. The babble of voices from within
warned him that he was about to assist at the
true parliament of the London workman, and
he looked about him for that more retired
entrance called private. When he had settled
himself on an exiguous bench, and had ordered
some beer, he began to listen to the jangling
talk in the public bar beyond; it was a sense-
less argument, alternately furious and maudlin,
with appeals to Bill and Tom, and mediaeval
survivals of speech, words that Chaucer wrote
belched out with zeal and relish, and the din of
pots jerked down and coppers rapped smartly
on the zinc counter made a thorough bass for
it all. Dyson was calmly smoking his pipe
between the sips of beer, when an indefinite-
looking figure slid rather than walked into the
compartment. The man started violently when
he saw Dyson placidly sitting in the corner, and



252 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
wheeled round as if spun on a pivot, and shrank
back with a low, piteous cry, as if some dumb
beast were caught in the toils. The blood fled
away from the wretch's face, and the skin be-
came grey as if a shadow of death had passed
in the air and fallen on it, and Dyson caught a
choking whisper—
'Mr. Davies! For God's sake, have pity on
me, Mr. Davies! On my oath, I say'
and his voice sank to silence as he heard the
message, and strove in vain to bite his lip, and
summon up to his aid some tinge of manhood.
He stood there a moment, wavering as the
leaves of an aspen, and then he was gone out
into the street, as Dyson thought silently, with
his doom upon his head. He had not been
gone a minute when it suddenly flashed into
Dyson's mind that he knew the man; it was
undoubtedly the young man with spectacles
for whom so many ingenious persons were
searching; the spectacles indeed were missing,
but the pale face, the dark whiskers, and the
timid glances were enough to identify him.
Dyson saw at once that by a succession of
hazards he had unawares hit upon the scent
of some desperate conspiracy, wavering as the


254 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
something fall to the ground; and pretend-
ing to have dropped his pipe, Dyson began to
grope in the corner, searching with his fingers.
He touched something and drew it gently to
him, and with one brief glance, as he put it
quietly in his pocket, he saw it was a little
old-fashioned notebook, bound in faded green
morocco.
He drank down his beer at a gulp, and left
the place, overjoyed at his fortunate discovery,
and busy with conjecture as to the possible
importance of the find. By turns he dreaded
to find perhaps mere blank leaves, or the
laboured follies of a betting-book, but the
faded morocco cover seemed to promise better
things, and hint at mysteries. He piloted
himself with no little difficulty out of the sour
and squalid quarter he had entered with a
light heart, and emerging at Gray's Inn Road,
struck off down Guilford Street and hastened
home, only anxious for a lighted candle and
solitude.
Dyson sat down at his bureau, and placed
the little book before him; it was an effort to
open the leaves and dare disappointment. But
in desperation at last he laid his finger between


STRANGE OCCURRENCE 255
the pages at haphazard, and rejoiced to see a
compact range of writing with a margin, and
as it chanced, three words caught his glance
and stood out apart from the mass. Dyson
read
'the Gold Tiberius',
and his face flushed with fortune and the lust
of the hunter.
He turned at once to the first leaf of the
pocket-book, and proceeded to read with rapt
interest the
HISTORY OF THE YOUNG MAN WITH
SPECTACLES.
From the filthy and obscure lodging, situated,
I verily believe, in one of the foulest slums of
Clerkenwell, I indite this history of a life
which, daily threatened, cannot last for very
much longer. Every day—nay, every hour, I
know too well my enemies are drawing their
nets closer about me; even now I am con-
demned to be a close prisoner in my squalid
room, and I know that when I go out I shall
go to my destruction. This history, if it chance
to fall into good hands, may, perhaps, be of


STRANGE OCCURRENCE 257
myself to the Reading-Room of the British
Museum.
O dim, far-lifted, and mighty dome, Mecca of
many minds, mausoleum of many hopes, sad
house where all desires fail! For there men
enter in with hearts uplifted, and dreaming
minds, seeing in those exalted stairs a ladder
to fame, in that pompous portico the gate
of knowledge, and going in, find but vain
vanity, and all but in vain. There, when the
long streets are ringing, is silence, there eternal
twilight, and the odour of heaviness. But
there the blood flows thin and cold, and the
brain burns adust; there is the hunt of
shadows, and the chase of embattled phantoms;
a striving against ghosts, and a war that has
no victory. O dome, tomb of the quick! surely
in thy galleries, where no reverberant voice can
call, sighs whisper ever, and mutterings of dead
hopes; and there men's souls mount like moths
towards the flame, and fall scorched and black-
ened beneath thee, O dim, far-lifted, and mighty
dome!
Bitterly do I now regret the day when I took
my place at a desk for the first time, and began
my studies. I had not been an habitue of the
R


STRANGE OCCURRENCE 259
last. The scholar has to die, and die saying,
"I know very little !"'
Gradually, by speeches such as these, Lipsius
seduced me: he would praise the career, and
at the same time hint that it was as hopeless
as the search for the philosopher's stone, and
so by artful suggestions, insinuated with
infinite address, he by degrees succeeded in
undermining all my principles. 'After all,' he
used to say, 'the greatest of all sciences, the
key to all knowledge, is the science and art of
pleasure. Rabelais was perhaps the greatest
of all the encyclopaedic scholars; and he, as
you know, wrote the most remarkable book
that has ever been written. And what does
he teach men in this book? Surely the joy
of living. I need not remind you of the words,
suppressed in most of the editions, the key
of all the Rabelaisian mythology, of all the
enigmas of his grand philosophy, Vivez joyeux.
There you have all his learning; his work is
the institutes of pleasure as the fine art; the
finest art there is; the art of all arts. Rabelais
had all science, but he had all life too. And
we have gone a long way since his time. You
are enlightened, I think; you do not consider


2<5o THE THREE IMPOSTORS
all the petty rules and by-laws that a corrupt
society has made for its own selfish convenience
as the immutable decrees of the eternal.'
Such were the doctrines that he preached;
and it was by such insidious arguments, line
upon line, here a little and there a little, that
he at last succeeded in making me a man at
war with the whole social system. I used to
long for some opportunity to break the chains
and to live a free life, to be my own rule and
measure. I viewed existence with the eyes of
a pagan, and Lipsius understood to perfection
the art of stimulating the natural inclinations
of a young man hitherto a hermit. As I
gazed up at the great dome I saw it flushed
with the flames and colours of a world of
enticement, unknown to me, my imagination
played me a thousand wanton tricks, and the
forbidden drew me as surely as a lodestone
draws on iron. At last my resolution was
taken, and I boldly asked Lipsius to be my
guide.
He told me to leave the Museum at my
usual hour, half-past four, to walk slowly along
the northern pavement of Great Russell Street,
and to wait at the corner of the street till I


STRANGE OCCURRENCE 261
was addressed, and then to obey in all things
the instructions of the person who came up to
me. I carried out these directions, and stood
at the corner looking about me anxiously, my
heart beating fast, and my breath coming in
gasps. I waited there for some time, and had
begun to fear I had been made the object of a
joke, when I suddenly became conscious of a
gentleman who was looking at me with evident
amusement from the opposite pavement of
Tottenham Court Road. He came over, and
raising his hat, politely begged me to follow
him, and I did so without a word, wondering
where we were going, and what was to happen.
I was taken to a house of quiet and respectable
aspect in a street lying to the north of Oxford
Street, and my guide rang the bell. A
servant showed us into a large room, quietly
furnished, on the ground floor. We sat there
in silence for some time, and I noticed that the
furniture, though unpretending, was extremely
valuable. There were large oak presses, two
book-cases of extreme elegance, and in one
corner a carved chest which must have been
mediseval. Presently Dr. Lipsius came in and
welcomed me with his usual manner, and after
]


262 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
some desultory conversation my guide left the
room. Then an elderly man dropped in and
began talking to Lipsius, and from their con-
versation I understood that my friend was a
dealer in antiques; they spoke of the Hittite
seal, and of the prospects of further discoveries,
and later, when two or three more persons had
joined us, there was an argument as to the
possibility of a systematic exploration of the
pre-Celtic monuments in England. I was, in
fact, present at an archaeological reception of
an informal kind; and at nine o'clock, when
the antiquaries were gone, I stared at Lipsius
in a manner that showed I was puzzled, and
sought an explanation.
'Now,' he said,'we will go upstairs.'
As we passed up the stairs, Lipsius lighting
the way with a hand-lamp, I heard the sound
of a jarring lock and bolts and bars shot
on at the front door. My guide drew back
a baize door and we went down a passage,
and I began to hear odd sounds, a noise of
curious mirth; then he pushed me through
a second door, and my initiation began. I
cannot write down what I witnessed that night;
I cannot bear to recall what went on in those


STRANGE OCCURRENCE 263
secret rooms fast shuttered and curtained so
that no light should escape into the quiet
street; they gave me red wine to drink, and
a woman told me as I sipped it that it was
wine of the Red Jar that Avallaunius had
made. Another asked me how I liked the
wine of the Fauns, and I heard a dozen
fantastic names, while the stuff boiled in my
veins, and stirred, I think, something that had
slept within me from the moment I was born.
It seemed as if my self-consciousness deserted
me; I was no longer a thinking agent, but at
once subject and object; I mingled in the
horrible sport, and watched the mystery of the
Greek groves and fountains enacted before me,
saw the reeling dance and heard the music
calling as I sat beside my mate, and yet I was
outside it all, and viewed my own part an idle
spectator. Thus with strange rites they made
me drink the cup, and when I woke up in the
morning I was one of them, and had sworn to
be faithful. At first I was shown the enticing
side of things; I was bidden to enjoy myself
and care for nothing but pleasure, and Lipsius
himself indicated to me as the acutest enjoy-
ment the spectacle of the terrors of the unfor-


264 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
tunate persons who were from time to time
decoyed into the evil house. But after a time
it was pointed out to me that I must take my
share in the work, and so I found myself
compelled to be in my turn a seducer; and
thus it is on my conscience that I have led
many to the depths of the pit.
One day Lipsius summoned me to his private
room, and told me that he had a difficult task
to give me. He unlocked a drawer and gave
me a sheet of type-written paper, and bade me
read it.
It was without place, or date, or signature,
and ran as follows :—
Mr. James Headley, F.S.A., will receive
from his agent in Armenia, on the I2th
inst., a unique coin, the gold Tiberius. It
bears on the reverse a faun with the legend
VICTORIA. It is believed that this coin is
of immense value. Mr. Headley will come
up to town to show the coin to his friend,
Professor Memys, of Chenies Street, Ox-
ford Street, on some date between the
13th and the i8th.
Dr. Lipsius chuckled at my face of blank



266 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
the how and why; you have your share to do.
Of course, I shall give you full instructions, but
a great deal depends on the way the thing is
carried out. I have often heard very young
men maintain that style is everything in litera-
ture, and I can assure you that the same maxim
holds good in our far more delicate profession.
With us style is absolutely everything, and that
is why we have friends like yourself.'
I went away in some perturbation; he had
no doubt designedly left everything in mystery,
and I did not know what part I should have
to play. Though I had assisted at scenes of
hideous revelry, I was not yet dead to all echo
of human feeling, and I trembled lest I should
receive the order to be Mr. Headley's execu-
tioner.
A week later, it was on the sixteenth of the
month, Dr. Lipsius made me a sign to come
into his room.
'It is for to-night,' he began. 'Please to
attend carefully to what I am going to say, Mr.
Walters, and on peril of your life, for it is a
dangerous matter,—on peril of your life, I say,
follow these instructions to the letter. You
understand? Well, to-night at about half-past


STRANGE OCCURRENCE 267
seven, you will stroll quietly up the Hampstead
Road till you come to Vincent Street. Turn
down here and walk along, taking the third
turning to your right, which is Lambert Ter-
race. Then follow the terrace, cross the road,
and go along Hertford Street, and so into Lil-
lington Square. The second turning you will
come to in the square is called Sheen Street;
but in reality it is more a passage between
blank walls than a street. Whatever you do,
take care to be at the corner of this street at
eight o'clock precisely. You will walk along
it, and just at the bend, where you lose sight
of the square, you will find an old gentleman
with white beard and whiskers. He will in all
probability be abusing a cabman for having
brought him to Sheen Street instead of Chenies
Street. You will go up to him quietly and
offer your services; he will tell you where he
wants to go, and you will be so courteous
as to offer to show him the way. I may say
that Professor Memys moved into Chenies
Street a month ago; thus Mr. Headley has
never been to see him there, and, moreover, he
is very short-sighted, and knows little of the
topography of London. Indeed, he has quite


268 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
lived the life of a learned hermit at Audley
Hall.
'Well, need I say more to a man of your
intelligence? You will bring him to this house,
he will ring the bell, and a servant in quiet
livery will let him in. Then your work will be
done, and I am sure done well. You will leave
Mr. Headley at the door, and simply continue
your walk, and I shall hope to see you the next
day. I really don't think there is anything
more I can tell you.'
These minute instructions I took care to
carry out to the letter. I confess that I walked
up the Tottenham Court Road by no means
blindly, but with an uneasy sense that I was
coming to a decisive point in my life. The
noise and rumour of the crowded pavements
were to rne but dumb-show; I revolved again
and again in ceaseless iteration the task that
had been laid on me, and I questioned myself
as to the possible results. As I got near the
point of turning, I asked myself whether danger
were not about my steps; the cold thought
struck me that I was suspected and observed,
and every chance foot-passenger who gave me
a second glance seemed to me an officer of


STRANGE OCCURRENCE 269
police. My time was running out, the sky had
darkened, and I hesitated, half resolved to go
no farther, but to abandon Lipsius and his
friends for ever. I had almost determined to
take this course, when the conviction suddenly
came to me that the whole thing was a gigantic
joke, a fabrication of rank improbability. Who
could have procured the information about the
Armenian agent? I asked myself. By what
means could Lipsius have known the particular
day and the very train that Mr. Headley was
to take? how engage him to enter one special
cab amongst the dozens waiting at Paddington?
I vowed it a mere Milesian tale, and went
forward merrily, turned down Vincent Street,
and threaded out the route that Lipsius
had so carefully impressed upon me. The
various streets he had named were all places of
silence and an oppressive cheap gentility; it
was dark, and I felt alone in the musty squares
and crescents, where people pattered by at
intervals, and the shadows were growing
blacker. I entered Sheen Street, and found it
as Lipsius had said, more a passage than a
street; it was a byway, on one side a low wall
and neglected gardens, and grim backs of a


270 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
line of houses, and on the other a timberyard.
I turned the corner, and lost sight of the
square, and then, to my astonishment, I saw the
scene of which I had been told. A hansom
cab had come to a stop beside the pavement,
and an old man, carrying a handbag, was
fiercely abusing the cabman, who sat on his
perch the image of bewilderment.
'Yes, but I 'm sure you said Sheen Street,
and that's where I brought you,' I heard him
saying as I came up, and the old gentleman
boiled in a fury, and threatened police and suits
at law.
The sight gave me a shock, and in an instant
I resolved to go through with it. I strolled on,
and without noticing the cabman, lifted my
hat politely to old Mr. Headley.
'Pardon me, sir,' I said, 'but is there any
difficulty? I see you are a traveller; perhaps
the cabman has made a mistake. Can I direct
you?'
The old fellow turned to me, and I noticed
that he snarled and showed his teeth like an
ill-tempered cur as he spoke.
'This drunken fool has brought me here,' he
said. 'I told him to drive to Chenies Street,


STRANGE OCCURRENCE 271
and he brings me to this infernal place. I won't
pay him a farthing, and I meant to have given
him a handsome sum. I am going to call for
the police and give him in charge.'
At this threat the cabman seemed to take
alarm; he glanced round, as if to make sure
that no policeman was in sight, and drove off
grumbling loudly, and Mr. Headley grinned
savagely with satisfaction at having saved his
fare, and put back one and sixpence into his
pocket, the 'handsome sum' the cabman had
lost.
'My dear sir,' I said,' I am afraid this piece of
stupidity has annoyed you a great deal. It is
a long way to Chenies Street, and you will
have some difficulty in finding the place unless
you know London pretty well.'
'I know it very little,' he replied. 'I never
come up except on important business, and
I 've never been to Chenies Street in my life.'
'Really? I should be happy to show you the
way. I have been for a stroll, and it will not
at all inconvenience me to take you to your
destination.'
'I want to go to Professor Memys, at number
15. It's most annoying to me; I'm short-


STRANGE OCCURRENCE 273
Thus he grumbled all the way, not noticing
in the least where he was going; and so un-
amiable did his conduct appear to me, that I
began to enjoy the trick I was playing on him.
Nevertheless, my heart beat a little faster as
we turned into the street where Lipsius was wait-
ing. A thousand accidents, I thought, might
happen; some chance might bring one of
Headley's friends to meet us; perhaps, though
he knew not Chenies Street, he might know
the street where I was taking him; in spite
of his short-sight he might possibly make out
the number; or, in a sudden fit of suspicion,
he might make an inquiry of the policeman
at the corner. Thus every step upon the pave-
ment, as we drew nearer to the goal, was to
me a pang and a terror, and every approach-
ing passenger carried a certain threat of danger.
I gulped down my excitement with an effort,
and made shift to say pretty quietly—
'Number 15, I think you said? That is the
third house from this. If you will allow me
I will leave you now; I have been delayed a
little, and my way lies on the other side of
Tottenham Court Road.'
He snarled out some kind of thanks, and I
S


274 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
turned my back and walked swiftly in the
opposite direction. A minute or two later I
looked round, and saw Mr. Headley standing
on the doorstep, and then the door opened
and he went in. For my part, I gave a sigh
of relief; I hastened to get away from the
neighbourhood, and endeavoured to enjoy my-
self in merry company.
The whole of the next day I kept away
from Lipsius. I felt anxious, but I did not
know what had happened, or what was happen-
ing, and a reasonable regard for my own safety
told me that I should do well to remain quietly
at home. My curiosity, however, to learn the
end of the odd drama in which I had played
a part stung me to the quick, and late in the
evening I made up my mind to go and see
how events had turned out. Lipsius nodded
when I came in, and asked me if I could give
him five minutes' talk. We went into his room,
and he began to walk up and down, while I
sat waiting for him to speak.
'My dear Mr. Walters,' he said at length,
'I congratulate you warmly; your work was
done in the most thorough and artistic manner,
You will go far. Look.'


STRANGE OCCURRENCE 275
He went to his escritoire and pressed a secret
spring; a drawer flew out, and he laid some-
thing on the table. It was a gold coin; I
took it up and examined it eagerly, and read
the legend about the figure of the faun.
'Victoria,' I said, smiling.
'Yes; it was a great capture, which we owe
to you. I had great difficulty in persuading
Mr. Headley that a little mistake had been
made; that was how I put it. He was very
disagreeable, and indeed ungentlemanly, about
it; didn't he strike you as a very cross old
man?'
I held the coin, admiring the choice and rare
design, clear cut as if from the mint; and I
thought the fine gold glowed and burnt like
a lamp.
'And what finally became of Mr. Headley?'
I said at last.
Lipsius smiled, and shrugged his shoulders.
'What on earth does it matter?' he said.
4 He might be here, or there, or anywhere; but
what possible consequence could it be? Be-
sides, your question rather surprises me; you
are an intelligent man, Mr. Walters. Just think it
over.and I'm sure you won't repeat the question.'


276 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
'My dear sir,' I said, 'I hardly think you
are treating me fairly. You have paid me
some handsome compliments on my share in
the capture, and I naturally wish to know how
the matter ended. From what I saw of Mr.
Headley, I should think you must have had
some difficulty with him."
He gave me no answer for the moment, but
began again to walk up and down the room,
apparently absorbed in thought.
'Well,' he said at last, 'I suppose there is
something in what you say. We are certainly
indebted to you. I have said that I have a
high opinion of your intelligence, Mr. Walters.
Just look here, will you?'
He opened a door communicating with
another room, and pointed.
There was a great box lying on the floor, a
queer, coffin-shaped thing. I looked at it, and
saw it was a mummy case, like those in the
British Museum, vividly painted in the brilliant
Egyptian colours, with I knew not what pro-
clamation of dignity or hopes of life immortal.
The mummy swathed about in the robes of
death was lying within, and the face had been
uncovered.


STRANGE OCCURRENCE 279
medium of the public prints that what I had
taken had been recovered, and meetings were
proposed in which I might hope to gain a great
deal without the slightest risk. I laughed at
their endeavours, and began a little to despise
the organisation I had so dreaded, and ventured
more abroad. Not once or twice, but several
times, I recognised the two men who were
charged with my capture, and I succeeded in
eluding them easily at close quarters; and a
little hastily I decided that I had nothing to
dread, and that my craft was greater than
"theirs. But in the meanwhile, while I con-
gratulated myself on my cunning, the third of
Lipsius's emissaries was weaving her nets; and
in an evil hour I paid a visit to an old friend,
a literary man named Russell, who lived in a
quiet street in Bayswater. The woman, as I
found out too late, a day or two ago, occupied
rooms in the same house, and I was followed
and tracked down. Too late, as I have said, I
recognised that I had made a fatal mistake, and
that I was besieged. Sooner or later I shall
find myself in the power of an enemy without
pity; and so surely as I leave this house I shall
go to receive doom. I hardly dare to guess


280 THE THREE IMPOSTORS

how it will at last fall upon me; my imagina-
tion, always a vivid one, paints to me appalling
pictures of the unspeakable torture which I
shall probably endure; and I know that I shall
die with Lipsius standing near and gloating
over the refinements of my suffering and my
shame.
Hours, nay minutes, have become very
precious to me. I sometimes pause in the
midst of anticipating my tortures, to wonder
whether even now I cannot hit upon some
supreme stroke, some design of infinite subtlety,
to free myself from the toils. But I find that
the faculty of combination has left me; I am
as the scholar in the old myth, deserted by
the power which has helped me hitherto. I
do not know when the supreme moment will
come, but sooner or later it is inevitable;
before long I shall receive sentence, and from
the sentence to execution will not be long.
I cannot remain here a prisoner any longer.
I shall go out to-night when the streets are
full of crowds and clamours, and make a last
effort to escape.


STRANGE OCCURRENCE 281
It was with profound astonishment that
Dyson closed the little book, and thought of
the strange series of incidents which had
brought him into touch with the plots and
counterplots connected with the Gold Tiberius.
He had bestowed the coin carefully away, and
he shuddered at the bare possibility of its
place of deposit becoming known to the evil
band who seemed to possess such extraordinary
sources of information.
It had grown late while he read, and he
put the pocket-book away, hoping with all his
heart that the unhappy Walters might even
at the eleventh hour escape the doom he
dreaded.


ADVENTURE OF THE DE-
SERTED RESIDENCE.
'A WONDERFUL story, as you say, an extra-
ordinary sequence and play of coincidence. I
confess that your expressions when you first
showed me the Gold Tiberius were not ex-
aggerated. But do you think that Walters
has really some fearful fate to dread?'
'I cannot say. Who can presume to predict
events when life itself puts on the robe of
coincidence and plays at drama? Perhaps we
have not yet reached the last chapter in the
queer story. But, look, we are drawing near to
the verge of London; there are gaps, you see,
in the serried ranks of brick, and a vision of
green fields beyond.'
Dyson had persuaded the ingenious Mr.
Phillipps to accompany him on one of those
aimless walks to which he was himself so
addicted. Starting from the very heart of
282


THE DESERTED RESIDENCE 285
patches, green and blackening, stretched what
once had been, no doubt, a well-kept lawn,
but it was now rough and ragged, and nettles
and great docks, and all manner of coarse
weeds, struggled in the places of the flower-
beds. The urns had fallen from their pillars
beside the walk, and lay broken in shards upon
the ground, and everywhere from grass-plot
and path a fungoid growth had sprung up
and multiplied, and lay dank and slimy like
a festering sore upon the earth. In the middle
of the rank grass of the lawn was a desolate
fountain; the rim of the basin was crumbling
and pulverised with decay, and within the
water stood stagnant, with green scum for the
lilies that had once bloomed there; rust had
eaten into the bronze flesh of the Triton that
stood in the middle, and the conch-shell he
held was broken.
'Here,' said Dyson, 'one might moralise over
decay and death. Here all the stage is decked
out with the symbols of dissolution; the cedarn
gloom and twilight hangs heavy around us,
and everywhere within the pale dankness has
found a harbour, and the very air is changed
and brought to accord with the scene. To me,


THE DESERTED RESIDENCE 287
not to advance, and hands that merely simu-
lated the act of grasping at the wreathed
flowers; but it appeared some savage burlesque
of the old careless world and of its cherished
conventions, and the dance of the Loves had
become a Dance of Death; black pustules and
festering sores swelled and clustered on fair
limbs and smiling faces showed corruption,
and the fairy blood had boiled with the germs
of foul disease; it was a parable of the leaven
working, and worms devouring for a banquet
the heart of the rose.
Strangely, under the painted ceiling, against
the decaying walls, two old chairs still stood
alone, the sole furniture of the empty place.
High-backed, with curving arms and twisted
legs, covered with faded gold leaf, and up-
holstered in tattered damask, they too were a
part of the symbolism, and struck Dyson with
surprise. 'What have we here?' he said.
'Who has sat in these chairs? Who, clad in
peach-bloom satin, with lace ruffles and dia-
mond buckles, all golden, a conti fleurettes to
his companion? Phillipps, we are in another
age. I wish I had some snuff to offer you, but
failing that, I beg to offer you a seat, and we


290 THE THREE IMPOSTORS
A naked man was lying on the floor, his
arms and legs stretched wide apart, and bound
to pegs that had been hammered into the
boards. The body was torn and mutilated in
the most hideous fashion, scarred with the
marks of red-hot irons, a shameful ruin of the
human shape. But upon the middle of the
body a fire of coals was smouldering; the flesh
had been burnt through. The man was dead,
but the smoke of his torment mounted still, a
black vapour.
'The young man with spectacles,' said Mr.
Dyson.

Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press


THE KEYNOTES SERIES
'She is a writer with a profound understanding of the human heart. She
understands men; and, more than this, she understands women. . . . For
those who weary of the conventional fiction, and who long for something
out of the ordinary run of things, these are tales that carry the zest of
living.'—Boston Beacon.
* It is not a book for babes and sucklings, since it cuts deep into rather
dangerous soil; but it is refined and skilful . . . strikes a very true and
touching note of pathos.'—WestminsterGazette.
'The author of these able word sketches is manifestly a close observer of
Nature's moods, and one, moreover, who carefully takes stock of the up-
to-date thoughts that shake mankind."—Daily Telegraph.
* Powerful pictures of human beings living to-day, full of burning pain,
and thought, and passion.'—Book-man.
'A work of genius. There is upon the whole thing a stamp of down-
right inevitableness as of things which must be written, and written exactly
in that way.'—Speaker.
1" Keynotes " is a singularly clever book.'—Truth.
'The story is subtle and psychological after the fashion of
psychology; it is undeniably clever and smartly written.'—Gentler
THE DANCING FAUN. By FLORENCE FARR. With
Title-page and Cover Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEY.
Crown 8vo, 33. 6d. net.
1 We welcome the light and merry pen of Miss Fair as one of the deftest
that has been wielded in the style of to-day. She has written the cleverest
and the most cynical sensation story of the season.'—Liverpool Daily Post.
'Slight as it is, the story is, in its way, strong.'—Literary World.
'Full of bright paradox, and paradox which is no mere topsy-turvy play
upon words, but the product of serious thinking upon life. One of the
cleverest of recent novels.'—Star.
1 It is full of epigrammatic effects, and it has a certain thread of pathos
calculated to win our sympathy.'—Queen.
modern
tlewoman.
1 No one can deny its freshness and wit. Indeed there are things in it
here and there which John Oliver Hobbes herself might have signed with-
out loss of reputation. —Woman,
'There is a lurid power in the very unreality of the story. One does not
quite understand how Lady Geraldine worked herself up to shooting he's lover, but when she has done it, the description of what passes through her mind is magnificent.'—Athenauvn.
1 Written by an obviously clever woman.1—Black and White.
'Miss Farr has talent. "The Dancing Faun" contains writing that is
distinctively good. Doubtless it is only a prelude to something much
stronger.'—A cademy,
'As a work of art the book has the merit of brevity and smart writing
while the denouement is skilfully prepared, and comes as a surprise. If
the book had been intended as a satire on the '' new woman " sort of litera-
ture, it would have been most brilliant; but assuming it to be written in
earnest, we can heartily praise the form of its construction without
agreeing with the sentiments expressed.'—St. James's Gazette.
Shows considerable power and aptitude.'—Saturday Review.
1 The book is extremely clever and some of the situations very striking,
while there are sketches of character which really live. The final denoue-
ment might at first sight be thought impossible, but the effect on those who
take part in it is so free of exaggeration, that we can almost imagine that
such people are in our midst.'—Guardian.


THE KEYNOTES SERIES
A CHILD OF THE AGE. By FRANCIS ADAMS. Title-
page and Cover Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. Crown
8vo, 35. 6d. net.
1 English or foreign, there is no work among those now before me which
is so original as that of the late Francis Adams. "A Child of the Age" is
original, moving, often fascinating.'—Academy.
'A great deal of cleverness and perhaps something more has gone to the
writing of " A Child of the Age."'—Vanity Fair.
1 It comes recognisably near to great excellence. There is a love episode
in this book which is certainly fine. Clearly conceived and expressed with
point.'—Pall Mall Gazette.
1 Those whose actual experience or natural intuition will enable them to
see beneath the mere narrative, will appreciate the perfect art with which
a boy of nineteen—this was the author's age when the book was written—
has treated one of the most delicate subjects on which a man can write—
the history of his own innermost feelings.'—Weekly Sun.
* The book possesses a depth and clearness of insight, a delicacy of touch,
and a brilliancy and beauty of style very remarkable in so young a writer.'
—Weekly Scotsman.
'"A Child of the Age" is as fully saturated with the individuality of its
author as " Wuthering Heights" was saturated with the individuality of
Emily BronteV—Daily Chronicle.
'I am writing about the book because it is one you should read, for it is
typical of a certain sort of character and contains some indubitable excel-
lences.'—Pall Mall Budget.
1 Not faultless, indeed, but touched with the magic of real poetry; with-
out the elaborate carving of the chisel. The love incident is exquisite and
exquisitely told. "Rosy" lives; her emotions stir us. Wonderfully sug-
gested in several parts of the work is the severe irony of nature before
profound human suffering.'—Saturday Review.
'Only a man of big talent could have produced it.'—Literary World.
* A tale of fresh originality, deep spiritual meaning, and exceptional
power. It fairly buds, blossoms, and fruits with suggestions that search
the human spirit through. No similar production has come from the hand
of any author in our time. It exalts, inspires, comforts, and strengthens
all together. It instructs by suggestion, spiritualises the thought by its
elevating and purifying narrative, and feeds the hungering spirit with
food it is only too ready to accept and assimilated —Boston Courier, U.S. A
'It is a remarkable work—as a pathological study almost unsurpassed.
It produces the impression of a photograph from life, so vividly realistic is
the treatment. To this result the author's style, with its fidelity of micro-
scopic detail, doubtless contributes.'—Evening' Traveller, U.S.A.
way of literary creation, had he lived, is, of course, only a matter of con-
jecture. What he did we have before us in this remarkable book.'—Boston
Advertiser, U.S.A.


THE KEYNOTES SERIES
Second Edition now ready.
THE GREAT GOD PAN AND THE INMOST LIGHT.
By ARTHUR MACHEN. With Title-page and Cover
Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. Crown 8vo, 33. 6d.
net.
'Since Mr. Stevenson played with the crucibles of science in "Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" we have not encountered a more successful experi-
ment of the soTt.'—Pall Mall Gazette.
'Nothing so appalling as these tales has been given to publicity within
our remembrance; in which, nevertheless, such ghastly fictions as Poe's
"Telltale Heart," Bulwer's "The House and the Brain," and Le Fanu's
*' In a Glass Darkly " still are vividly present. The supernatural element
is utilised with extraordinary power and effectiveness in both these blood-
chilling masterpieces.'—Daily Telegraph.
1 He imparts the shudder of awe without giving rise to a feeling of disgust.
Let me strongly advise anyone anxious for a real, durable thrill, to get it.'—
Woman.
'A nightmarish business it is—suggested, seemingly, by " Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde "—and capital reading, we should say, for ghouls and vampires
in their leisure moments.'—Daily Chronicle*
1 The rest we leave for those whose nerves are strong, merely saying that
since "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," we have read nothing so uncanny.'—
The Literary World.
*The literature of the "supernatural" has recently been supplemented
by two striking books, which carry on with much ability the traditions of
Sheridan Le Fanu: one is " The Great God Pan," by Arthur Machen.'—
Star.
'Will arouse the sort of interest that was created by "Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde." The tales present a frankly impossible horror, which, never-
theless, kindles the imagination and excites a powerful curiosity. It is
almost a book of genius, and we are not sure that the safeguarding adverb
ts not superfluous.'—Birmingham Post.
*The coarser terrors of Edgar Allen Poe do not leave behind them the
shudder that one feels at the shadowed devil-mysteries of " The Great God
Pan."'—Liverpool Mercury.
'If any one labours under a burning desire to experience the sensation
familiarly known as making one's flesh creep, he can hardly do better than
read "The Great God Paul Speaker.
* For sheer gruesome horror Mr. Machen's story, "The Great God Pan,"
surpasses anything that has been published for a long time.'—Scotsman.
1 Nothing more striking or more skilful than this book has been produced
in the way of what one may call Borderland fiction since Mr. Stevenson's
indefatigable Brownies gave the world "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."'—
Glasgow Herald.
*The mysteries he deals with lie far beyond the reach of ordinary human
experience, and as they are vague, though so horror-producing, he wisely
treats them with a reticence that, while it accords with the theme, im-
mensely heightens the effect.'—Dundee Advertiser,
'The author is an artist, and tells his tale with reticence and grace,
hinting the demoniac secret at first obscurely, and only gradually permit-
ting the reader to divine how near to us are the infernal powers, and how
terribly they satiate their lusts and wreak their malice upon mankind. It
is a work of something like genius, fascinating and fearsome.'—Bradford
Observer.


THE KEYNOTES SERIES
'They are fitting companions to the famous stories by Edgar Allan Poe
both in matter and style,'—Boston Home Journal^ U.S.A.
1 They are horror stones, the horror being of the vague psychologic kind
and dependent in each case upon a man of science, who tries to effect a
change in individual personality by an operation upon the brain cells.
The implied lesson is that it is dangerous and unwise to seek to probe the
mystery separating mind and matter. These sketches are extremely
strong, and we guarantee the shivers to any one who reads them.'—Hart-
ford Cour&nt, U.S.A.
Fourth Edition now ready.
DISCORDS. By GEORGE KGERTON. With Title-page and
Cover Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. Crown 8vo,
35. 6d. net.
1 We have the heights as well as the depths of life. The transforming
touch of beauty is upon it, of that poetry of conception beneath whose spell
nothing is ugly or unclean.'—Star.
"The writer is a warm-blooded enthusiast, not a cold-blooded
"scientist." In the long run perhaps it will do some good.'—National
Observer.
'The power and passion which every reader felt in **Keynotes" are
equally present in this new volume. But there is also in at least equal
measure that artistic force and skill which went so far to overcome the
repugnance which many felt to the painful dissection of feminine nature.'—
North British Daily Mail.
* Force of conception and power of vivid presentment mark these sketches,
and are sure to impress all who read them.'—Birmingham Post.
'Written with all "George Egerton's" eloquence and fervour.'—York-
shire Herald.
1 It almost takes one's breath away by its prodigious wrong-headedness,
its sheer impudence.'—MR. A. B. WALKLEV in The Morning Leader.
'The wonderful power of observation, the close analysis and the really
brilliant writing revealed in parts of this volume .... "George Egerton"
would seem to be well equipped for the task.'—Cork Examiner.
1 Readers who have a leaning to psychological fiction, and who revel in
such studies of character as George Meredith's " Diana of the Crossways"
will find much to interest them in these clever stories.'—Western Daily
Press.
'There is no escape from the fact that it is vividly interesting.'—The
Christian World.
* With all her realism there is a refinement and a pathos and a brilliance
of style that lift the book into a region altogether removed from the merely
sensational or the merely repulsive. It is a book that one might read with
a pencil in his hand, for it is studded with many fine, vivid passages.'—
Weekly Scotsman.
'She has many fine qualities. Her work throbs with temperament, and
here and there we come upon touches that linger in the memory as of things
felt and seen, not read of.'—Daily News.
'Mrs. Grundy, to whom they would be salutary, will not be induced to
read either " Keynotes" or "Discords."— Westminster Gazette.
'What an absorbing, wonderful book it is: How absolutely sincere, and
how finely wrong! George Egerton may be what the indefatigable Mr.
Zangwill calls a one-I'd person, but she is a literary artist of exceptional
endowment—probably a genius.'—Woman.


THE KEYNOTES SERIES
'She has given, times without number, examples of her ripening powers
that astonish us. Her themes astound; her audacity is tremendous. In
the many great passages an advance is proved that is little short of amaz-
ing.'—Literary World.
'Interesting and skilfully written.'—Sunday Times.
'A series of undoubtedly clever stories, told with a poetic dreaminess
which softens the rugged truths of which they treat Mothers might benefit
themselves and convey help to young girls who are about to be married by
the perusal of its pages.'—Liverpool Mercury.
'They are the work of an author of considerable power, not to say genius.'
—Scotsman.
'The book is true to human nature, for the author has genius, and, let us
add, has heart. It is representative; it is, in the hackneyed phrase, a
human document.'—Speaker.
1 It is another note in the great chorus of revolt ... on the whole
clearer, more eloquent, and braver than almost any I have yet heard.1—
T. P. (' Book of the Week'), Weekly Sun, December 30.
'These masterly word-sketches.'—Daily Telegraph,
'Were it possible to have my favourite sketches and stories from both
volumes(" Keynotes" and "Discords") bound together in one, I should
look upon myself as a very fortunate traveller; one who had great pleasure,
if not exactly happiness, within her reach.'—Lady's Pictorial,
1 But in all this there is a rugged grandeur of style, a keen analysis of
motive, and a deepness of pathos that stamp George Egerton as one of the
greatest women writers of the day.'--Boston Traveller, U.S.A.
they sadden one to think that such things must be; yet as they are real,
they are bound to be disclosed by somebody, and in due time.'—Boston
Courier, U.S.A.
Eighteenth Edition just ready.
THE WOMAN WHO DID. By GRANT ALLEN. With
Title-page and Cover Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEY.
Crown 8vo, 33. 6d. net
'There is not a sensual thought or suggestion throughout the whole
volume. Though I dislike and disbelieve in his gospel, I thoroughly
respect Mr. Grant Allen for having stated it so honourably and so bravely.'
—Academy.
* Even its bitterest enemies must surely feel some thrill of admiration for
its courage. It is, once more, one philosopher against the world. Not in
our day, perhaps, can it be decided which is right, Mr. Grant Allen, or the
world. Perhaps our children's children will some day be canonising Mr.
Grant Allen for the very book for which to-day he stands a much greater
chance of being stoned, and happy lovers of the new era bless the name of
p i purpose
animates its pages. . . . Label it as one will, it remains a clever, stimu-
lating book. A real enthusiasm for humanity blazes through every page
of this, in many ways remarkable and significant little book.'—Sketch.
'The book is interesting, as embodying the carefully thought-out
theories of so distinguished a writer.'—LiteraryWorld.


THE KEYNOTES SERIES
'Mr. Grant Allen has undoubtedly produced an epoch-making book, and
one which will be a living voice when most of the novels of this generation
have passed away into silence. It is epoch-making in the sense that
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" was;—the literary merits of that work were by no
means great, but yet it rang like a tocsin through the land, arousing mankind
to a sense of the slavery under which a large portion of humanity suffered.
—Humanitarian.
'Interesting, and even absorbing Weekly Sun.
'His sincerity is undeniable. And in the mouth of Herminia are some
very noble and eloquent passages upon the wrongs of our marriage sys-
tem.'—Pall Mall Gazette,
'A tale of purity and innocence unparalleled since the "Garden of
Eden " or " Paul and Virginia."' —Daily Express.
'A remarkable and powerful story. It increases pur respect for Mr.
Allen's ability, nor do we feel inclined to join in throwing stones at him as
a perverter of our morals and our social institutions. However widely we
may differ from Mr. Allen's views on many important questions, we are
bound to recognise his sincerity, and to respect him accordingly.'—Speaker.
'The story is as remarkable for its art as its daring, and well deserves a
place in the remarkable series in which it has been published.'—The
Scotsman.
1 Herminia is a rare and fine creature' sChronicle.
'An artist in words and a writer of deep feeling has lavished his best
powers in the production of "The Woman Who Did." The story is
charmingly told. Delineated with a delicacy and strength of touch that
cannot but delight the most fastidious reader. Mr. Grant Allen draws a
picture of a sweet and pure and beautiful woman. The book is very
beautiful and very sad.'—Liverpool Mercury.
* The book (for it is well written and clever) ought to be the last note in
the chorus of revolt. For it proves to demonstration the futility of the
attempt.'—Sun.
* We cannot too highly commend the conspicuous and transparent purity
of the handling.'—Public Opinion.
4 He conclusively shows that if the marriage laws need revision, yet the
sweetness and seemliness of home, the dignity of woman as mother or as
man's helpmeet, are rooted in the sanctity of wedlock.'—Daily News.
1 Mr. Grant Allen deserves thanks for treating with such delicacy
problem which stands in such pressing need of solution as the reform of
our stern marriage laws.'—Echo.
1 Its merits are large and its interest profound.'—Weekly Scotsman.
'It may not merit praise, but it merits reading.'—Saturday Review.
PRINCE ZALESKI. By M. P. SHIEL. With Title-page
by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. Crown 8vo, 35. 6d. net.
'Mr. M. P. Shiel has in this volume produced something which is
always rare, and which is every year becoming a greater rarity—a work
of literary invention characterised by substantial novelty. We have Foe's analysis and Foe's glamour, but they are no longer distinct; they
are combined in a new synthesis which stamps a new imaginative impres-
sion. A finely wrought structure in which no single line impairs the
symmetry and proportion. One of the most boldly-planned and strik-
ingly-executed stories of its kind which has appeared for many a long


THE KEYNOTES SERIES
day. We believe there is nothing in "Prince Zaleski" which that great
inventor and masterly manipulator of the spoils of invention (Poe) would
have disdained to father.'—Daily Chronicle.
'Should obtain popularity. Written in an easy and clear style. The
author shows an amount of ingenuity and capacity for plot considerably
above the average. The reader will find it difficult to put the book down
before he has satisfied his curiosity to the last page.'—Weekly Sun,
'The Prince was a Sherlock Holmes, with this difference: that while
yielding nothing to Conan Doyle's hero in mere intellectual agility, he
had that imaginative insight which makes poets more frequently than
detectives. Sherlock Holmes was a clever but essentially commonplace
man. Prince Zaleski was a great man, simply. Enthralling . . . once
begun they insist on being finished. Broadly and philosophically con-
ceived, and put together with rare narrative skill, and feeling for effect.'
—Woman.
There is a strange, fantastic ingenuity in all the stories, while a strong
dash of mysticism gives them a peculiar flavour that differentiates them
from the ordinary detective story. They are clever and curious, and will
appeal to all lovers of the transcendental and improbable.'—The Scotsman.
'Thoroughly entertaining, and the chief figure is undeniably pic-
turesque.'—Yorkshire Post.
'An abundance of ingenuity and quaint out-of-the-way learning mark
the three stories contained in this volume.'—Liverpool Mercury.
'He has imparted to the three tales in this volume something of that
atmosphere of eerie fantasy which Poe knew how to conjure, proceeding
by the analysis of a baffling intricacy of detail to an unforeseen conclusion.
The themes and their treatment are alike highly imaginative.'—Daily
News.
'Manifestly written by one of Poe's true disciples. His analytical skill
is not that of the detective, even of so brilliant a detective as Mr. Sherlock
Holmes. Probably his exploits will interest the public far less than did
those of Mr. Doyle's famous character; but the select few, who can
appreciate delicate work, will delight in them exceedingly.'—Speaker.
'Truth to tell we like our Sherlock better in his new dress. The
book will please those who love a good old-fashioned riddle, and a good
new-fangled answer."—National Observer.
1 Has genuine literary merit, and possesses entrancing interest. A kind
of Sherlock Holmes, though of a far more finished type than Mr. Conan
Doyle's famous creation. The remarkable ingenuity of Mr. Shiel—worthy
of Edgar Allen Poe at his best—in tracing out the mystery surrounding
the death of Lord Pharanx, the Stone of the Edmundsbury Monks, and the
Society of Sparta, constitutes a veritable tour de force. We have nothing
but praise for this extraordinarily clever and interesting volume.'—White-
hall Review.
'Worked out very ingeniously, and we are thoroughly impressed by the
Prince's mental powers.f—Sunday Times.
* A clever, extravagant, and lurid little book.'—Westminster Gazette.
'Mr. Shiel's mysteries are very good, and he has put them into literary
form.'—Bookman.
1 They are fascinating in spite of the demands they make upon our
credulity.'— Times.
'Imagination of the weirdest and the strangest runs rife. The personage
of the title is a sort of dilettante Sherlock Holmes, but with far weirder
problems to unravel than ever fell to the lot of Dr. Doyle's detective. The
book contains three stories, reminding one now of Poe and now of Steven-
son's " New Arabian Nights," all told with convincing art and a power of
uncommon invention which few writers have equalled. Will give you some
exciting hours.'—Review of Reviews.


THE KEYNOTES SERIES
WOMEN'S TRAGEDIES. By H. D. LOWRY. With Title-
page and Cover Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. Crown
8vo, 35. 6d. net.
'He is the master of a style singularly strenuous and sensitive. What he
sees he can express with marvellous vividness. There is nothing more
terrible and perfect of its kind than his story, "The Man in the Room."
It is magnificently done, powerfully imagined, and convincingly presented.'
—Black and White.
'Mr. Lowry's "Women's Tragedies" are the most striking thumbnail
sketches since Mr. Quiller Couch idly ceased to write his wonderful
"Noughts and Crosses."'—Star.
* A collection of vivid sketches from life.'—Liverpool Mercury.'A wide and critical section of the reading public will be ready to welcome
"Women's Tragedies." The author has not a little of the ancient mariner's
power. He creates a situation which holds the reader mentally spellbound,
and leaves an impression not readily effaced . . . sombre, even eerie, they
prove, and yet strong with the author's power to fascinated —Dundee
Advertiser.
'The chief charm of the stories is the delicacy and strength with which
they are wrought, and the genuine insight into human nature which they
show.'—Scotsman.
'He is a master of a simple, forcible style j he has a deep insight into
human nature, a strong and active imagination; and, above all, he has
that indescribable knack of making interesting the commonplace things of
existence. This collection of stories will be read with genuine pleasure,
and will do much to advance the reputation of the author.'—Weekly Scots-
man.
'In Mr. Lowry's latest book we have some healthy studies of human
nature, stories which are full of strong, deep, and simple emotion. This is
the fiction, simple and human, real and beautiful, which rebukes at one
and the same time the sentimentality of English art and the unhealthiness
of French.'—Western Daily Mercury.
* It is a profoundly interesting and powerful volume.'— Whitehall Review.
1 "The Man in the Room" is certainly the strongest There is a subtle
and complete knowledge of the woman of the tragedy, an insight and
mastery which is never paraded, but is governed, restrained, and used.
The author is an artist well understanding the use of a touch of the
grotesque for the heightening of the tragedy.'—Realm.
'His stories are clever and intensely dramatic. We cannot overlook the
power of imagination and of literary expression which Mr. Lowry's book
reveals. Stamps its writer as a man of great gifts.1—Independent.
'Is written with a good deal of distinction. No one can deny the charm
of such stories as "Beauty's Lovers" and "The Sisters," and "The Man
in the Room" has both a gracefully drawn heroine and a good deal of
weird power.'— Queen.
'He can imagine scenes and incidents of the most dramatic intensity and
put them before us in half a dozen pages.'—Glasgow Evening News*
'Remind us frequently of Mr. Hardy's "Life's Little Ironies." Exhibit
DO little artistic power.'—Methodist Recorder.
1 Are very real and strong, very grim. The language is very simple,
direct, and, in necessary consequence, expressive.'—National Observer.
1 The stories are told in fresh, bright, unaffected fashion.'—Sunday
Times.


THE KEYNOTES SERIES
AT THE FIRST CORNER, AND OTHER STORIES. By
H. B. MARRIOTT WATSON. With Title-page and Cover
Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. Crown 8vo, 35. 6d. net.
'We willingly bear witness to Mr. Watson's brilliance, versatility, and
literary power. '' An Ordeal of Three" is a fancy that is full of beauty and
delicate charm. When, again, Mr. Watson deals with the merely sordid and
real side of East-end London he justifies his choice by a certain convincing
realism which is never dull, and which is always inevitably true.'—Pall
Mall Gazette.
'Made up of exceedingly good stories. . . . The mere writing of them
makes them a pleasure to read.'—Star.
* Have the charm of individuality.'—Globe.
'Exceedingly well written. There is no denying Mr. Marriott Watson's
strength and delicacy of style.'—Queen.
'There is an impressive "grip" in Mr. Watson's narrative from which
the reader cannot easily escape.'—Whitehall Review,
"They all show a vigorous pen and a command of forcible language.1—
Dundee Advertiser.
* The stories are all told with very considerable vigour and skill, and
show a strong vein of imagination,'—Scotsman.
'Mr. Marriott Watson can write, and in these new stories he shows, more
manifestly than in any previous work, his capacity for dramatic realisation.
"An Ordeal of Three" has not only strength but charm.'—Daily Chronicle.
'Admirably conceived and brilliantly finished; the book will be read.'—
Saturday Review.
* Knowledge of life, literary cleverness, charm, and, above all, style, are
present all through. One cannot dip into his volume without being taken
captive and reading every story.'—Realm.
'Remarkable for diversity of subject and distinction of style. Every
page of this charming volume is original.'—Black and White.
'Mr. Watson can tell a story in a terse, vigorous, and thrilling manner.'
—Westminster Gazette.
'Contains the best work he has yet done. Uncommonly well written.'—
Sketch.
'There is undeniable power in the volume of stories, "At the First
Corner," and there is something very like the fire of genius behind this
power. The style is terse, vivid, and imaginative.'—Guardian.
GREY ROSES. By HENRY HARLAND. With Title-page
and Cover Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. Crown 8vo,
35. 6d. net.
1 Exceedingly pleasant to read. You close the book with a feeling that
you have met a host of charming people. "Castles Near Spain" comes
ar to being a perfect thing of its kind,' —Pall Mall Gazette.
near
ng a perfect thing of its kind,' —Pall Mall Gazette.
*They are charming stories, simple, full of freshness, with a good deal of
delicate wit, both in the imagining and in the telling. The last story of
the book, in spite of improbabilities quite tremendous, is a delightful story.'
—Daily Chronicle.



THE KEYNOTES SERIES 13
Castles near Spain " as a fantastic love episode is simply inimitable,
Daily Telegraph.
'Never before has the strange, we might almost say the weird, fascina-
tion of the Bohemianism of the Latin Quarter been so well depicted.'—
Whitehall Review.
'"Castles near Spain" is an altogether charming and admirable bit of
romance.'—Glasgow Herald.
1We envy Mr. Harland his beautiful story, "A Bohemian Girl."' —
Literary World.
1 Mr. Harland is capital company. He is always entertaining.'—New
Budget.
* They are gay and pathetic, and touched with the fantasy that gives to
romance its finest flavour. Each has a quaintness and a grace of its own.'
—Daily News.
'" Castles near Spain" is a lovely idyll, in which young passion and a
quaint humour are blended into a rare harmony.'—Star.
MONOCHROMES. By ELLA D'ARCY. With Title-page
and Cover Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEY. Crown 8vo,
35. 6d. net.
'If Miss D'Arcy can maintain this level, her future is secure. She has
produced one story which comes near to being a masterpiece.'—Daily
Chronicle,
* We doubt if any other living woman-writer could have written quite so
well.'—Saturday Review.
'It is rare indeed to meet, in English, with a number of short stories of
such distinction from an English pen.'—Graphic.
'Thoroughly interesting, and in many respects strikingly original.1—
Whitehall Review.
'Style, characterisation, dramatic intensity, artistic sanity, pathos and
imagination—all these Miss D'Arcy has.'—Echo.
'Written with much skill, observation and style. Very interesting and
well told.'— Westminster Gazette.
* All the stories show keen observation and literary Nonindependent.'Distinguished by power, imagination, and a polished and facile style.'—
Weekly Scotsman.
1 They are word-pictures of no little power, displaying an admirable
technique in their design, treatment of light and shade, and artistic finish.'
—Daily Telegraph.
AT THE RELTON ARMS. By EVELYN SHARP. With
Title-page and Cover Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEY.
Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. net.
'Miss Evelyn Sharp is to be congratulated on having, through the mouth
of one of her characters, said one of the wisest words yet spoken on what is
rather absurdly called "The Marriage Question " (page 132). It is an in-
teresting and well-written story, with some smart characterisation and quite
a sufficiency of humour.'—Daily Chronicle.


THE KEYNOTES SERIES
'The book is full of cleverness, sly irony peeps out at every corner. . . .
There is a touch of fantastic humour which reminds one of Peacock.'—
Realm.
1 Miss Evelyn Sharp is a clever writer, and her story is decidedly worth
reading.'—Dundee Advertiser.
'The book is cleverly and smartly written.'—Weekly Scotsman.
'There is a good deal of cleverness in "At the Relton Arms."' —Man-
chester Guardian.
THE GIRL FROM THE FARM. By GERTRUDE Dix.
With Title-page and Cover Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEY.
Crown 8vo, 35. 6d. net.
'Miss Dix has a pleasant and graceful style. The dean is well and sym-
pathetically portrayed, and some of the scenes between him and Ratherine
bear the stamp of truth.'—Daily Chronicle.
* The novel is exceptionally well written, the characters are admirably
drawn; there is a vividness, too, about several of the descriptions and
scenes which is a great deal more than mere patient realism.'—Glasgow
Herald.
'A decidedly clever little book.1—Saturday Review.
1 The work of a writer with real gifts for fiction, gifts of characterisation
and story-telling.'—Star,
1 The story is cleverly constructed and well written.'—Weekly Scotsman.
'A thoroughly wholesome book and very clever. Katherine is a charming
character.'—Queen.
'A powerful piece of writing. The dean and his daughter are drawn in
masterly fashion.'—Whitehall Remew.
1 It shows a good grasp of peculiarities of human nature, and is written
with very considerable literary skill.'—Scotsman.
'Miss Dix's style is charming, and here and there come out flashes of
descriptive power.' —Bristol Times and Mirror.
THE MOUNTAIN LOVERS. By FIONA MACLEOD. With
Title-page and Cover Design by AUBREY BEARDSLEY.
Crown 8vo, 35. 6d. net.
'An exquisite and delicious idyll with which Miss Macleod has now
enriched our contemporary literature. A beautiful and pathetic tale of
young love that stands out against the deeply tragic background.'—Glasgow
Herald.
1A beautiful prose poem, while possessing strong interest as a romance.'—
Queen.
1 Almost savage in its power, yet not without its beauty.'—Dundee
Advertiser.
'The loves of Alan and Sorcha are wholesome and breezy, if uncon-
ventional, and recall nothing more jia. de sitcle than the garden of Eden.'
—A thentfum.


JOHN LANE J
egrams
BODLEIAN
LONDON'

CATALOGUE^PUBLICATIONS


THE PUBLICATIONS OF JOHN LANE 3
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THE STORY OF VENUS AND TANNHAUSER, in which is set
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[Seventh edition now ready,
Vol. n. THE DANCING FAUN. By FLORENCE FARR.
Vol. III. POOR FOLK. Translated from the Russian of
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The following are in rapid preparation.
Vol. xix. THB THREE IMPOSTORS. By ARTHUR
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Vol. xx. NOBODY'S FAULT. By NETTA SYRETT.


JOHN LANE

KEYNOTES SERIES—continued.
Vol. xxi. THE BRITISH BARBARIANS. By GRANT
ALLEN.
Vol. xxn. IN HOMESPUN. By E. NESBIT.
Vol. xxin. PLATONIC AFFECTIONS. By JOHN SMITH.
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