classics, mostly in French translations, and a score of lucubrations
by French and other inventors--Ponton d’Amocourt, Borelli, Chabrier,
Girard, and Marey.

Even if his books had not shown the direction of the new patient’s
mind--(a man is known by his books at least as much as by his
companions, and companions Winter had none)--even if the shelves had
not spoken clearly, the models and odds-and-ends in the room would have
proclaimed him an inventor. As the walls were hidden by his library,
and as the floor, also, was littered with tomes and pamphlets and
periodicals, a quantity of miscellaneous gear was hung by hooks from the
ceiling.

Barton, who was more than commonly tall, found his head being buffeted
by big preserved wings of birds and other flying things--from the
sweeping pinions of the albatross to the leathery covering of the bat.
From the ceiling, too, hung models, cleverly constructed in various
materials; and here--a cork with quills stuck into it, and with a kind
of drill-bow--was the little flying model of Sir George Cayley. The
whole place, dusty and musty, with a faded smell of the oil in birds’
feathers, was almost more noisome than curious. When Barton left it, his
mind was made up as to the nature of Winter’s secret, or delusion; and
when he visited that queer patient in hospital, he was not surprised
either by his smattered learning or by his golden dreams.

“Yes, sir; Eusebius is against me, no doubt,” Winter went on with his
eager talk. “An acute man--rather _too_ acute, don’t you think, for a
Father of the Church? That habit he got into of smashing the arguments
of the heathen, gave him a kind of flippancy in talking of high
matters.”

“Such as flying?” put in Barton.

“Yes; such as our great aim--the aim of all the ages, I may call it.
What does Bishop Wilkins say, sir? Why, he says, (I doubt not but that
flying in the air may be easily effected by a diligent and ingenious
artificer.) ‘Diligent,’ I may say, I have been; as to ‘ingenious,’ I
leave the verdict to others.”

“Was that Peter Wilkins you were quoting?” asked Barton, to humor his
man.

“Why, no sir; the Bishop was not Peter. Peter Wilkins is the hero of
a mere romance, in which, it is true, we meet with women--_Goories_ he
calls them--endowed with the power of flight. But _they_ were born so.
We get no help from Peter Wilkins: a mere dreamer.”

“It doesn’t seem to be so easy as the Bishop fancies?” remarked Barton,
leading him on.

“No, sir,” cried Winter, all his aches and pains forgotten, and his pale
face flushed with the delight of finding a listener who did not laugh
at him. “No, sir; the Bishop, though ingenious, was not a practical man.
But look at what he says about the _weight_ of your flying machine!
Can anything be more sensible? Borne out, too, by the most recent
researches, and the authority of Professor Pettigrew Bell himself. You
remember the iron fly made by Begimontanus of Nuremberg?”

“The iron fly!” murmured Barton. “I can’t say I do.”

“You will find a history of it in Bamus. This fly would leap from the
hands of the great Begimontanus, flutter and buzz round the heads of his
guests assembled at supper, and then, as if wearied, return and repose
on the finger of its maker.”

“You don’t mean to say you believe _that_?” asked Barton.

“Why not, sir; why not? Did not Archytas of Tarenturn, one of Plato’s
acquaintances, construct a wooden dove, in no way less miraculous? And
the same Regimontanus, at Nuremberg, fashioned an eagle which, by way of
triumph, did fly out of the city to meet Charles V. But where was I? Oh,
at Bishop Wilkins. Cardan doubted of the iron fly of Regimontanus,
because the material was so heavy. But Bishop Wilkins argues, in
accordance with the best modern authorities, that the weight is no
hindrance whatever, if proportional to the motive power. A flying
machine, says Professor Bell, in the _Encyclopodia Britannica_--(you
will not question the authority of the _Encyclopodia Britannica_?)--a
flying machine should be ‘a compact, moderately heavy, and powerful
structure.’ There, you see, the Bishop was right.”

“Yours was deuced powerful,” remarked Barton. “I did not expect to see
two limbs of you left together.”

“It _is_ powerful, or rather it _was_,” answered Winter, with a heavy
sigh; “but it’s all to do over again--all to do over again! Yet it was
a noble specimen. ‘The passive surface was reduced to a minimum,’ as the
learned author in the _Encyclopodia_ recommends.”

“By Jove! the passive surface was jolly near reduced to a mummy. _You_
were the passive surface, as far as I could see.”

“Don’t laugh at me, please sir, after you’ve been so kind. All the rest
laugh at me. You can’t think what a pleasure it has been to talk to
a scholar,” and there was a new flush on the poor fellow’s cheek, and
something watery in his eyes.

“I beg your pardon, my dear sir,” cried Barton, greatly ashamed of
himself. “Pray go on. The subject is entirely new to me. I had not been
aware that there were any serious modern authorities in favor of the
success of this kind of experiment.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Winter, much encouraged, and taking Barton’s
hand in his own battered claw; “thank you. But why should we run only
to modern authorities? All great inventions, all great ideas, have been
present to men’s minds and hopes from the beginning of civilization.
Did not Empedocles forestall Mr. Darwin, and hit out, at a stroke, the
hypothesis of natural selection?”

“Well, he _did_ make a shot at it,” admitted Barton, who remembered as
much as that from “the old coaching days,” and college lectures at St.
Gatien’s.

“Well, what do we find? As soon as we get a whisper of civilization in
Greece, we find Dædalus successful in flying. The pragmatic interpreters
pretend that the fable does but point to the discovery of sails for
ships; but I put it to you, is that probable?”

“Obvious bosh,” said Barton.

“And the meteorological mycologists, sir, _they_ maintain that Dædalus
is only the lightning flying in the breast of the storm!”

“There’s nothing those fellows won’t say,” replied Barton.

“I’m glad you are with me, sir. In Dædalus _I_ see either a record of
a successful attempt at artificial flight, or at the very least, the
expression of an aspiration as old as culture. _You_ wouldn’t make
Dædalus the evening clouds accompanying Minos, the sun, to his setting
in Sicily, in the west?” added Winter anxiously.

“I never heard of such nonsense,” said Barton.

“Sir Frederick Leighton, the President of the Royal Academy, is with me,
sir, if I may judge by his picture of Dædalus.”

“Every sensible man must be with you,” answered Barton.

“Well, sir, I won’t detain you with other famous flyers of antiquity,
such as Abaris, mounted on an arrow, as described by Herodotus.
Doubtless the arrow was a flying machine, a novelty to the ignorant
Scythians.”

“It _must_ have been, indeed.”

“Then there was the Greek who flew before Nero in the circus; but he,
I admit, had a bad fall, as Seutonius recounts. That character of
Lucian’s, who employed an eagle’s wing and a vulture’s in his flight, I
take to be a mere figment of the satirist’s imagination. But what do
you make of Simon Magus? He, I cannot doubt, had invented a machine
in which, like myself, he made use of steam or naphtha. This may be
gathered from Arnobius, our earliest authority. He mentions expressly
_currum Simonis Magi et quadrigas igneas_, the chariot of Simon Magus
and his _vehicles of flame_--clearly the naphtha is alluded to--which
vanished into air at the word of the Apostle Peter. The latter
circumstances being miraculous, I take leave to doubt; but certainly
Simon Magus had overcome the difficulties of aerial navigation. But,
though Petrus Crinitus rejects the tradition as fabulous, I am prepared
to believe that Simon Magus actually flew from the Capitol to the
Aventine!

“‘The world knows nothing of its greatest men,’” quoted Barton.

“Simon Magus has been the victim, sir, of theological acrimony, his
character blackened, his flying machine impugned, or ascribed, as by the
credulous Arnobius, to diabolical arts. In the dark ages, naturally,
the science of Artificial Flight was either neglected or practised in
secret, through fear of persecution. Busbequius speaks of a Turk at
Constantinople who attempted something in this way; but he (the Turk, I
mean), was untrammelled by ecclesiastical prejudice. But why should we
tarry in the past? Have we not Mr. Proctor with us, both in _Knowledge_
and the _Cornhill_? Does not the preeminent authority, Professor
Pettigrew Bell, himself declare, with the weight, too, of the
_Encyclopodia Britannica_, that ‘the number of successful flying models
is considerable. It is not too much to expect,’ he goes on, ‘that the
problem of artificial flight will be actually solved, or at least much
simplified.’ What less can we expect, as he observes, in the land of
Watt and Stephenson, when the construction of flying machines has been
‘taken up in earnest by practical men?’”

“We may indeed,” said Barton, “hope for the best when persons of your
learning and ingenuity devote their efforts to the cause.”

“As to my learning, you flatter me,” said Winter. “I am no scholar; but
an enthusiast will study the history of his subject Did I remark that
the great Dr. Johnson, in these matters so sceptical, admits (in a
romance, it is true) the possibility of artificial flight? The artisan
of the Happy Valley expected to solve the problem in one year’s time.
‘If all men were equally virtuous,’ said this artist, ‘I should with
equal alacrity teach them all to fly.’”

“And you will keep your secret, like Dr. Johnson’s artist?”

“To _you_ I do not mind revealing this much. The vans or wings of my
machine describe elliptic figures of eight.”

“I’ve seen them do _that_, said Barton.

“Like the wings of birds; and have the same forward and downward stroke,
by a direct piston action. The impetus is given, after a descent in
air--which I effected by starting from a height of six feet only--by
a combination of heated naphtha and of india rubber under torsion. By
steam alone, in 1842, Philips made a model of a flying-machine soar
across two fields. Penaud’s machine, relying only on india rubber under
torsion, flies for some fifty yards. What a model can do, as
Bishop Wilkins well observes, a properly weighted and proportioned
flying-machine, capable of carrying a man, can do also.”

“But yours, when I first had the pleasure of meeting you, was not
carrying you at all.”

“Something had gone wrong with the mechanism,” answered Winter, sighing.
“It is always so. An inventor has many things to contend against.
Remember Ark-wright, and how he was puzzled hopelessly by that trifling
error in the thickness of the valves in his spinning machine. He had
to give half his profits to Strutt, the local blacksmith, before Strutt
would tell him that he had only to chalk his valves! The thickness of a
coating of chalk made all the difference. Some trifle like that, depend
on it, interfered with my machine. You see, I am obliged to make my
experiments at night, and in the dark, for fear of being discovered
and anticipated. I have been on the verge--nay, _over_ the verge--of
success. ‘No imaginable invention,’ Bishop Wilkins says, ‘could prove
of greater benefit to the world, or greater glory to the author.’ A few
weeks ago that glory was mine!”

“Why a few weeks ago?” asked Barton. “Was your machine more advanced
then than when I met you?”

“I cannot explain what had happened to check its motion,” said Winter,
wearily; “but a few weeks ago my _machine acted_, and I may say that I
knew the sensations of a bird on the wing.”

“Do you mean that you actually _flew_?”

“For a very short distance, I did indeed, sir!”

Barton looked at him curiously: two currents of thought--one wild and
credulous, the other practical and professional--surged and met in his
brain. The professional current proved the stronger for the moment.

“Good-night,” he said. “You are tiring and over-exciting yourself. I
will call again soon.”

He _did_ call again, and Winter told him a tale which will be repeated
in its proper place.

CHAPTER XIV.--Found.

     “All precious things, discovered late,
     To those that seek them issue forth;
     For Love, in sequel, works with Fate,
     And draws the veil from hidden worth.”
      --The Sleeping Beauty.

That Margaret and Barton were losing their hearts to each other could
not, of course, escape the keen eye of Mrs. St. John Deloraine. She
noticed that Margaret, though perfectly restored to health, and lacking
only the clear brown over the rose of her cheeks, was by no means so
light of heart as in the very earliest days of her recovery. Love makes
men and women poor company, and, to speak plainly, takes the fun out of
them. Margaret was absent-minded, given to long intervals of silence,
a bad listener--all of them things hateful to Mrs. St. John Delo-raine,
but pardoned, in this instance, by the benevolent lady. Margaret was apt
to blush without apparent cause, to start when a knock came to the door,
to leave the room hurriedly, and need to be sought and brought back,
when Barton called. Nor was Barton himself such good company as he had
been. His manner was uncertain and constrained; his visits began to be
paid at longer intervals; he seemed to have little to say, or talked in
fits and starts; and yet he did not know how to go away.

Persons much less clear-sighted than Mrs. St John Deloraine could have
interpreted, without difficulty, this awkward position of affairs.

Now, like most women of her kindly and impulsive character (when it has
not been refined away into nothing by social hypocrisies), Mrs. St. John
Deloraine was a perfectly reckless match-maker. She believed in love
with her whole heart; it was a joy to her to mark the beginnings
of inclination in two young souls, and she simply revelled in an
“engagement.” All considerations of economy, prudence, and foresight
melted away before the ardor of her enthusiasm: to fall in love first,
to get engaged next, and to be married as soon as possible afterward,
without regard to consequences of any kind, were, in this lady’s mind,
heroic actions, and almost the whole duty of men and women.

In her position, and with her opportunities, she soon knew all that was
to be known about Margaret’s affections, and also about Barton’s.

“He’s as much in love with you as a man can be, my dear,” she said to
Margaret “Not worthy of him? Your past a barrier between you and him?
Nonsense, Daisy; that is _his_ affair. I know you are as good a girl
as ever lived. Your father was poor, no doubt, and that wretched Mr.
Cranley--yes, he was a wretch--had a spite against you. I don’t know
why, and you won’t help me to guess. But Mr. Barton is too much of a
man to let that kind of thing disturb him, I’m sure. You are afraid of
something, Margaret Your nerves have been unstrung. I’m sure I don’t
wonder at it. I know what it is to lose one’s nerve. I could no
more drive now, as I used to do, or go at the fences I used to think
_nothing_ of! But once you are married to a man like Mr. Barton, who
is there can frighten you? And as to being poor,” and Mrs. St. John
Deloraine explained her generous views as to arrangements on her part,
which would leave Margaret far from portionless.

Then Margaret would cry a little, and lay her head on her friend’s
shoulder, and the friend would shed some natural tears for company; and
they would have tea, and Barton would call, and look a great deal at his
boots, and fidget with his hat.

“I’ve no patience with you, Mr. Barton,” said Mrs. St. John Deloraine
at last, when she had so manouvred as to have some private conversation
with him, and Barton had unpacked his heart. “I’ve no patience with you.
Why, where is your courage? ‘She has a history?’ She’s been persecuted.
Well, where’s your chivalry? Why don’t you try your fortune? There never
was a better girl, nor a pleasanter companion when she’s not--when she’s
not disturbed by the nervousness of an undecided young man. If you don’t
take your courage in both hands, I will carry Margaret off on a yachting
voyage to the Solomon Islands, or Jericho, or somewhere. Look here, I
am going to take her for a drive in Battersea Park; it is handy, and
looking very pretty, and as lonely as Tadmor in the wilderness. We will
get out and saunter among the ponds. I shall be tired and sit down; you
will show Margaret the marvels of natural history in the other pond, and
when you come back you will both have made up your minds!”

With this highly transparent ruse Barton expressed his content. The
carriage was sent for, and in less than half an hour Barton and Margaret
were standing alone, remote, isolated from the hum of men, looking at a
pond where some water-hens were diving, while a fish (“coarse,” but not
uninteresting) occasionally flopped on the surface, The trees--it was
the last week of May--were in the earliest freshness of their foliage;
the air, for a wonder, was warm and still.

“How quiet and pretty it is!” said Margaret “Who would think we were in
London?”

Barton said nothing. Like the French parrot, mentioned by Sir Walter
Scott, he thought the more.

“Miss Burnside!” he exclaimed suddenly, “we have known each other now
for some time.”

This was a self evident proposition; but Margaret felt what was coming,
and trembled. She turned for a moment, pretending to watch the movements
of one of the water-fowls. Inwardly she was nerving herself to face the
hard part of her duty, and to remind Barton of the mystery in her life.

“Yes,” she said at last; “we have known each other for some time, and
yet--you know nothing about me.”

With these words she lifted her eyes and looked him straight in the
face. There seemed a certain pride and nobility in her he had not seen
before, though her beautiful brown eyes were troubled, and there was a
mark of pain on her brow. What was she going to tell him?

Barton felt his courage come back to him.

“I know one thing about you, and that is enough for me. I know I love
you!” he said. “Margaret, can’t you care for me a little? Don’t tell me
anything you think you should not say. I’m not curious.”

Margaret turned back again to her inspection of the pond and its
inmates, grasping the iron railing in front of her and gazing down into
the waters, so that he could not see her face.

“No,” she said at last, in a very low voice; “it would not be fair.”
 Then, after another pause, “There is someone--” she murmured, and
stopped.

This was the last thing Barton had expected. If she did not care for
_him_, he fancied she cared for nobody.

“If you like someone better--” he was beginning.

“But I don’t like him at all,” interrupted Margaret. “He was very kind,
but--”

“Then can’t you like _me_?” asked Barton; and by this time he was very
near her, and was looking down into her face, as curiously as she was
still studying the natural history of Battersea Ponds.

“Perhaps I should not; it is so difficult to know,” murmured Margaret.
And yet her rosy confusion, and beautiful lowered eyes, tender and
ashamed, proved that she knew very well. Love is not always so blind
but that Barton saw his opportunity, and was assured that she had
surrendered. And he prepared, a conqueror, to march in with all the
honors and rewards of war; for the place was lonely, and a covenant is
no covenant until it is sealed.

But when he would have kissed her, Margaret disengaged herself gently,
with a little sigh, and returned to the strong defensible position by
the iron railings.

“I must tell you about myself,” she said. “I have promised never to
tell, but I must. I have been so tossed about, and so weak, and so many
things have happened.” And she sighed.

However impassioned a lover may be, he does naturally prefer that there
should be no mystery about her he adores. Barton had convinced himself
(aided by the eloquence and reposing on the feminine judgment of Mrs.
St. John Deloraine) that Margaret could have nothing that was wrong to
conceal. He could not look at her frank eyes and kind face and suspect
her; though, to anyone but a lover, these natural advantages are no
argument. He, therefore, prepared to gratify an extreme curiosity, and,
by way of comforting and aiding Margaret, was on the point of assuming
an affectionate attitude. But she moved a little away, and, still
turning toward the friendly ponds, began her story:

“The person--the gentleman whom I was thinking of was a friend of my
father’s, who, at one time, wanted him”--here Margaret paused--“wanted
me to--to be his wife some day.”

The rapid imagination of Barton conjured up the figure of a well-to-do
local pawnbroker, or captain of a trading vessel, as the selected spouse
of Margaret. He fumed at the picture in his fancy.

“I didn’t like him much, though he certainly was very kind. His
name--but perhaps I should not mention his name?”

“Never mind,” said Barton. “I dare say I never heard of him.”

“But I should tell you, first of all, that my own name is not that which
you, and Mrs. St. John Deloraine know me by. I had often intended to
tell her; but I have become so frightened lately, and it seemed so mean
to be living with her under a false name. But to speak of it brought so
many terrible things back to mind.”

“Dear Margaret,” Barton whispered, taking her hand.

They were both standing, at this moment, with their backs to the
pathway, and an observer might have thought that they were greatly
interested in the water-fowl.

“My name is not Burnside,” Margaret went on, glancing over her shoulder
across the gardens and toward the river; “my name is--”

“Daisy Shields!” cried a clear voice. “Daisy, you’re found at last, and
I’ve found you! How glad Miss Marlett will be!”

But by this time the astonished Barton beheld Margaret in the
impassioned embrace of a very pretty and highly-excited young lady;
while Mrs. St. John Deloraine, who was with her, gazed with amazement in
her eyes.

“Oh, my dear!” Miss Harman (for it was that enthusiast) hurried on, in
a pleasant flow of talk, like a brook, with pleasant interruptions. “Oh,
my dear! I was walking in the park with my maid, and I met Mrs. St. John
Deloraine, and she said she had lost her friends, and I came to help
her to look for them; and I’ve found _you!_ It’s like Stanley finding
Livingstone. ‘How I Found Daisy.’ I’ll write a book about it. And where
_have_ you been hiding yourself? None of the girls ever knew anything
was the matter--only Miss Mariett and me! And I’ve left for good; and
she and I are quite friends, and I’m to be presented next Drawing Room.”

While this address (which, at least, proved that Margaret had
acquaintances in the highest circles) was being poured forth, Mrs. St.
John Deloraine and Barton were observing all with unfeigned astonishment
and concern.

They both perceived that the mystery of Margaret’s past was about to be
dispelled, or rather, for Barton, it already _was_ dispelled. The names
of Shields and Miss Marlett had told _him_ all that he needed to know.
But he would rather have heard the whole story from his lady’s lips;
and Mrs. St. John Deloraine was mentally accusing Janey Harman of having
interrupted a “proposal,” and spoiled a darling scheme.

It was therefore with a certain most unfamiliar sharpness that Mrs.
St John Deloraine, observing that the day was clouded over, requested
Margaret to return to the carriage.

“And as Miss Harman seems to have _a great deal_ to say to you,
Margaret,” added the philanthropic lady, “you two had better walk on as
fast as you can; for _you_ must be very careful not to catch cold! I see
Miss Harman’s maid waiting for her in the distance there. And you and I,
Mr. Barton, if you will give me your arm, will follow slower; I’m not a
good walker.”

“_Now_,” said Barton’s companion eagerly, when Margaret and Janey,
about three yards in advance, might be conventionally regarded as beyond
earshot--“_Now_, Mr. Barton, am I to congratulate you?”

Barton gave a little shamefaced laugh, uneasily.

“I don’t know--I hope so--I’m not sure.”

“Oh, you’re not satisfactory--not at all satisfactory. Are you _still_
shilly-shallying? What is the matter with young people?” cried the
veteran of twenty-nine. “Or was it that wretched Janey, rushing in, like
a cow in a conservatory? She’s a regular school-girl!”

“It isn’t that exactly, or at least that’s not all. I hope--I think she
does care for me, or will care for me, a little.”

“Oh, bother!” said Mrs. St John Deloraine. She would not, for all the
world, reveal the secrets of the confessional, and tell Barton what she
knew of the state of Margaret’s heart But she was highly provoked, and
showed it in her manners, at no time applauded for their repose.

“The fact is,” Barton admitted, “that I’m so taken by surprise I hardly
know where I am! I do think, if I may say so without seeming conceited,
that I have every reason to be happy. But, just as she was beginning to
tell me about herself, that young lady, who seems to have known her at
school, rushed in and explained the whole mystery.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Si John Deloraine, turning a little pale and looking
anxiously at Barton, “was it anything so very dreadful?”

“She called her Daisy Shields,” said Barton.

“Well, I suppose she did! I always fancied, after what happened at _The
Bunhouse_, that that dreadful Mr. Cranley sent her to me under a false
name. It was not _her_ fault. The question is, What was her reason for
keeping her real name concealed?”

“That’s what I’m coming to,” said Barton. “I have a friend, a Mr.
Maitland.”

“Mr. Maitland of St. Gatien’s?” asked the widow.

“Yes.”

“I know him.”

“Yes, I have often heard him speak of you,” said Barton. “Well, he had
a _protégée_--a kind of ward, to tell a long story in few words--a girl
whom he had educated, and whom he was under some kind of promise to
her father to marry. The father died suddenly; the girl disappeared
mysteriously from school at the same moment; and Maitland, after many
efforts, has never been able to find out anything about her. Now, this
girl’s name, this girl in whom my friend was interested, was Margaret
Shields. That is the very name by which your friend, Miss Harman, called
Margaret. So, you see, even if I am right, and if she _does_ care for
me, what a dreadful position I am in! I want to marry the girl to whom
my friend is, more or less, engaged! My friend, after doing his best to
find his ward, and after really suffering a great deal of anxiety and
annoyance, is living abroad. What am I to say to him?”

“Mr. Barton,” said Mrs. St John Deloraine, “perhaps you alarm yourself
too much. I think”--here she dropped her voice a little--“I think--I
don’t think Mr. Maitland’s _heart_ is very deeply concerned about Miss
Shields. I may be wrong, but I know him pretty well”--she gave a little
nervous laugh--“and I don’t think he’s in _love_ with Margaret.”

By the time she reached the end of this interrupted and tentative
discourse Mrs. St. John Deloraine was blushing like a rose in June.

Barton felt an enormous weight lifted from his heart, and a flood of
welcome light poured into his mind. The two philanthropists were in love
with each other!

“He’s an awfully good fellow, Maitland,” he replied. “But you are
right; I’m _sure_ you are right. You must know. He is _not_ in love with
Margaret.”

Mrs. St. John Deloraine seemed not displeased at the tribute to
Maitland’s unobtrusive virtues, and replied:

“But he will be very glad to hear that she is found at last, and quite
safe; and I’ll write to him myself, this very evening. I heard from
him--about a charity, you know--a few days ago, and I have his address.”

By this time they had reached the carriage. Janey, with many embraces,
tore herself from Margaret, and went off with her attendant; while Mrs.
St John Deloraine, with a beaming face, gave the coachman the order
“Home.”

“We shall see you to-morrow at luncheon,” she cried to Barton; and no
offer of hospitality had ever been more welcome.

He began to walk home, turning over his discoveries in his thoughts,
when he suddenly came to a dead halt.

“By George!” he said out loud; “I’ll go back and have it out with her at
once. I’ve had enough of this shillyshally.”

He turned and strode off in the direction of Cheyne Walk. In a few
minutes he was standing at the familiar door.

“Will you ask Miss--Miss Burnside if she can see me for one moment?” he
said to the servant “I have forgotten something she wished me to do for
her,” he added in a mumble.

Then he was taken into the boudoir, and presently Margaret appeared,
still in her bonnet and furs.

“I couldn’t help coming back, Margaret,” he said, as soon as she entered
the room. “I want to tell you that it is all right, that you needn’t
think--I mean, that I know all about it, and that there is nothing,
_nothing_ to prevent us--I mean» Margaret, if you _really_ care for
me--”

Then he came to a dead stop.

It was not a very easy situation. Barton could not exactly say to
Margaret, “My dear girl, you need not worry yourself about Maitland. He
does not care a pin for you; he’ll be delighted at being released. He is
in love with Mrs. St. John Deloraine.”

That would have been a statement both adequate and explicit; but it
could not have been absolutely flattering to Margaret, and it would have
been exceedingly unfair to her hostess.

The girl came forward to the table, and stood with her hand on it,
looking at Barton. She did not help him out in any way; her attitude was
safe, but embarrassing.

He made a charge, as it were, at the position--a random, desperate
charge.

“Margaret, can you trust me?” he asked.

She merely put out her hand, which he seized.

“Well, then, believe me when I tell you that I know everything about
your doubts; that I know more than anyone else can do; and that there
is _nothing_ to prevent us from being happy. More than that, if you
will only agree to make me happy, you will make everyone else happy too.
Can’t you take it on trust? Can’t you believe me?”

Margaret said nothing; but she hid her face on Barton’s shoulder. She
_did_ believe him.

The position was carried!

CHAPTER XV.--The Mark of Cain.

Next morning Barton entered his sitting-room in very high spirits, and
took up his letters. He had written to Maitland the night before, saying
little but, “Come home at once. Margaret is found. She is going to be my
wife. You can’t come too quickly, if you wish to hear of something very
much to your advantage.” A load was off his mind, and he felt as _Romeo_
did just before the bad news about _Juliet_ reached him.

In this buoyant disposition, Barton opened his letters. The first was in
a hand he knew very well--that of a man who had been his fellow-student
in Paris and Vienna, and who was now a prosperous young physician. The
epistle ran thus:

“Dear Barton.--I’m off to the West of Ireland, for a fortnight People
are pretty fit, as the season has not run far. Most of my patients have
not yet systematically overeaten themselves. I want you to do something
for me. Martin & Wright, the lawyers, have a queer little bit of medical
jurisprudence, about which young Wright, who was at Oriel in our time,
asked my opinion. I recommended him to see you, as it is more in your
line; and _my_ line will presently be attached to that eminent general
practitioner, ‘The Blue Doctor.’ May he prosper with the Galway salmon!

“Thine,

“Alfred Franks.”

“Lucky beggar!” thought Barton to himself, but he was too happy to envy
even a man who had a fortnight of salmon-fishing before him.

The next letter he opened was in a blue envelope, with the stamp
of Messrs. Martin & Wright. The brief and and formal note which it
contained requested Dr. Barton to call, that very day if possible, at
the chambers of the respectable firm, on “business of great importance.”

“What in the world can they want?” thought Barton. “Nobody can have
left _me_ any money. Besides, Franks says it is a point in medical
jurisprudence. That sounds attractive. I’ll go down after breakfast.”

He walked along the sunny embankment, and that bright prospect of
houses, trees, and ships have never seemed so beautiful. In an hour he
was in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and had shaken hands with young Wright,
whom he knew; had been introduced to old Wright, a somewhat stately man
of business, and had taken his seat in the chair sacred to clients.

“Dr. Barton,” said old Mr. Wright, solemnly, “you are, I think, the
author of this book?”

He handed to Barton a copy of his own volume, in its gray paper cover,
“Les Tatouages Étude Médico-Légale”.

“Certainly,” said Barton. “I wrote it when I was in Paris I had plenty
of chances of studying tattooing in the military hospitals.”

“I have not read it myself,” said old Mr. Wright, “because I am not
acquainted with the French language; but my son tells me it is a work of
great learning.”

Barton could only bow, and mutter that he was glad Mr. Wright liked it.
_Why_ he should like it, or what the old gentleman wanted, he could not
even imagine.

“We are at present engaged in a very curious case, Dr. Barton,” went on
the lawyer, “in which we think your special studies may assist us. The
position is this: Nearly eight months ago a client of ours died, a Mr.
Richard Johnson, of Linkheaton, in the North. You must excuse me if I
seem to be troubling you with a long story?”

Barton mentioned that he was delighted, and added, “Not at all,” in the
vague modern dialect.

“This Mr. Richard Johnson, then, was a somewhat singular character. He
was what is called a ‘statesman’ in the North. He had a small property
of about four hundred acres, on the marches, as they say, or boarders
of the Earl of Birkenhead’s lands. Here he lived almost alone, and in
a very quiet way. There was not even a village near him, and there were
few persons of his own position in life, because his little place was
almost embedded, if I may say so, in Lord Birkenhead’s country, which is
pastoral. You are with me, so far?”

“Perfectly,” said Barton.

“This Mr. Johnson, then, lived quite alone, with an old housekeeper,
dead since his decease, and with one son, called Richard, like himself.
The young man was of an adventurous character, a ne’er-do-weel in fact;
and about twenty years ago he left Linkheaton, after a violent quarrel
with his father. It was understood that he had run away to sea. Two
years later he returned; there was another quarrel, and the old man
turned him out, vowing that he would never forgive him. But, not long
after that, a very rich deposit of coal--a _very_ rich deposit,” said
Mr. Wright, with the air of a man tasting most excellent claret--“was
discovered on this very estate of Linkheaton. Old Johnson, without much
exertion on his part, and simply through the payment of royalties by the
company that worked the coal, became exceedingly opulent, in what you
call most affluent circumstances.”

Here Mr. Wright paused, as if to see whether Barton was beginning to
understand the point of the narrative, which, it is needless to remark,
he was _not_. There is no marked connection between coal mines, however
lucrative, and “Les Tatouages, Étude Médico-Légale.”

“In spite of his wealth, Mr. Johnson in no way changed his habits. He
invested his money carefully, under our advice, and he became, as
I said, an extremely warm man. But he continued to live in the old
farmhouse, and did not, in any way, court society. To tell the truth,
except Lord Birkenhead, who is our client, I never knew anyone who was
at all intimate with the old man. Lord Birkenhead had a respect for him,
as a neighbor and a person of the old-fashioned type. Yes,” Mr. Wright
added, seeing that his son was going to speak, “and, as you were about
to say, Tom, they were brought together by a common misfortune. Like old
Mr. Johnson, his lordship has a son who is very, very--unsatisfactory.
His lordship has not seen the Honorable Mr. Thomas Cranley for many
years; and in that lonely country the two boys had been companions in
wild amusements, long before. He is _very_ unsatisfactory, the Honorable
Thomas Cranley;” and Mr. Wright sighed heavily, in sympathy with a
client so noble and so afflicted.

“I know the beast,” said Barton, without reflecting.

Mr. Wright looked at him in amazement and horror. “The beast!” A son of
Lord Birkenhead’s called “The beast!”

“To return to our case, Dr. Barton,” he went on severely, with some
stress laid on the _doctor_. “Mr. Johnson died, leaving, by a will made
on his death-bed, all that he possessed to his son Richard, or, in case
of his decease, to the heirs of his body lawfully begotten. From that
day to this we have hunted everywhere for the man. We have traced him
all over the world; we have heard of him in Australia, Burmah, Guiana,
Smyrna, but at Smyrna we lose sight of him. This advertisement,” said
the old gentleman, taking up the outside sheet of the _Times_, and
folding it so as to bring the second column into view, “remained for
more than seven months unanswered, or only answered by impostors and
idiots.”

He tapped his finger on the place as he handed the paper to Barton, who
read aloud:

“Linkheaton.--If Richard Johnson, of Linkheaton, Durham, last heard of
at Smyrna in 1875, will apply to Messrs. Martin and Wright, Lincoln’s
Inn Fields, he will hear of something very greatly to his advantage. His
father died, forgiving him. A reward of £1,000 will be paid to anyone
producing Richard Johnson, or proving his decease.”

“As a mixture of business with the home affections,” said old Mr. Wright
proudly (for the advertisement was of his own composition), “I think
that leaves little ta be desired.”

“It is admirable,” said Barton--“admirable; but may I ask----”

“Where the tattooing comes in?” said Mr. Wright. “I am just approaching
_that_. The only person from whom we received any reliable information
about Richard Johnson was an old ship-mate of his, a wandering,
adventurous character, now, I believe, in Paraguay, where we cannot
readily communicate with him. According to his account, Johnson was an
ordinary seafaring man, tanned, and wearing a black beard, but easily to
be recognized for an excellent reason. _He was tattooed almost all over
his whole body_.”

Barton nearly leaped out of his chair, the client’s chair, so sudden a
light flashed on him.

“What is the matter, Dr. Barton! I _thought_ I should interest you; but
you seem quite excited.”

“I really beg your pardon,” said Barton. “It was automatic, I think;
besides, I _am_ extremely interested in tattooing.”

“Then, sir, it is a pity you could not have seen Johnson. He appears,
from what our informant tells us, to have been a most remarkable
specimen. He had been tattooed by Australian blacks, by Burmese, by
Arabs, and, in a peculiar blue tint and to a particular pattern, by the
Dyacks of Borneo. We have here a rough chart, drawn by our informant, of
his principal decorations.”

Here the lawyer solemnly unrolled a great sheet of drawing-paper, on
which was rudely outlined the naked figure of a man, filled up, on the
breast, thighs, and arms, with ornamental designs.

The guess which made Barton leap up had not been mistaken: he recognized
the tattooings he had seen on the dead body of Dicky Shields.

This confirmation of what he had conjectured, however, did not draw any
exclamation or mark of excitement from Barton, who was now on his guard.

“This is highly interesting,” he said, as he examined the diagram; “and
I am sure, Mr. Wright, that it should not be difficult to recognize a
claimant with such remarkable peculiarities.”

“No, sir; it is easy enough, and we have been able to dismiss scores
of sham Richard Johnsons. But one man presented himself the day before
yesterday--a rough sailor fellow, who went straight to the point; asked
if the man we wanted had any private marks; said he knew what they were,
and showed us his wrist, which exactly, as far as we could verify the
design, corresponded to that drawing.”

“Well,” asked Barton, controlling his excitement by a great effort,
“what did you do with him?”

“We said to him that it would be necessary to take the advice of an
expert before we could make any movement; and, though he told us things
about old Johnson and Linkheaton, which it seemed almost impossible that
anyone but the right man could have known, we put him off till we had
seen you, and could make an appointment for you to examine the
tattooings. _They_ must be dealt with first, before any other
identification.”

“I suppose you have made some other necessary inquiries? Did he say
why he was so late in answering the advertisement? It has been out for
several months.”

“Yes, and that is rather in his favor,” said Mr. Wright. “If he had been
an impostor on the lookout he would probably have come to us long ago.
But he has just returned from the Cape, where he had been out of the way
of newspapers, and he did not see the advertisement till he came across
it three or four days ago.”

“Very well,” said Barton. “Make an appointment with the man for any time
to-morrow, and I will be with you.”

As he said this he looked very hard and significantly at the younger Mr.
Wright.

“Very good, sir; thank you. Shall we say at noon tomorrow?”

“With pleasure,” answered Barton, still with his eye on the younger
partner.

He then said good-by, and was joined, as he had hoped, in the outer
office by young Wright.

“You had something to say to me?” asked the junior member of the firm.

“Several things,” said Barton, smiling. “And first, would you mind
finding out whether the coast is clear--whether any one is watching for
me?”

“Watching for you! What do you mean?”

“Just take a look round the square, and tell me whether any suspicious
character is about.”

Young Wright, much puzzled, put on his hat, and stood lighting a
cigarette on the outer steps.

“Not a soul in sight but lawyers’ clerks,” he reported.

“Very well; just tell your father that, as it is a fine morning, you are
taking a turn with me.”

Barton’s friend did as he wished, and presently the pair had some
serious conversation.

“I’ll do exactly as you suggest, and explain to my father,” said the
young lawyer as they separated.

“Thanks; it is so much easier for you to explain than for a stranger
like myself,” said Barton, and strolled westward by way of Co vent
Garden.

At the noted establishment of Messrs. Aminadab, theatrical costumiers,
Barton stopped, went in, was engaged some time with the Messrs.
Aminadab, and finally had a cab called for him, and drove home with a
pretty bulky parcel.

                      *   *   *   *   *

At five minutes to twelve on the following day, a tall, burly,
mahogany-colored mariner, attired, for the occasion, in a frock-coat
and hat, appeared in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. He seemed to be but ill
acquainted with those coasts, and mooned about for some minutes before
he reached the door of Messrs. Wright Then he rang, the door was opened,
and he was admitted into the presence of the partners.

“I have come, gentlemen, in answer to your letter,” he said with a
Northern burr, bowing awkwardly, and checking a disposition to salute by
touching his forelock.

His eyes wandered round the room, where he saw no one but the partners,
with whom he was already acquainted, and a foreign-looking gentleman--a
gentleman with hay-colored hair, a soft hat, spectacles, and a
tow-colored beard. He had a mild, short-sighted expression, a pasty
complexion, and the air of one who smoked too much.

“Good morning, Mr.--h’m--Mr. Johnson,” said old Mr. Wright. “As we told
you, sir, we have, as a necessary preliminary to the inquiry, requested
Professor Lieblein to step in and inspect--h’m--the personal marks of
which you spoke. Professor Lieblein, of Bonn, is a great authority on
these matters--author of ‘Die Tattuirung,’ a very learned work, I am
told.”

Thus introduced, the Professor bowed.

“Glad to meet you, sir,” said the sailor-man gruffly, “or any gentleman
as really knows what’s what.”

“You have been a great traveller, sir?” said the learned Professor,
whose Teutonic accent it is superfluous to reproduce. “You have in many
lands travelled? So!”

“Yes, sir; I have seen the world.”

“And you are much tattooed: it is to me very interesting. You have by
many races been decorated?”

“Most niggers have had a turn at me, sir!”

“How happy you are to have had such experiences! Now, the Burmese--ah!
have you any little Burmese marks?”

“Yes, sir; from the elbow to the shoulder,” replied the seafaring man.
“Saving your presence, I’ll strip to the buff.”

“The buff! What is that? Oh, thank you, sir,” this was in reply to young
Mr. Wright “The naked body! why, buff! ‘Buff,’ the abstract word, the
actual stuff, the very _wesen_ of man unclothed. ‘Buffer,’ the concrete
man, in the ‘buff,’ in the flesh; it is _sehr intéressant_.”

While the learned Professor muttered these metaphysical and philological
reflections, the seaman was stripping himself to the waist.

“That’s the Burmese style, sir,” he said, pointing to his shoulders and
upper arm.

These limbs were tattooed in a beautiful soft blue; the pattern was a
series of diminishing squares, from which long narrow triangles ran down
to the elbow-joints.

“_Sehr schôn, sehr schôn_,” exclaimed the delighted Professor. “It
is very _hubsch_, very pretty, very well. We cannot now decorate, we
Germans. Ach, it is mournful!” and he sighed. “And now, sir, have you to
show me any _moko_? A little _moko_ would be very instructive.”

“Moko? Rather! The Maori pattern, you mean; the New Zealand dodge? Just
look between my shoulders,” and the seaman turned a broad bare back,
whereon were designs of curious involuted spirals.

“That is right, that is right,” whispered the Professor. “_Moko,
schlange_, serpent-marks, so they call it in their tongue. Better
_moko_, on an European man, have I never seen. You observe,” he remarked
to the elder Mr. Wright, waving his hand as he followed the tattooed
lines--“you observe the serpentine curves? Very beautiful.”

“Extremely interesting,” said Mr. Wright, who, being no anthropologist,
seemed nervous and uncomfortable.

“Corresponds, too, with the marks in the picture,” he added, comparing
the sketch of the original Shields with the body of the claimant.

“Are you satisfied now, governor?” asked the sailor.

“One little moment. Have you on the Red Sea coast been? Have you been at
Suakim? Have you any Arab markings?”

“Oh, yes; here you are!” and the voyager pointed to his breast.

The Professor inspected, with unconcealed delight, some small tattooings
of irregular form.

“It is, it is,” he cried, “the _wasm_, the _sharat_,* the Semitic tribal
mark, the mark with which the Arab tribes brand their cattle! Of old
time they did tattoo it on their bodies. The learned Herr Professor
Robertson Smith, in his leedle book, do you know what he calls that very
mark, my dear sir?”

     * Sharat or Short.--“The shart was in old times a tattooed
     mark.... In the patriarchal story of Cain...the institution
     of blood revenge is connected with a ‘mark’ which Jehovah
     appoints to Cain. Can this be anything else than the
     _sharat_, or tribal mark, which every man bore on his
     person?”
      --Robertson Smith, _Kinship in Ancient Arabia_, p.215.

“Not I,” said the sailor; “I’m no scholar.”

“He says it was--I do not say he is right,” cried the Professor, in a
loud voice, pointing a finger at his victim’s breast--“he says it was
_the mark of cain_!”

The sailor, beneath his mahogany tan, turned a livid white, and grasped
at a bookcase by which he stood.

“What do you mean?” he cried, through his chattering teeth; “what do you
mean with your damned Hebrew-Dutch and your mark of Cain? The mark’s all
right! A Hadendowa woman did it in Suakim years ago. Ain’t it on that
chart of yours?”

“Certainly, good sir; it is,” answered the Professor. “Why do you so
agitate yourself? _The proof is complete!_” he added, still pointing at
the sailor’s breast.

“Then I’ll put on my togs, with your leave: it’s none so warm!” grumbled
the man.

He had so far completed his dressing that he was in his waistcoat, and
was just looking round for his coat.

“Stop!” said the Professor. “Hold Mr. Johnson’s coat for a moment!”

This was to young Wright, who laid his hands on the garment in question.

“You must be tired, sir,” said the Professor, in a very soft voice. “May
I offer you a leedle cigarette?”

He drew from his pocket a silver cigarette-case, and, in a thoroughly
English accent, he went on:

“I have waited long to give you back your cigarette-case, which you left
at your club, Mr. Thomas Cranley!”

The sailor’s eye fell on it. He dashed the silver box violently to the
ground, and trampled on it, then he made one rush at his coat.

“Hold it, hold it!” cried Barton, laying aside his Teutonic
accent--“hold it: there’s a revolver in the pocket!”

But there was no need to struggle for the coat.

The sailor had suddenly staggered and fallen, a crumpled but not
unconscious mass, on the floor.

“Call in the police!” said Barton. “They’ll have no difficulty in taking
him.”

“This is the man against whom you have the warrant,” he went on, as
young Wright opened the door and admitted two policemen. “I charge the
Honorable Thomas Cranley with murder!”

The officers lifted the fallen man.

“Let him be,” said Barton. “He has collapsed. Lay him on the floor: he’s
better so. He needs a turn of my profession: his heart’s weak. Bring
some brandy.”

Young Wright went for the spirits, while the frightened old lawyer kept
murmuring:

“The Honorable Thomas Cranley _was_ always very unsatisfactory!”

It had been explained to the old gentleman that an impostor would be
unmasked, and a criminal arrested; but he had _not_ been informed that
the culprit was the son of his great client, Lord Birkenhead.

Barton picked up the cigarette-case, and as he, for the first time,
examined its interior, some broken glass fell out and tinkled on the
floor.

CHAPTER XVI.--The Verdict of Fate.

Maitland did not dally long in the Levant after getting Barton’s letter.
He was soon in a position to receive, in turn, the congratulations which
he offered to Margaret and Barton with unaffected delight.

Mrs. St. John Deloraine and he understood each other!

Maitland, for perhaps the first time in his life, was happy in a
thoroughly human old-fashioned way.

Meanwhile the preparations for Cranley’s trial dragged on. Interest, as
usual, was frittered away in examinations before the magistrates.

But at last the day of judgment shone into a court crowded as courts are
when it is the agony of a gentleman that the public has to view.

When the prisoner, uttering his last and latest falsehood, proclaimed
himself “Not Guilty,” his voice was clear and strong enough, though the
pallor of his face attested, not only the anxiety of his situation, but
the ill-health which, during his confinement, had often made it doubtful
whether he could survive to plead at the bar of any earthly judgment.

The Counsel for the Crown, opening the case, stated the theory of the
prosecution, the case against Cranley. His argument is here offered in a
condensed form:

First, Counsel explained the position of Johnson, or Shields, as the
unconscious heir of great wealth, and set forth his early and late
relations with the prisoner, a dishonored and unscrupulous outcast
of society. The prisoner had been intimately acquainted with the
circumstances of Johnson’s early life, with his history and his
home. His plan, therefore, was to kill him, and then personate him. A
celebrated case, which would be present to the minds of the jury, proved
that a most plausible attempt at the personation of a long-missing
man might be made by an uneducated impostor, who possessed none of the
minute local and personal knowledge of the prisoner. Now, to personate
Johnson, a sailor whose body was known to have been indelibly marked
by the tattooing of various barbarous races, it was necessary that the
prisoner should be similarly tattooed. It would be shown that, with
unusual heartlessness, he had persuaded his victim to reproduce on his
body the distinctive marks of Johnson, and then had destroyed him with
fiendish ingenuity, in the very act of assuming his personality. The
very instrument, it might be said, which stamped Cranley as Johnson,
slew Johnson himself, and the process which hallmarked the prisoner
as the heir of vast wealth stigmatized him with the brand of Cain.
The personal marks which seemed to establish the claimant’s case
demonstrated his guilt He was detected by the medical expert brought in
to prove his identity, and was recognized by that gentleman, Dr. Barton,
who would be called, and who had once already exposed him in a
grave social offence--cheating at cards. The same witness had made a
_post-mortem_ examination of the body of Richard Johnson, and had then
suspected the method by which he had been murdered.

The murder itself, according to the theory of the prosecution, was
committed in the following manner: Cranley, disguised as a sailor
(the disguise in which he was finally taken), had been in the habit of
meeting Johnson, and being tattooed by him, in a private room of the
_Hit or Miss_ tavern, in Chelsea. On the night of February 7th, he met
him there for the last time. He left the tavern late, at nearly twelve
o’clock, telling the landlady that “his friend,” as he called Johnson,
had fallen asleep upstairs. On closing the establishment, the landlady,
Mrs. Gullick, found the room, an upper one, with dormer windows opening
on the roof, empty. She concluded that Johnson--or Shields, as she
called him--had wakened, and left the house by the back staircase, which
led to a side-alley. This way Johnson, who knew the house well, often
took, on leaving. On the following afternoon, however, the dead body of
Johnson, with no obvious marks of violence on it, was found in a cart
belonging to the vestry--a cart which, during the night, had remained
near a shed on the piece of waste ground adjoining the _Hit or Miss_. A
coroner’s jury had taken the view that Johnson, being intoxicated, had
strayed into the piece of waste ground (it would be proved that the door
in the palisade surrounding it was open on that night), had lain down
in the cart, and died in his sleep of cold and exposure. But
evidence derived from a later medical examination would establish
the presumption, which would be confirmed by the testimony of an
eye-witness, that death had been wilfully caused by Cranley, employing a
poison which it would be shown he had in his possession--a poison which
was not swallowed by the victim, but introduced by means of a puncture
into the system. The dead man’s body had then been removed to a place
where his decease would be accounted for as the result of cold and
exhaustion. A witness would be put in the box who, by an extraordinary
circumstance, had been enabled to see the crime committed by the
prisoner, and the body carried away, though, at the moment, he did not
understand the meaning of what he saw. As the circumstances by which
this witness had been enabled to behold what was done at dead of
night, in an attic room, locked and bolted, and not commanded from any
neighboring house nor eminence, were exceedingly peculiar, testimony
would be brought to show that the witness really had enjoyed the
opportunity of observation which he claimed.

On the whole, then, as the prisoner had undeniably personated Johnson,
and claimed Johnson’s property; as he undeniably had induced Johnson,
unconsciously, to aid him in the task of personation; as the motive for
the murder was plain and obvious; as Johnson, according to the medical
evidence, had probably been murdered; and as an eye-witness professed
to have seen, without comprehending, the operation by which death,
according to the medical theory, was caused, the counsel for the
prosecution believed that the jury could find no other verdict than
that the prisoner had wilfully murdered Richard Johnson on the night of
February 7th.

This opened the case for the Crown. It is unnecessary to recapitulate
the evidence of all the witnesses who proved, step by step, the
statements of the prosecution. First was demonstrated the identity of
Shields with Johnson. To do this cost enormous trouble and expense; but
Johnson’s old crony, the man who drew the chart of his tattoo marks, was
at length discovered in Paraguay, and, by his aid and the testimony he
collected, the point was satisfactorily made out. It was, of course,
most important in another respect, as establishing Margaret’s claims on
the Linkheaton estate.

The discovery of the body of Johnson (or Shields) in the snow was proved
by our old friends Bill and Tommy.

The prisoner was recognized by Mrs. Gullick as the sailor gentleman who
had been with Johnson on the last night of his life. In spite of
the difference of dress, and of appearance caused by the absence of
beard--for Cranley was now clean shaved--Mrs. Gullick was positive as
to his voice and as to his eyebrows, which were peculiarly black and
mobile.

Barton, who was called next, and whose evidence excited the keenest
interest, identified the prisoner as the man whom he had caused to be
arrested in the office of Messrs. Martin and Wright, and whom he had
known as Cranley. His medical evidence was given at considerable length,
and need not be produced in full detail On examining the body of Richard
Johnson, his attention had naturally been directed chiefly to the
tattooings. He had for some years been deeply interested, as an
ethnologist, in the tattooed marks of various races. He had found many
curious examples on the body of the dead man. Most of the marks
were obviously old; but in a very unusual place, generally left
blank--namely, behind and under the right shoulder--he had discovered
certain markings of an irregular character, clearly produced by an
inexperienced hand, and perfectly fresh and recent. They had not healed,
and were slightly discolored. They could not, from their position,
possibly have been produced by the man himself. Microscopic examinations
of these marks, in which the coloring matter was brown, not red or blue,
as on the rest of the body, showed that this coloring matter was of
a character familiar to the witness as a physiologist and scientific
traveller. It was the _Woorali_, or arrow poison of the Macoushi Indians
of Guiana.

Asked to explain the nature of this poison to the Court, the witness
said that its “principle” (to use the term of the old medical writers)
had not yet been disengaged by Science, nor had it ever been compounded
by Europeans. He had seen it made by the Macoushi Indians, who combined
the juice of the Woorali vine with that of certain bulbous plants, with
certain insects, and with the poison-fangs of two serpents, boiling the
whole amidst magical ceremonies, and finally straining off a thick brown
paste, which, when perfectly dry, was used to venom the points of their
arrows. The poison might be swallowed by a healthy man without fatal
results. But if introduced into the system through a wound, the poison
would act almost instantaneously, and defy analysis. Its effect was to
sever, as it were, the connection between the nerves and the muscles,
and the muscles used in respiration being thus gradually paralyzed,
death followed within a brief time, proportionate to the size of the
victim, man or animal, and the strength of the dose.

Traces of this poison, then, the witness had found in the fresh tattoo
marks on Johnson’s body.

The witness now produced the sharp wooden needle, the stem of the leaf
of the coucourite palm, which he had found among Johnson’s tattooing
materials, in the upper chamber of the _Hit or Miss_. This needle had
been, he said, the tip of one of the arrows used for their blowpipes, by
the Macoushi of Guiana.

Barton also produced the Oriental silver cigarette-case, the instrument
of his cheating at baccarat, which Cranley had left in the club on the
evening of his detection. He showed that the case had contained a small
crystal receptacle, intended to hold opium. This crystal had been broken
by Cranley when he dashed down the case, in the office of Martin and
Wright. But crumbs of the poison--“Woorali,” or “Ourali”--perfectly dry,
remained in this réceptacle. It was thus clear that Cranley, himself a
great traveller, was possessed of the rare and perilous drug.

The medical evidence having been heard, and confirmed in its general
bearing by various experts, and Barton having stood the test of a severe
cross-examination, William Winter was called.

There was a flutter in the Court, as a pale and partly paralyzed man was
borne in on a kind of litter, and accommodated in the witness-box.

“Where were you,” asked the counsel for the prosecution, when the
officer had sworn the witness, “at eleven o’clock on the night of
February 7th?”

“I was on the roof of the _Hit or Miss_ tavern.”

“On which part of the roof?”

“On the ledge below the dormer window at the back part of the house,
facing the waste ground behind the plank fence.”

“Will you tell the Court what you saw while you were in that position?”

Winter’s face was flushed with excitement; but his voice, though thin,
was clear as he said:

“There was a light streaming through the dormer window beside which I
was lying, and I looked in.”

“What did you see?”

“I saw a small room, with a large fire, a table, on which were bottles
and glasses, and two men, one seated, the other standing.”

“Would you recognize either man if you saw him?”

“I recognize the man who was seated, in the prisoner at the bar; but at
that time he wore a beard.”

“Tell the Court what happened.”

“The men were facing me. One of them--the prisoner--was naked to the
waist. His breast was tattooed. The other--the man who stood up--was
touching him with a needle, which he applied, again and again, to a
saucer on the table.”

“Could you hear what they said?”

“I could; for the catch of the lattice window had not caught, and there
was a slight chink open.”

“You listened?”

“I could not help it; the scene was so strange. I heard the man with
the needle give a sigh of relief, and say, ‘There, it’s finished, and
a pretty job too, though I say it.’ The other said, ‘You have done
it beautifully, Dicky; it’s a most interesting art. Now, just out of
curiosity, let _me_ tattoo _you_ a bit.’ The other man laughed, and took
off his coat and shirt while the other dressed. ‘There’s scarce an inch
of me plain,’ he said, ‘but you can try your hand here,’ pointing to
the lower part of his shoulder.”

“What happened then?”

“They were both standing up now. I saw the prisoner take out something
sharp; his face was deadly pale, but the other could not see that. He
began touching him with the sharp object, and kept chaffing all the
time. This lasted, I should think, about five minutes, when the face of
the man who was being tattooed grew very red. Then he swayed a little,
backward and forward, then he stretched out his hands like a blind man,
and said, in a strange, thick voice, as if he was paralyzed, ‘I’m very
cold; I can’t shiver!’ Then he fell down heavily, and his body made one
or two convulsive movements. That was all.”

“What did the prisoner do?”

“He looked like death. He seized the bottle on the table, poured out
half a tumbler full of the stuff in it, drank it off, and then fell
into a chair, and laid his face between his hands. He appeared ill, or
alarmed, but the color came back into his cheek after a third or
fourth glass. Then I saw him go to the sleeping man and bend over him,
listening apparently to his breathing. Then he shook him several times,
as if trying to arouse him. But the man lay like a log. Finally, about
half-an-hour after what I have described, he opened the door and went
out. He soon returned, took up the sleeping man in his arms--his weight
seemed lighter than you would expect--and carried him out. From the roof
I saw him push the door in the palisade leading into the waste land,
a door which I myself had left open an hour before. It was not light
enough to see what he did there; but he soon returned alone and walked
away.”

Such was the sum of Winter’s evidence, which, if accepted, entirely
corroborated Barton’s theory of the manner of the murder.

In cross-examination, Winter was asked the very natural question:

“How did you come to find yourself on the roof of the _Hit or Miss_ late
at night?”

Winter nearly rose from his litter, his worn faced flushed, his eye
sparkling.

“Sir, I flew!”

There was a murmur and titter through the court, which was, of course,
instantly suppressed.

“You flew! What do you mean by saying that you flew?”

“I am the inventor of a flying machine, which, for thirty years, I have
labored at and striven to bring to perfection. On that one night, as I
was experimenting with it, where I usually did, inside the waste land
bordering on the _Hit or Miss_, the machine actually worked, and I was
projected in the machine, as it were, to some height in the air, coming
down with à fluttering motion, like a falling feather, on the roof of
the _Hit or Miss_.”

Here the learned counsel for the defence smiled with infinite expression
at the jury.

“My lord,” said the counsel for the prosecution, noting the smile, and
the significant grin with which it was reflected on the countenances of
the twelve good men and true, “I may state that we are prepared to bring
forward a large mass of scientific evidence--including a well-known man
of science, the editor of _Wisdom_, a popular journal which takes all
knowledge for its province--to prove that there is nothing physically
impossible in the facts deposed to by this witness. He is at present
suffering, as you see, from a serious accident caused by the very
machine of which he speaks, and which can be exhibited, with a working
model, to the Court.”

“It certainly requires corroboration,” said the judge. “At present,
so far as I am aware, it is contrary to scientific experience. You can
prove, perhaps, that, in the opinion of experts, these machines have
only to take one step further to become practical modes of locomotion.
But _that_ is the very step _qui coûte_. Nothing but direct evidence
that the step has been taken--that a flying machine, on this
occasion, actually _flew_ (they appear to be styled _volantes, a non
volando_)--would really help your case, and establish the credibility of
this witness.”

“With your lordship’s learned remarks,” replied the counsel for the
crown, “I am not the less ready to agree, because I _have_ an actual
eye-witness, who not only saw the flight deposed to by the witness, but
reported it to several persons, who are in court, on the night of its
occurrence, so that her statement, though disbelieved, was the common
talk of the neighborhood.”

“Ah! that is another matter,” said the judge.

“Call Eliza Gullick,” said the counsel.

Eliza was called, and in a moment was curtsying, with eagerness, but
perfect self-possession.

After displaying an almost technical appreciation of the nature of an
oath, Eliza was asked:

“You remember the night of the 7th of February?”

“I remember it very well, sir.”

“Why do you remember it so well, Eliza?”

“Becos such a mort o’ things happened, sir, that night.”

“Will you tell his lordship what happened?”

“Certainly, my lord. Mr. Toopny gave us a supper, us himps, my lord, at
the _Hilarity_; for he said--”

“Never mind what he said, tell us what happened as you were coming
home.”

“Well, sir, it was about eleven o’clock at night, and I was turning the
lane into the _Hit or Miss_, when I heard an awful flapping and hissing
and whirring, like wings working by steam, in the waste ground at the
side of the lane. And, as I was listening--oh, it frightens me now to
think of it--oh, sir--”

“Well, don’t be alarmed, my good child! What occurred?”

“A great thing like a bird, sir, bigger than a man, flew up over my
head, higher than the houses. And then--did you ever see them Japanese
toys, my lord, them things with two feathers and a bit of India-rubber
as you twist round and round and toss them up and they fly--”

“Well, my girl, I have seen them.”

“Well, just as if it had been one of them things settling down, the
bird’s wings turned round and fluttered and shook, and at last it all
lighted, quite soft like, on the roof of our house, the _Hit or Miss_.
And there I saw it crouching when I went to bed, and looked out o’ the
window, but they wouldn’t none o’ them believe me, my lord.”

There was a dead silence in the Court as Eliza finished this
extraordinary confirmation of Winter’s evidence, and wove the net
inextricably round the prisoner.

Then the silence was broken by a soft crashing sound, as if something
heavy had dropped a short distance on some hard object.

All present turned their eyes from staring at Eliza to the place whence
the sound had come.

The prisoner’s head had fallen forward on the railing in front of him.

One of the officers of the Court touched him on the shoulder.

He did not stir. They lifted him. He moved not.

The faint heart of the man had fluttered with its last pulsation. The
evidence had sufficed for him without verdict or sentence. As he had
slain his victim, so Fate slew him, painlessly, in a moment!

EPILOGUE.

And what became of them all?

He who does not tell, on the plea that he is “competing with Life,”
 which never knits up a plot, but leaves all the threads loose, acts
unfairly.

Mrs. St. John Deloraine is now Mrs. Maitland, and the happy couple are
visiting the great Colonies, seeking a site for a new settlement of the
unemployed, who should lead happy lives under the peaceful sway of happy
Mrs. Maitland.

Barton and Mrs. Barton have practised the endowment of research, in the
case of Winter, who has quite recovered from his injuries, and still
hopes to fly. But he has never trusted himself again on his machine,
which, moreover, has never flown again. Winter, like the alchemist who
once made a diamond by chance, in Balzac’s novel, has never recovered
the creative moment. But he makes very interesting models, in which Mrs.
Barton’s little boy begins to take a lively interest.

Eliza Gullick, declining all offers of advancement unconnected with
the British drama, clings to the profession for which, as Mrs. Gullick
maintains, she has a hereditary genius.

“We hear,” says the _Athenæum_, “that the long promised edition of
‘Demetrius of Scepsis,’ by Mr. Bielby, of St. Gatien’s, is in the hands
of the delegates of the Clarendon Press.”

But Fiction herself is revolted by the improbability of the statement
that an Oxford Don has finished his _magnum opus!_

EXPLICIT.