The Uttermost Farthing | Page 8

life with the collection. I think you will understand when you read it.

And now let us dismiss these recollections of a ruined life. I have told
you my story; I wanted you to hear it from my own lips, and you have
heard it. Now let us take a glass of wine and talk of something else."
I looked at my watch and, finding it much later than I had supposed,
rose to take my leave.
"I oughtn't to have kept you up like this," I said. "You ought to have
been in bed an hour ago."
Challoner laughed his queer muffled laugh. "Bed!" exclaimed he. "I
don't go to bed nowadays. Haven't been able to lie down for the last
fortnight."
Of course he hadn't. I might have known that. "Well," I said, "at any
rate, let me make you comfortable for the night before I go. How do
you generally manage?"
"I rig up a head-rest on the edge of the table, pull up the armchair, wrap
myself in a rug and sleep leaning forward. I'll show you. Just get down
Owen's 'Comparative Anatomy' and stack the volumes close to the edge
of the table. Then set up Parker's 'Monograph on the Shoulder-girdle' in
a slanting position against them. Fine book, that of Parker's. I enjoyed it
immensely when it first came out and it makes a splendid head-rest. I'll
go and get into my pajamas while you are arranging the things."
He went off to his adjacent bedroom and I piled up the ponderous
volumes on the table and drew up the armchair. When he returned, I
wrapped him in a couple of thick rugs and settled him in his chair. He
laid his arms on the massive monograph, rested his forehead on them
and murmured cheerfully that he should now be quite comfortable until
the morning. I wished him "good-night" and walked slowly to the door,
and as I held it open I stopped to look back at him. He raised his head
and gave me a farewell smile; a queer, ugly smile, but full of courage
and a noble patience. And so I left him.
Thereafter I called to see him every day and settled him to rest every
night. His disease made more rapid progress even than I had expected;

but he was always bright and cheerful, never made any complaint and
never again referred to his troubled past.
One afternoon I called a little later than usual, and when the housemaid
opened the door I asked her how he was.
"He isn't any better, sir," she answered. "He's getting most awful fat, sir;
about the head I mean."
"Where is he now?" I asked.
"He's in the dining-room, sir; I think he's gone to sleep."
I entered the room quietly and found him resting by the table. He was
wrapped up in his rugs and his head rested on his beloved monograph. I
walked up to him and spoke his name softly, but he did not rouse. I
leaned over him and listened, but no sound or movement of breathing
was perceptible. The housemaid was right. He had gone to sleep; or, in
his own phrase, he had passed out of the domain of sorrow.

II
"NUMBER ONE"
It was more than a week after the funeral of my poor friend Humphrey
Challoner that I paid my first regular visit of inspection to his house. I
had been the only intimate friend of this lonely, self-contained man and
he had made me not only his sole executor but his principal legatee.
With the exception of a sum of money to endow an Institute of
Criminal Anthropology, he had made me the heir to his entire estate,
including his museum. The latter bequest was unencumbered by any
conditions. I could keep the collection intact, I could sell it as it stood
or I could break it up and distribute the specimens as I chose; but I
knew that Challoner's unexpressed wish was that it should be kept
together, ultimately to form the nucleus of a collection attached to the
Institute.

It was a gray autumn afternoon when I let myself in. A caretaker was in
charge of the house, which was otherwise unoccupied, and the museum,
which was in a separate wing, seemed strangely silent and remote. As
the Yale latch of the massive door clicked behind me, I seemed to be,
and in fact was, cut off from all the world. A mysterious, sepulchral
stillness pervaded the place, and when I entered the long room I found
myself unconsciously treading lightly so as not to disturb the silence;
even as one might on entering some Egyptian tomb-chamber hidden in
the heart of a pyramid.
I halted in the center of the long room and