THE LOST SANJAK
The prison Chaplain entered the condemneds cell for the
last time, to give such consolation as he might.
"The only consolation I crave for," said the condemned,
"is to tell my story in its entirety to some one who will
at least give it a respectful hearing."
"We must not be too long over it," said the Chaplain,
looking at his watch.
The condemned repressed a shiver and commenced.
"Most people will be of opinion that I am paying the
penalty of my own violent deeds. In reality I am a victim
to a lack of specialization in my education and character."
"Lack of specialization!" said the Chaplain.
"Yes. If I had been known as one of the few men in
England familiar with the fauna of the Outer Hebrides, or
able to repeat
stanzas of Camoens' poetry in the
original, I should have had no difficulty in proving my
identity in the crisis when my identity became a matter of
life and death for me. But my education was merely a
moderately good one, and my temperament was of the general
order that avoids specialization. I know a little in a
general way about gardening and history and old masters, but
I could never tell you off-hand whether 'Stella van der
Loopen' was a chrysanthemum or a heroine of the American War
of Independence, or something by Romney in the Louvre."
The Chaplain shifted uneasily in his seat. Now that the
alternatives had been suggested they all seemed dreadfully
possible.
"I fell in love, or thought I did, with the local
doctor's wife," continued the condemned. "Why I should
have done so, I cannot say, for I do not remember that she
possessed any particular attractions of mind or body. On
looking back at past events it seems to me that she must
have been distinctly ordinary, but I suppose the doctor had
fallen in love with her once, and what man has done man can
do. She appeared to be pleased with the attentions which I
paid her,
and to that extent I suppose I might say she
encouraged me, but I think she was honestly unaware that I
meant anything more than a little neighbourly interest.
When one is face to face with Death one wishes to be just."
The Chaplain murmured approval. "At any rate, she was
genuinely horrified when I took advantage of the doctor's
absence one evening to declare what I believed to be my
passion. She begged me to pass out of her life and I could
scarcely do otherwise than agree, though I hadn't the
dimmest idea of how it was to be done. In novels and plays
I knew it was a regular occurrence, and if you mistook a
lady's sentiments or intentions you went off to India and
did things on the frontier as a matter of course. As I
stumbled along the doctor's carriage-drive I had no very
clear idea as to what my line of action was to be, but I had
a vague feeling that I must look at the Times Atlas before
going to bed. Then, on the dark and lonely highway, I came
suddenly on a dead body."
The Chaplain's interest in the story visibly quickened.
"Judging by the clothes it wore the corpse
was that of a
Salvation Army captain. Some shocking accident seemed to
have struck him down, and the head was crushed and battered
out of all human semblance. Probably, I thought, a
motor-car fatality; and then, with a sudden overmastering
insistence, came another thought, that here was a remarkable
opportunity for losing my identity and passing out of the
life of the doctor's wife for ever. No tiresome and risky
voyage to distant lands, but a mere exchange of clothes and
identity with the unknown victim of an unwitnessed accident.
With considerable difficulty I undressed the corpse, and
clothed it anew in my own garments. Any one who has valeted
a dead Salvation Army captain in an uncertain light will
appreciate the difficulty. With the idea, presumably, of
inducing the doctor's wife to leave her husband's roof-tree
for some habitation which would be run at my expense, I had
crammed my pockets with a store of banknotes, which
represented a good deal of my immediate worldly wealth.
When, therefore, I stole away into the world in the guise of
a nameless Salvationist, I was not without resources which
would easily support so humble a rôle for a considerable
period. I tramped to a
neighbouring market-town, and, late
as the hour was, the production of a few shillings procured
me supper and a night's lodging in a cheap coffee-house.
The next day I started forth on an aimless course of
wandering from one small town to another. I was already
somewhat disgusted with the upshot of my sudden freak; in a
few hours' time I was considerably more so. In the
contents-bill of a local news sheet I read the announcement
of my own murder at the hands of some person unknown; on
buying a copy of the paper for a detailed account of the
tragedy, which at first had aroused in me a certain grim
amusement, I found that the deed was ascribed to a wandering
Salvationist of doubtful antecedents, who had been seen
lurking in the roadway near the scene of the crime. I was
no longer amused. The matter promised to be embarrassing.
What I had mistaken for a motor accident was evidently a
case of savage assault and murder, and, until the real
culprit was found, I should have much difficulty in
explaining my intrusion into the affair. Of course I could
establish my own identity; but how, without disagreeably
involving the doctor's wife, could I give any adequate
reason for
changing clothes with the murdered man? While my
brain worked feverishly at this problem, I subconsciously
obeyed a secondary instinct—to get as far away as possible
from the scene of the crime, and to get rid at all costs of
my incriminating uniform. There I found a difficulty. I
tried two or three obscure clothes shops, but my entrance
invariably aroused an attitude of hostile suspicion in the
proprietors, and on one excuse or another they avoided
serving me with the now ardently desired change of clothing.
The uniform that I had so thoughtlessly donned seemed as
difficult to get out of as the fatal shirt of—You know, I
forget the creature's name."
"Yes, yes," said the Chaplain hurriedly. "Go on with
your story."
"Somehow, until I could get out of those compromising
garments, I felt it would not be safe to surrender myself to
the police. The thing that puzzled me was why no attempt
was made to arrest me, since there was no question as to the
suspicion which followed me, like an inseparable shadow,
wherever I went. Stares, nudgings, whisperings, and even
loud-spoken remarks of 'that's 'im' greeted my every
appearance, and the
meanest and most deserted eating-house
that I patronized soon became filled with a crowd of
furtively watching customers. I began to sympathize with
the feelings of Royal personages trying to do a little
private shopping under the unsparing scrutiny of an
irrepressible public. And still, with all this inarticulate
shadowing, which weighed on my nerves almost worse than open
hostility would have done, no attempt was made to interfere
with my liberty. Later on I discovered the reason. At the
time of the murder on the lonely highway a series of
important blood-hound trials had been taking place in the
near neighbourhood, and some dozen and a half couples of
trained animals had been put on the track of the supposed
murderer—on my track. One of our most public-spirited
London dailies had offered a princely prize to the owner of
the pair that should first track me down, and betting on the
chances of the respective competitors became rife throughout
the land. The dogs ranged far and wide over about thirteen
counties, and though my own movements had become by this
time perfectly well known to police and public alike, the
sporting instincts of the nation stepped in to prevent
my
premature arrest. 'Give the dogs a chance,' was the
prevailing sentiment, whenever some ambitious local
constable wished to put an end to my drawn-out evasion of
justice. My final capture by the winning pair was not a
very dramatic episode, in fact, I'm not sure that they would
have taken any notice of me if I hadn't spoken to them and
patted them, but the event gave rise to an extraordinary
amount of partisan excitement. The owner of the pair who
were next nearest up at the finish was an American, and he
lodged a protest on the ground that an otterhound had
married into the family of the winning pair six generations
ago, and that the prize had been offered to the first pair
of bloodhounds to capture the murderer, and that a dog that
had one sixty-fourth part of otterhound blood in it couldn't
technically be considered a bloodhound. I forget how the
matter was ultimately settled, but it aroused a tremendous
amount of acrimonious discussion on both sides of the
Atlantic. My own contribution to the controversy consisted
in pointing out that the whole dispute was beside the mark,
as the actual murderer had not yet been captured; but I soon
discovered that on this point there was not the
least
divergence of public or expert opinion. I had looked
forward apprehensively to the proving of my identity and the
establishment of my motives as a disagreeable necessity; I
speedily found out that the most disagreeable part of the
business was that it couldn't be done. When I saw in the
glass the haggard and hunted expression which the
experiences of the past few weeks had stamped on my
erstwhile placid countenance, I could scarcely feel
surprised that the few friends and relations I possessed
refused to recognize me in my altered guise, and persisted
in their obstinate but widely shared belief that it was I
who had been done to death on the highway. To make matters
worse, infinitely worse, an aunt of the really murdered man,
an appalling female of an obviously low order of
intelligence, identified me as her nephew, and gave the
authorities a lurid account of my depraved youth and of her
laudable but unavailing efforts to spank me into a better
way. I believe it was even proposed to search me for
finger-prints."
"But," said the Chaplain, "surely your educational
attainments—"
"That was just the crucial point," said
the condemned;
"that was where my lack of specialization told so fatally
against me. The dead Salvationist, whose identity I had so
lightly and so disastrously adopted, had possessed a veneer
of cheap modern education. It should have been easy to
demonstrate that my learning was on altogether another plane
to his, but in my nervousness I bungled miserably over test
after test that was put to me. The little French I had ever
known deserted me; I could not render a simple phrase about
the gooseberry of the gardener into that language, because I
had forgotten the French for gooseberry."
The Chaplain again wriggled uneasily in his seat. "And
then," resumed the condemned, "came the final
discomfiture. In our village we had a modest little
debating club, and I remembered having promised, chiefly, I
suppose, to please and impress the doctor's wife, to give a
sketchy kind of lecture on the Balkan Crisis. I had relied
on being able to get up my facts from one or two standard
works, and the back-numbers of certain periodicals. The
prosecution had made a careful note of the circumstance that
the man whom I claimed to be—and
actually was—had posed
locally as some sort of second-hand authority on Balkan
affairs, and, in the midst of a string of questions on
indifferent topics, the examining counsel asked me with a
diabolical suddenness if I could tell the Court the
whereabouts of Novibazar. I felt the question to be a
crucial one; something told me that the answer was St.
Petersburg or Baker Street. I hesitated, looked helplessly
round at the sea of tensely expectant faces, pulled myself
together, and chose Baker Street. And then I knew that
everything was lost. The prosecution had no difficulty in
demonstrating that an individual, even moderately versed in
the affairs of the Near East, could never have so
unceremoniously dislocated Novibazar from its accustomed
corner of the map. It was an answer which the Salvation
Army captain might conceivably have made—and I had made
it. The circumstantial evidence connecting the Salvationist
with the crime was overwhelmingly convincing, and I had
inextricably identified myself with the Salvationist. And
thus it comes to pass that in ten minutes' time I shall be
hanged by the neck until I am dead in expiation of the
murder of myself, which murder never
took place, and of
which, in any case, I am necessarily innocent."
* * * * *
When the Chaplain returned to his quarters, some fifteen
minutes later, the black flag was floating over the prison
tower. Breakfast was waiting for him in the dining-room,
but he first passed into his library, and, taking up the
Times Atlas, consulted a map of the Balkan Peninsula. "A
thing like that," he observed, closing the volume with a
snap, "might happen to any one."