"I'll call back for it," I replied, and strode from the shop.
The small procession that I headed occasioned a good deal of comment, and excited not a few grisly jests as we proceeded. But I paid no heed to any, and marched along with the expression of a lover lately bereaved of his sweetheart.
One pitiful "poor chap, he looks down in the mug, Bill, don't he?" more than rewarded me for all the honest effort I was putting forth, and compensated for the jokes besides. I looked neither to right nor left, and not once back; but I knew that the greengrocer's cart still steadily dogged my wanderings.
My new landlady admitted us without a protest. I made my attendants place the coffin upon the bed, and dismissed them with a shilling apiece. I then locked the door and crept to the window. I was just in time to see, through a slit in the shutter, the greengrocer's cart set off at a swift trot towards London. Cautiously raising the sash I pushed aside the blind and craned out my head. No, I had not been misled. The road ran straight, and although I watched the cart until it was swallowed up in a maze of other vehicles, near a thousand yards away, neither of the costers seemed to find it worth while to look back.
I closed the window, and sitting down beside the coffin, laughed until my sides ached. Once again I had crossed swords with Sir Charles Venner, and once again the victory was mine. I did not respect him the less, but I admit that I glorified myself the more. I could not, however, afford much time for self-gratulation. I had a great deal to do, and it was already two o'clock. Stepping into the passage, I shouted for the landlady, and made that astonished woman a present of my coffin. It is evident that she thought me a lunatic, but what cared I for that? In another moment I was hasting down the road, looking on all sides for a cab. An empty fourwheeler overtook me at last, and I drove like mad to London Bridge, where I took a hansom to Bruton Street. I was very hungry by then, but I could not spare a minute for a meal, and I comforted myself with the reflection that, granted a little luck, I might dine that evening in absolute security on the fat of the land, a rich man in veritable deed.
I had once known rather intimately a Polish Jew named Kutnewsky, who had been my fellow lodger in a boarding-house at Leeds. Him I resolved to personate. He was a fat, podgy person, with a hook nose, and a long, thick black beard, and his voice was oily, his foreign accent hideous. All the while I dressed, I practised his voice and accent. I had it at last to a T. The wonderful development of my facial muscles enabled me to raise or depress the tip of my nose at will, so as to lend it either a pug, or a Judaic cast, as I preferred. A false wig and beard with clothes in keeping completed my disguise. I was very soon a Jew—in fact, the double of Kutnewsky. I then packed a small valise with a complete suit of fashionable clothes, which had been originally made for a man of my size, by a Bond Street tailor, and which were still almost brand new, although I had bought them at a rag shop for a song. I included also in my bag, a travelling cap, a white shirt, a doubled linen collar, a smart tie, and a pair of light patent leather boots. The boots I wore were heavy hand-sewn bluchers, two sizes too large for me. I slipped into my pocket a black moustache and a pair of large black eyebrows. Finally, I exchanged my ordinary set of false teeth for a plate planted with hideous yellow fangs, some of which protruded from my lip. At a quarter to four, I was ready to face the world. A glance at the window showed me that a fine rain was falling; I therefore put on a mackintosh, and cramming a glossy silk hat upon my head, I set out armed with my valise and an umbrella. A fourwheeler took me to Oxford Circus, whence a hansom brought me back to Piccadilly and the Bolingbroke Hotel. I presented myself to the clerk, whom I informed in execrable broken English, that I was the famous German Court Surgeon, Herr Dr. Garschagen, just arrived from Berlin, to confer with my equally eminent colleague, Sir Charles Venner, upon a case of great moment, in which my advice had been urgently demanded. I declared that I had telegraphed from Berlin to secure apartments on the first floor, and I became very angry when the clerk protested that my message had not been received, and that there was not a single vacant apartment on the first floor. He, however, very deferentially led me himself to a room on the third floor, which I reluctantly engaged. I told him to send Sir Charles up immediately he arrived, and with a foreign boorishness I slammed the door in his face. My first act was to empty my valise and conceal its contents in a wardrobe. That effected, I arranged the dressing-table just as I had done on the previous day in my room at the Colonnade Hotel, and I set my empty valise thereon. I then removed my waterproof, and putting on a pair of goggles, I sat down to await my victim. As before he was prompt to the fraction of a minute. A small thin-featured waiter ushered him in. As before Sir Charles gave his attendant a shilling and entered the room; I, grinding out the while, a string of guttural, yet oily greetings in broken English. Sir Charles Venner's face was pale, but icily composed. He eyed me for a full minute with a look of piercing hate, then, taking off his hat, he quietly sat down upon the chair I had provided. I followed his example.
"Is Dr. Rudolf Garschagen identical with Mr. Seth Halford?" he asked quietly.
"Undoubtedly, Sir Charles."
"I stood in need of your assurance!" he muttered frowning. "But I confess I should like you to explain the meaning of your present mummery. You were excellently well disguised before!"
I bowed profoundly. "Thank you for the compliment, Sir Charles. I shall explain with pleasure. It is my custom to change my appearance as often as my clothes. The wisdom of this course will be apparent to you, when you consider that you have already confessed to a confused impression of me in your mind!"