“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.”