“I shall be extremely interested to hear it,” replied the Professor quietly.
“Before Dr. Morlandson died, he furnished me with a list of his intended victims, and a very fine collection of lethal apparatus,” continued the Black Sailor. “My first concern was to find some spot in London from which to operate. I made careful enquiries as to the present addresses of the surviving jurymen, and found that most of them came from this part of London. This, of course, was not Coincidence, since juries are frequently called by districts.
“I therefore determined to establish myself in this neighbourhood. I knew enough of the properties of herbs to set myself up as a herbalist, and I was fortunate enough to find this empty shop, almost opposite the premises of one of my intended victims. Once in possession of it, I set myself to develop a business which should bring me into contact with all the gossip of the neighbourhood, and to study the habits and circumstances of my intended victims. My own apparent vocation I tried to make as open as I could. My shop was available to any who cared to enter it, and from the first I accustomed the acquaintances which I made to my habit of spending occasional week-ends in the country, and of taking a walk every evening, since I foresaw that these would be essential to my purpose. And in Mr. Copperdock I found a simple and not over-intelligent personality who would serve me admirably as a dupe upon whom suspicion might be cast.
“You will, I think, understand the task which I had been set. I was to execute the vengeance of Dr. Morlandson upon the men who had condemned him to so many years of agony. But this must be done in such a manner that their deaths would not be attributed to pure chance, but must eventually be made to appear as acts of justice, as indeed they were. I could not employ the same methods in each case, but at the same time I wished each death to carry the same distinguishing mark.
“I was at first puzzled to think of any such mark. And then, during a visit to Mr. Copperdock, the idea came to me. I saw a box full of white bone counters lying on his table, and I managed to appropriate a dozen or so of these. At the same time I carefully noted the envelopes he used in his business, and by a casual question learnt where he had obtained them. I bought three thousand of these, all the remaining stock, giving the name of Mr. Copperdock. There was very little chance of their being traced, but if they had been, the result of inquiries would have shown that they had all been sold to the tobacconist.
“I also discovered that the typewriter recently purchased by Mr. Copperdock was a Planet, and I took a careful note of the brand of pen and red ink he habitually used. I next made enquiries among the envelope addressing agencies, until I found one which employed Planet machines. To this agency I sent my envelopes, together with a telephone directory in which I had marked some two thousand names, among which were those of my intended victims who happened to have a telephone. To this list I added one of my own, containing a thousand additional names, among them the jurymen I had not found in the telephone book. I instructed the agency to type these names and addresses on the envelopes. It was a safe assumption that a year later, when I began operations, the agency would not remember having typed the names of the dead men among so many thousands of others. The counters I numbered myself, as required.
“Last November, I felt myself in a position to seek my first victim. I decided that it should be Mr. Tovey, a personal friend of Mr. Copperdock, from whom I had learnt all I required to know about his habits. I had, among my other weapons, a paper cutter’s knife, with half a dozen blades. These blades I had sharpened along both edges until they resembled daggers, and I had discovered a means of fixing them lightly into the handle, so that they would remain in the wound, leaving me free to carry off the handle.
“That evening, Mr. Ludgrove took his usual walk, returning by way of Paddington station. From here he telephoned to Mr. Tovey, giving him the message that he was wanted at St. Martha’s. Mr. Ludgrove then walked back here, and took on the character of the Black Sailor. Behind this shop is a piece of ground which was once a garden, and that in turn is separated by a low wall from a yard, deserted after business hours, with gates and also a small door leading into a back street. I had made myself a key to the small door, and it provided me with an alternative means of access to this house.
“The Black Sailor went out this way, waited in the shadows at the corner of the back street until he saw Mr. Tovey pass, then followed him and caught him up among the crowd outside the Express Train. The knife required no violence in its use, merely a firm push in one of the spots which Dr. Morlandson had shown me. The actual stabbing was a very simple matter, and the Black Sailor disappeared in the crowd, to return here by the way he went out and transform himself into Mr. Ludgrove.
“But I realized that this method, although it had served its purpose once, was inartistic and dangerous. There was always the risk that the Black Sailor might be recognized and traced back here. As a matter of fact, Wal Snyder had noticed him, but his evidence was discredited. The police, however, were compelled to offer a reward for him, and I determined that the Black Sailor must be reserved for special purposes.