That was to be a day of happenings. Even now my mind holds but a confused memory of them, in which I seem to be now myself, and now some other man; now living on hope, and now sunk into the depths of fear and despair. For what I have to tell seems so incredible, that only by some knowledge of the man who carried the plot boldly through can any idea of how the business was arranged be arrived at.
Dr. Bardolph Just acted with promptness and decision that day. A messenger flew down towards London to summon the police; and a telegram sped over the wires back to Penthouse Prison. The missing convict had been found; all the world might come to the house of Dr. Bardolph Just, and see this thing for themselves. At the last, when we actually expected the enemy to arrive at our gates, as it were, I nervously plucked the doctor's sleeve, and whispered a question.
"What about his hair? They'll be sure to notice that."
He smiled a little pityingly, I thought; but then, to the very end the man retained some contempt for me. "Come and see for yourself," he said.
So I went back with him into that room where we had left the dead man, and there I saw a miracle. For while I slept the doctor had been at work, and the head of poor Gregory Pennington was cropped as closely as my own. I shuddered and turned away.
"How you ever contrived to escape puzzles me," said Bardolph Just. "You haven't half my courage."
The man was certainly amazing. He met everything blandly; he was firm, and quiet, and dignified with this official and with that. He told me afterwards all that he did, and I had no reason to disbelieve him. For my own part, of course, I had to keep out of the way, and I spent most of my time in the spacious grounds surrounding the house. There was an old ruined summer-house at one corner, under a high wall; and there, fortified with a few of the doctor's cigars, I awaited quietly the turn of events. According to the doctor's description to me afterwards, what happened was this:
In the first place, the puzzle fitted so neatly together that there was no feeling of suspicion. A tall, well-built, dark-haired man, in the clothes of a convict, was roaming over the country; by a miracle a man answering that description, and dressed in those clothes, and having the necessary number upon him, had got to this house on the northern heights above London, and there, in despair of escaping further, had hanged himself. Dr. Bardolph Just was a man of standing in the scientific world—a man who had made discoveries; there was no thought of calling his word in question. This dead man was undoubtedly the escaped convict—Norton Hyde.
A very necessary inquest was held, and twelve good men and true settled that matter once and for all. There had been one curious point in the evidence, but even that was a point that had been miraculously explained. The doctor spoke of it airily, and I wondered a little why he did not explain the matter with more exactitude.
"It seems," he said, "that they discovered on the head of the unfortunate man the mark of a blow—a blow which had undoubtedly stunned him—or so, at least, they thought. It's impossible for me to say how the unfortunate Gregory Pennington came by such an injury, but at all events even that was accounted for in the case of Norton Hyde."