rather than pass voluntarily into eternal repose, I had, after all, chosen the better part.  For in all those years no customer with ringed hair ever came to my shop.  The long pursuit seemed to bring me no nearer to that unknown wretch, the slayer of my beloved wife.  Still was he hidden from me amidst the unclean multitude that seethed around; or perchance some sordid grave had already offered him an everlasting sanctuary, leaving me wearily to pursue a phantom enemy.

“But I am digressing.  This is not a record of my emotions, but a history of the contents of my museum.  Let me proceed to specimens 23 and 24 and the very remarkable circumstances under which I had the good fortune to acquire them.  First, however, I must describe an incident which, although it occurred some time before, never developed its importance until this occasion arose.

“One drowsy afternoon there came to my shop a smallish, shabby-looking man, quiet and civil in manner and peculiarly wooden as to his countenance; in short, a typical ‘old lag.’  I recognized the type at a glance; the ‘penal servitude face’ had become a familiar phenomenon.  He spread himself out to be shaved and to have the severely official style of his coiffure replaced by a less distinctive mode; and as I worked he conversed affably.

“‘Saw old Polensky a week or two ago.’

“‘Did you indeed?’ said I.

“’Yus.  Portland.  Got into ’ot water, too, ’e did.  Tried to fetch the farm and didn’t pull it orf.’ (’The farm,’ I may explain, is the prison infirmary.) ’Got dropped on for malingering.  That’s the way with these bloomin’ foreigners.’

“‘He didn’t impose on the doctor, then?’

“‘Lor’, no!  Doctor’d seen that sort o’ bloke before.  Polensky said he’d got a pain in ’is stummik, so the doctor says it must be becos ’is diet was too rich, and knocks orf arf ’is grub.  I tell yer, Polensky was sorry ‘e’d spoke.’

“Here, my client showing a disposition to smile, I removed the razor to allow him to do so.  Presently he resumed, discursively: 

“’I knoo this ’ouse years ago, before Polensky’s time, when old Durdler had it.  Durdler used to do the smashin’ lay up on the second floor and me and two or three nippers used to work for ‘im—­plantin’ the snide, yer know.  ’E was a rare leery un, was Durdler.  It was ’im what made that slidin’ door in the wall in the second floor front.’

“I pricked up my ears at this.  ‘A sliding door?  In this house?’

“‘Gawblimy!’ exclaimed my client.  ’Meantersay you don’t know about that door?’

“I assured him most positively that I had never heard of it.

“‘Well, well,’ he muttered.  ’Sich a useful thing, too.  Durdler used to keep ’is molds and stuff up there, and then, when there was a scare of the cops, he used to pop the thing through into the next ’ouse—­Mrs. Jacob ’ad the room next door—­and the coppers used to come and sniff round, but of course there wasn’t nothin’ to see.  Regler suck in for them.  And it was useful if you was follered.  You could mizzle in through the shop, run upstairs, pop through the door, downstairs next door and out through the back yard.  I’ve done it myself.  ’Oo’s got the second floor front now?’