“I went as quickly as was safe, but very warily, for a collision might have been fatal.  Listening intently, with my eye on the compass and my wheel at the curb, I pushed on through the yellow void until a shadowy post at a street corner revealed itself by its parish initials as that at the intersection of Red Lion Street and Theobald’s Row.

“I was nearly home.  Another ten minutes’ careful navigation brought me to a corner which I believed to be the one opposite my own house.  I turned back a dozen paces, put down the barrow and crossed the pavement—­with the compass in my hand, lest I should not be able to find the barrow again.  I came against the jamb of a street door, I groped across to the door itself, I found the keyhole of the familiar Yale pattern, I inserted my key and turned it; and the door of the museum entrance opened.  I had brought my ship into port.

“I listened intently.  Someone was creeping down the street, hugging the railings.  I closed the door to let him pass, and heard the groping hands sweep over the door as he crawled by.  Then I went out, steered across to the barrow, picked up one of the specimens and carried it into the hall, where I laid it on the floor, returning immediately for the other.  When both the specimens were safely deposited, I came out, softly closing the door after me with the key, and once more took up the barrow-handles.  Slowly I trundled the invaluable little vehicle up the street, never losing touch of the curb, flinging the stakes and cordage into the road as I went, until I had brought it to the corner of a street about a quarter of a mile from my house; and there I abandoned it, making my way back as fast as I could to the museum.

“My first proceeding on my return was to carry my treasures to the laboratory, light the gas and examine their hair.  I had really some hopes that one of them might be the man I sought.  But, alas!  It was the old story.  They both had coarse black hair of the mongoloid type.  My enemy was still to seek.

“Having cleaned away my ‘make-up,’ I spent the rest of the day pushing forward the preliminary processes so that these might be completed before ‘decay’s effacing fingers’ should obliterate the details of the integumentary structures.  In the evening I returned to Whitechapel and opened the shop, proposing to purchase the dummy skeletons on the following day and to devote the succeeding nights and early mornings to the preparation of the specimens.

“The barrow turned up next day in the possession of an undeniable tramp who was trying to sell it for ten shillings and who was accused of having stolen it but was discharged for want of evidence.  I compensated the green grocer for the trouble occasioned by my carelessness in leaving the back gate open; and thus the incident came to an end.  With one important exception, for there was a very startling sequel.