"Good morning, Mr.--h"m--Mr. Johnson," said old Mr. Wright. "As we told you, sir, we have, as a necessary preliminary to the inquiry, requested Professor Lieblein to step in and inspect--h"m--the personal marks of which you spoke. Professor Lieblein, of Bonn, is a great authority on these matters--author of "Die Tattuirung," a very learned work, I am told."
Thus introduced, the Professor bowed.
"Glad to meet you, sir," said the sailor-man gruffly, "or any gentleman as really knows what"s what."
"You have been a great traveller, sir?" said the learned Professor, whose Teutonic accent it is superfluous to reproduce. "You have in many lands travelled? So!"
"Yes, sir; I have seen the world."
"And you are much tattooed: it is to me very interesting. You have by many races been decorated?"
"Most n.i.g.g.e.rs have had a turn at me, sir!"
"How happy you are to have had such experiences! Now, the Burmese--ah!
have you any little Burmese marks?"
"Yes, sir; from the elbow to the shoulder," replied the seafaring man.
"Saving your presence, I"ll strip to the buff."
"The buff! What is that? Oh, thank you, sir," this was in reply to young Mr. Wright "The naked body! why, buff! "Buff," the abstract word, the actual stuff, the very _wesen_ of man unclothed. "Buffer," the concrete man, in the "buff," in the flesh; it is _sehr interessant_."
While the learned Professor muttered these metaphysical and philological reflections, the seaman was stripping himself to the waist.
"That"s the Burmese style, sir," he said, pointing to his shoulders and upper arm.
These limbs were tattooed in a beautiful soft blue; the pattern was a series of diminishing squares, from which long narrow triangles ran down to the elbow-joints.
"_Sehr schon, sehr schon_," exclaimed the delighted Professor. "It is very _hubsch_, very pretty, very well. We cannot now decorate, we Germans. Ach, it is mournful!" and he sighed. "And now, sir, have you to show me any _moko_? A little _moko_ would be very instructive."
"Moko? Rather! The Maori pattern, you mean; the New Zealand dodge? Just look between my shoulders," and the seaman turned a broad bare back, whereon were designs of curious involuted spirals.
"That is right, that is right," whispered the Professor. "_Moko, schlange_, serpent-marks, so they call it in their tongue. Better _moko_, on an European man, have I never seen. You observe," he remarked to the elder Mr. Wright, waving his hand as he followed the tattooed lines--"you observe the serpentine curves? Very beautiful."
"Extremely interesting," said Mr. Wright, who, being no anthropologist, seemed nervous and uncomfortable.
"Corresponds, too, with the marks in the picture," he added, comparing the sketch of the original Shields with the body of the claimant.
"Are you satisfied now, governor?" asked the sailor.
"One little moment. Have you on the Red Sea coast been? Have you been at Suakim? Have you any Arab markings?"
"Oh, yes; here you are!" and the voyager pointed to his breast.
The Professor inspected, with unconcealed delight, some small tattooings of irregular form.
"It is, it is," he cried, "the _wasm_, the _sharat_,* the Semitic tribal mark, the mark with which the Arab tribes brand their cattle! Of old time they did tattoo it on their bodies. The learned Herr Professor Robertson Smith, in his leedle book, do you know what he calls that very mark, my dear sir?"
* Sharat or Short.--"The shart was in old times a tattooed mark.... In the patriarchal story of Cain...the inst.i.tution of blood revenge is connected with a "mark" which Jehovah appoints to Cain. Can this be anything else than the _sharat_, or tribal mark, which every man bore on his person?"
--Robertson Smith, _Kinship in Ancient Arabia_, p.215.
"Not I," said the sailor; "I"m no scholar."
"He says it was--I do not say he is right," cried the Professor, in a loud voice, pointing a finger at his victim"s breast--"he says it was _the mark of cain_!"
The sailor, beneath his mahogany tan, turned a livid white, and grasped at a bookcase by which he stood.
"What do you mean?" he cried, through his chattering teeth; "what do you mean with your d.a.m.ned Hebrew-Dutch and your mark of Cain? The mark"s all right! A Hadendowa woman did it in Suakim years ago. Ain"t it on that chart of yours?"
"Certainly, good sir; it is," answered the Professor. "Why do you so agitate yourself? _The proof is complete!_" he added, still pointing at the sailor"s breast.
"Then I"ll put on my togs, with your leave: it"s none so warm!" grumbled the man.
He had so far completed his dressing that he was in his waistcoat, and was just looking round for his coat.
"Stop!" said the Professor. "Hold Mr. Johnson"s coat for a moment!"
This was to young Wright, who laid his hands on the garment in question.
"You must be tired, sir," said the Professor, in a very soft voice. "May I offer you a leedle cigarette?"
He drew from his pocket a silver cigarette-case, and, in a thoroughly English accent, he went on:
"I have waited long to give you back your cigarette-case, which you left at your club, Mr. Thomas Cranley!"
The sailor"s eye fell on it. He dashed the silver box violently to the ground, and trampled on it, then he made one rush at his coat.
"Hold it, hold it!" cried Barton, laying aside his Teutonic accent--"hold it: there"s a revolver in the pocket!"
But there was no need to struggle for the coat.
The sailor had suddenly staggered and fallen, a crumpled but not unconscious ma.s.s, on the floor.
"Call in the police!" said Barton. "They"ll have no difficulty in taking him."
"This is the man against whom you have the warrant," he went on, as young Wright opened the door and admitted two policemen. "I charge the Honorable Thomas Cranley with murder!"
The officers lifted the fallen man.
"Let him be," said Barton. "He has collapsed. Lay him on the floor: he"s better so. He needs a turn of my profession: his heart"s weak. Bring some brandy."
Young Wright went for the spirits, while the frightened old lawyer kept murmuring:
"The Honorable Thomas Cranley _was_ always very unsatisfactory!"
It had been explained to the old gentleman that an impostor would be unmasked, and a criminal arrested; but he had _not_ been informed that the culprit was the son of his great client, Lord Birkenhead.
Barton picked up the cigarette-case, and as he, for the first time, examined its interior, some broken gla.s.s fell out and tinkled on the floor.