imens.

"The initial processes occupied me far into the night, while as to the
finishing operations, they kept me busy for over a month; during which
time I shaved and cut hair throughout the day up to nine o'clock at
night, reserving the laboratory work for a relaxation after the prosaic
labors of the day.

"Looked at broadly, the episode was highly satisfactory and
successful--excepting in one vital respect. None of the three specimens
had ringed hair. The completed preparations were, after all, but the
by-products of my industry. The wretch whom I sought was still at large
and unidentified. My collection still lacked its crowning ornament."

VI

THE TRAIL OF THE SERPENT

Hitherto, in my transcriptions from Humphrey Challoner's "Museum
Archives" I have taken the entries in their order, omitting only such
technical details as might seem unsuitable for the lay reader. Now,
however, I pass over a number of entries. The capture of Numbers 7, 8
and 9 exhibits the methods to which Challoner, in the main, adhered
during his long residence in East London; and, though there were
occasional variations, the accounts of the captures present a general
similarity which might render their recital tedious. The last entry but
one, on the other hand, is among the most curious and interesting. Apart
from the stirring incidents that it records, the new light that it
throws on a hitherto unsolved mystery makes it worth extracting entire,
which I now proceed to do, with the necessary omissions alluded to
above.

"Circumstances connected with the acquirement of Numbers 23 and 24 in
the Anthropological Series.

"The sand of my life ran out with varying speed--as it seemed to me--in
the little barber's shop in Saul Street, Whitechapel. Now would my
pulses beat and the current of my blood run swift. Those were the times
when I had visitors; and presently a new skeleton or two would make
their appearance in the long wall-case. But there were long intervals of
sordid labor and dull inaction when I would cut hair--and examine it
through my lens--day after day and wonder whether, in electing to live,
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