ced knave who sneaked in through the scullery window; but I think
he had no connection with them or he would have entered by some more
convenient route and have used a false key instead of a jimmy to open
the safe. He was a wretched little creature and his capture quite
uninteresting; for, when he had bitten me twice, he crumpled up like a
rag doll and I carried him to the tank as if he had been a monkey.

"Yet I ought not to disparage him unduly, for he was the one specimen in
my collection, up to that time, who presented the orthodox 'stigmata of
degeneration.' His hair was bushy, his face strikingly asymmetrical, and
his ears were like a pair of Lombroso's selected examples; outstanding,
with enormous Darwinian tubercles and almost devoid of lobules.

"Still, whatever his points of interest, he was but a stray catch.
Chance had brought him as it might bring others of the same kind in the
course of years. But this would not answer my purpose. Numbers were what
I wanted and what I had arranged for; and it was with deep
disappointment that I recognized that my plan had failed. The supply of
anthropological material had come to an end. In a word, the criminal
class had 'smoked' me.

"This was not mere surmise on my part. I had direct and very quaint
evidence of it soon after I had completed the preparation of Number
Five. I was returning home one evening and was approaching the vicinity
of my house when I became aware of a small man of seedy aspect who
appeared to be following me. I slackened my pace somewhat to let him
overtake or pass me, and when nearly opposite my side door (the museum
entrance) he edged alongside and addressed me in a hoarse whisper.

"'Guv'nor.'

"I halted and looked at him attentively; a proceeding that caused him
evident discomfort. 'Did you speak to me?' I asked.

"He edged up closer, but still did not meet my eye, and, looking first
over one shoulder and then over the other, replied, 'Yus, I did,
guv'nor.'

"'What do you want?' I demanded.

"He edged up yet closer and said in a hoarse undertone, 'I want to know
what you've been and done with my cousin Bill.'

"'Your cousin Bill,' I repeated. 'Do I know him?'

"'I dunno whether you know 'im,' was the reply, 'but I see 'im go into
your house and I never see 'im come out agin, and I want to know what
you've been and done with 'im.'

"Now here was an interesting circumstance. I had already noted something
familiar in the man's face. Hi