in the large wall-case. But this specimen
had a further, though indirect, value. From him I gathered a useful hint
by which I was subsequently guided into a new and fruitful field of
research.

"(See Catalogue, Numbers 6A and 6B.)"

V

BY-PRODUCTS OF INDUSTRY

The next entry in the amazing "Museum Archives" exhibited my poor friend
Humphrey Challoner in circumstances that were to me perfectly
incredible. When I recall that learned, cultivated man as I knew him, I
find it impossible to picture him living amidst the indescribably
squalid surroundings of the London Ghetto, the tenant of a sordid little
shop in an East End by-street. Yet this appears actually to have been
his condition at one time--but let me quote the entry in his own words,
which need no comments of mine to heighten their strangeness.

"Events connected with the acquirement of Numbers 7, 8 and 9 in the
Anthropological Series:

"We are the creatures of circumstance. Blind chance, which guided that
unknown wretch to my house in the dead of the night and which led my
dear wife to her death at his murderous hands, also impelled that other
villain (Number 6, Anthropological Series) to pursue me to the lonely
chalk-pit, where he would have done me to death had I not fortunately
anticipated his intentions. So, too, it was by a mere chance that I
presently found myself the proprietor of a shop in a Whitechapel
back-street.

"Let me trace the connections of events.

"The first link in the chain was a visit that I had paid in my younger
days to Moscow and Warsaw, where I had stayed long enough to acquire a
useful knowledge of Russian and Yiddish. The second link was the failure
of my plan to lure the murderer of my wife--and, incidentally, other
criminals--to my house. The trap had been scented not only by the
criminals but also by the police, of whom one had visited my museum with
very evident suspicion as to the nature of my specimens.

"After the visit of the detective, I was rather at a loose end. That
unknown wretch was still at large. He had to be found and I had to find
him since the police could not. But how? That detective had completely
upset my plans and, for a time, I could think of no other. Then came the
dirty rascal who had tried to murder me in the chalk-pit; and from his
mongrel jargon, half cockney, half foreign, I had gathered a vague hint.
If I could not entice the criminal population into my domain, how would
it be to recon