inger-prints see Album D 1, p. 1. For facial characters see Album
E 1, pp. 1, 2 and 3, and Series B (dry, reduced preparations). Number
1."

* * * * *

I closed the two volumes--the Catalogue and the Archives--and meditated
on the amazing story that they told in their unemotional, matter-of-fact
style. Was poor Challoner mad? Had he an insane obsession on the subject
of crime and criminals? Or was he, perchance, abnormally sane, if I may
use the expression? That his outlook was not as other men's was obvious.
Was it a rational outlook or that of a lunatic?

I cannot answer the question. Perhaps a further study of his Archives
may throw some fresh light on it.

III

THE HOUSEMAID'S FOLLOWERS

The contrast in effect between suspicion and certainty is very curious
to observe. When I had walked through the private museum of my poor
friend Challoner and had looked at the large collection of human
skeletons that it contained, a suspicion that there was something queer
about those skeletons had made me quite uncomfortable. Now, after
reading his first narrative, I knew all about them. They were the relics
of criminals whom he had taken red-handed and preserved for the
instruction of posterity. Thus were my utmost suspicions verified, and
yet, strange as it may seem, with the advent of certainty, my horror of
them vanished. Even the hideous little doll-like heads induced but a
passing shudder. Vague, half superstitious awe gave place to scientific
interest.

I took an early opportunity of renewing my acquaintance with the
astonishing and gruesome "Museum Archives." The second narrative was
headed "Anthropological Series, 2, 3 and 4." It exhibited the same
singular outlook as the first, showing that to Challoner the criminal
had not appeared to be a human being at all, but merely a sub-human form,
anatomically similar to man.

"The acquisition of Specimen Number One," it began, "gave me
considerable occupation, both bodily and mental. As I labored from day
to day rendering the osseous framework of the late James Archer fit for
exhibition in a museum case, I reflected on the future to which recent
events had committed me. I had been, as it were, swept away on the tide
of circumstance. The death of this person had occurred by an
inadvertence, and accident had thrown on me the onus of disposing of the
remains. I had solved that difficulty by converting the deceased into a
museum spe