The prison Chaplain entered the condemned's cell for the last time,
to give such consolation as he might.
"The only consolation I crave for," said the condemned, "is to tell
my story in its entirety to some one who will at least give it a
respectful hearing."
"We must not be too long over it," said the Chaplain, looking at his
watch.
The condemned repressed a shiver and commenced.
"Most people will be of opinion that I am paying the penalty of my
own violent deeds. In reality I am a victim to a lack of
specialisation in my education and character."
"Lack of specialisation!" said the Chaplain.
"Yes. If I had been known as one of the few men in England familiar
with the fauna of the Outer Hebrides, or able to repeat stanzas of
Camoens' poetry in the original, I should have had no difficulty in
proving my identity in the crisis when my identity became a matter
of life and death for me. But my education was merely a moderately
good one, and my temperament was of the general order that avoids
specialisation. I know a little in a general way about gardening
and history and old masters, but I could never tell you off-hand
whether 'Stella van der Loopen' was a chrysanthemum or a heroine of
the American War of Independence, or something by Romney in the
Louvre."
The Chaplain shifted uneasily in his seat. Now that the
alternatives had been suggested they all seemed dreadfully possible.
"I fell in love, or thought I did, with the local doctor's wife,"
continued the condemned. "Why I should have done so, I cannot say,
for I do not remember that she possessed any particular attractions
of mind or body. On looking back at past events if seems to me that
she must have been distinctly ordinary, but I suppose the doctor had
fallen in love with her once, and what man had done man can do. She
appeared to be pleased with the attentions which I paid her, and to
that extent I suppose I might say she encouraged me, but I think she
was honestly unaware that I meant anything more than a little
neighbourly interest. When one is face to face with Death one
wishes to be just."
The Chaplain murmured approval. "At any rate, she was genuinely
horrified when I took advantage of the doctor's absence one evening
to declare what I believed to be my passion. She begged me to pass
out of her life, and I could scarcely do otherwise than agree,
though I hadn't the dimmest idea of how it was to be done. In
novels and plays I knew it was a regular occurrence, and if you
mistook a lady's sentiments or intentions you went off to India and
did things on the frontier as a matter of course. As I stumbled
along the doctor's carriagedrive I had no very clear idea as to what
my line of action was to be, but I had a vague feeling that I must
look at the Times Atlas before going to bed. Then, on the dark and
lonely highway, I came suddenly on a dead body."
The Chaplain's interest in the story visibly quickened.
"Judging by the clothes it wore, the corpse was that of a Salvation
Army captain. Some shocking accident seemed to have struck him
down, and the head was crushed and battered out of all human
semblance. Probably, I thought, a motor-car fatality; and then,
with a sudden overmastering insistence, came another thought, that
here was a remarkable opportunity for losing my identity and passing
out of the life of the doctor's wife for ever. No tiresome and
risky voyage to distant lands, but a mere exchange of clothes and
identity with the unknown victim of an unwitnessed accident. With
considerable difficulty I undressed the corpse, and clothed it anew
in my own garments. Any one who has valeted a dead Salvation Army
captain in an uncertain light will appreciate the difficulty. With
the idea, presumably, of inducing the doctor's wife to leave her
husband's roof-tree for some habitation which would be run at my
expense, I had crammed my pockets with a store of banknotes, which
represented a good deal of my immediate worldly wealth. When,
therefore, I stole away into the world in the guise of a nameless
Salvationist, I was not without resources which would easily support
so humble a role for a considerable period. I tramped to a
neighbouring market-town, and, late as the hour was, the production
of a few shillings procured me supper and a night's lodging in a
cheap coffee-house. The next day I started forth on an aimless
course of wandering from one small town to another. I was already
somewhat disgusted with the upshot of my sudden freak; in a few
hours' time I was considerably more so. In the contents-bill of a
local news sheet I read the announcement of my own murder at the
hands of some person unknown; on buying a copy of the paper for a
detailed account of the tragedy, which at first had aroused in me a
certain grim amusement, I found that the deed ascribed to a
wandering Salvationist of doubtful antecedents, who had been seen
lurking in the roadway near the scene of the crime. I was no longer
amused. The matter promised to be embarrassing. What I had
mistaken for a motor accident was evidently a case of savage assault
and murder, and, until the real culprit was found, I should have
much difficulty in explaining my intrusion into the affair. Of
course I could establish my own identity; but how, without
disagreeably involving the doctor's wife, could I give any adequate
reason for changing clothes with the murdered man? While my brain
worked feverishly at this problem, I subconsciously obeyed a
secondary instinct--to get as far away as possible from the scene of
the crime, and to get rid at all costs of my incriminating uniform.
There I found a difficulty. I tried two or three obscure clothes
shops, but my entrance invariably aroused an attitude of hostile
suspicion in the proprietors, and on one excuse or another they
avoided serving me with the now ardently desired change of clothing.
The uniform that I had so thoughtlessly donned seemed as difficult
to get out of as the fatal shirt of--You know, I forget the
creature's name."
"Yes, yes," said the Chaplain hurriedly. "Go on with your story."
"Somehow, until I could get out of those compromising garments, I
felt it would not be safe to surrender myself to the police. The
thing that puzzled me was why no attempt was made to arrest me,
since there was no question as to the suspicion which followed me,
like an inseparable shadow, wherever I went. Stares, nudgings,
whisperings, and even loud-spoken remarks of 'that's 'im' greeted my
every appearance, and the meanest and most deserted eating-house
that I patronised soon became filled with a crowd of furtively
watching customers. I began to sympathise with the feeling of Royal
personages trying to do a little private shopping under the
unsparing scrutiny of an irrepressible public. And still, with all
this inarticulate shadowing, which weighed on my nerves almost worse
than open hostility would have done, no attempt was made to
interfere with my liberty. Later on I discovered the reason. At
the time of the murder on the lonely highway a series of important
bloodhound trials had been taking place in the near neighbourhood,
and some dozen and a half couples of trained animals had been put on
the track of the supposed murderer--on my track. One of our most
public-spirited London dailies had offered a princely prize to the
owner of the pair that should first track me down, and betting on
the chances of the respective competitors became rife throughout the
land. The dogs ranged far and wide over about thirteen counties,
and though my own movements had become by this time perfectly well-
known to police and public alike, the sporting instincts of the
nation stepped in to prevent my premature arrest. "Give the dogs a
chance," was the prevailing sentiment, whenever some ambitious local
constable wished to put an end to my drawn-out evasion of justice.
My final capture by the winning pair was not a very dramatic
episode, in fact, I'm not sure that they would have taken any notice
of me if I hadn't spoken to them and patted them, but the event gave
rise to an extraordinary amount of partisan excitement. The owner
of the pair who were next nearest up at the finish was an American,
and he lodged a protest on the ground that an otterhound had married
into the family of the winning pair six generations ago, and that
the prize had been offered to the first pair of bloodhounds to
capture the murderer, and that a dog that had 1/64th part of
otterhound blood in it couldn't technically be considered a
bloodhound. I forget how the matter was ultimately settled, but it
aroused a tremendous amount of acrimonious discussion on both sides
of the Atlantic. My own contribution to the controversy consisted
in pointing out that the whole dispute was beside the mark, as the
actual murderer had not yet been captured; but I soon discovered
that on this point there was not the least divergence of public or
expert opinion. I had looked forward apprehensively to the proving
of my identity and the establishment of my motives as a disagreeable
necessity; I speedily found out that the most disagreeable part of
the business was that it couldn't be done. When I saw in the glass
the haggard and hunted expression which the experiences of the past
few weeks had stamped on my erstwhile placid countenance, I could
scarcely feel surprised that the few friends and relations I
possessed refused to recognise me in my altered guise, and persisted
in their obstinate but widely shared belief that it was I who had
been done to death on the highway. To make matters worse,
infinitely worse, an aunt of the really murdered man, an appalling
female of an obviously low order of intelligence, identified me as
her nephew, and gave the authorities a lurid account of my depraved
youth and of her laudable but unavailing efforts to spank me into a
better way. I believe it was even proposed to search me for
fingerprints."
"But," said the Chaplain, "surely your educational attainments--"
"That was just the crucial point," said the condemned; "that was
where my lack of specialisation told so fatally against me. The
dead Salvationist, whose identity I had so lightly and so
disastrously adopted, had possessed a veneer of cheap modern
education. It should have been easy to demonstrate that my learning
was on altogether another plane to his, but in my nervousness I
bungled miserably over test after test that was put to me. The
little French I had ever known deserted me; I could not render a
simple phrase about the gooseberry of the gardener into that
language, because I had forgotten the French for gooseberry."
The Chaplain again wriggled uneasily in his seat. "And then,"
resumed the condemned, "came the final discomfiture. In our village
we had a modest little debating club, and I remembered having
promised, chiefly, I suppose, to please and impress the doctor's
wife, to give a sketchy kind of lecture on the Balkan Crisis. I had
relied on being able to get up my facts from one or two standard
works, and the back-numbers of certain periodicals. The prosecution
had made a careful note of the circumstance that the man whom I
claimed to be--and actually was--had posed locally as some sort of
second-hand authority on Balkan affairs, and, in the midst of a
string of questions on indifferent topics, the examining counsel
asked me with a diabolical suddenness if I could tell the Court the
whereabouts of Novibazar. I felt the question to be a crucial one;
something told me that the answer was St. Petersburg or Baker
Street. I hesitated, looked helplessly round at the sea of tensely
expectant faces, pulled myself together, and chose Baker Street.
And then I knew that everything was lost. The prosecution had no
difficulty in demonstrating that an individual, even moderately
versed in the affairs of the Near East, could never have so
unceremoniously dislocated Novibazar from its accustomed corner of
the map. It was an answer which the Salvation Army captain might
conceivably have made--and I made it. The circumstantial evidence
connecting the Salvationist with the crime was overwhelmingly
convincing, and I had inextricably identified myself with the
Salvationist. And thus it comes to pass that in ten minutes' time I
shall be hanged by the neck until I am dead in expiation of the
murder of myself, which murder never took place, and of which, in
any case, I am innocent."
* * *
When the Chaplain returned to his quarters some fifteen minutes
later, the black flag was floating over the prison tower. Breakfast
was waiting for him in the dining-room, but he first passed into his
library, and, taking up the Times Atlas, consulted a map of the
Balkan Peninsula. "A thing like that," he observed, closing the
volume with a snap, "might happen to any one."
_________
-THE END-
[Hector Hugh Munro] Saki's short story: The Lost Sanjak
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