The Complete Works of Arthur Morrison (Illustrated). Arthur Morrison

Frenchman took the pen and stared at the paper; then slowly, and with much hesitation, he traced these marks:—

      The man paused after the last of these futile characters, and his pen stabbed into the paper with a blot, as he dazedly regarded his work. Then with a groan he dropped it, and his face sank again into the bend of his arm.

      The doctor took the paper and handed it to Hewitt. “Complete agraphia, you see,” he said. “He can’t write a word. He begins to write ‘ Monsieur ‘ from sheer habit in beginning letters thus; but the word tails off into a scrawl. Then his attempts become mere scribble, with just a trace of some familiar word here and there — but quite meaningless all.”

      Although he had never before chanced to come across a case of aphasia (happily a rare disease), Hewitt was acquainted with its general nature. He knew that it might arise either from some physical injury to the brain, or from a break-down consequent on some terrible nervous strain. He knew that in the case of motor aphasia the sufferer, though fully conscious of all that goes on about him, and though quite understanding what is said to him is entirely powerless to put his own thoughts into spoken words — has lost, in fact, the connection between words and their spoken symbols. Also that in most bad cases agraphia — the loss of ability to write words with any reference to their meaning — is commonly an accompaniment.

      “You will have him taken to the infirmary, I suppose?” Hewitt asked.

      “Yes,” the doctor replied. “I shall go and see about it at once.”

      The man looked up again as they spoke. The policeman had, in accordance with Hewitt’s request, placed a loaf of bread on the table near him, and now as he looked up he caught sight of it. He started visibly and paled, but gave no such signs of abject terror as the policeman had previously observed. He appeared nervous and uneasy, however, and presently reached stealthily toward the loaf. Hewitt continued to talk to the doctor, while closely watching the Frenchman’s behaviour from the corner of his eye.

      The loaf was what is called a “plain cottage,” of solid and regular shape. The man reached it and immediately turned it bottom up on the table. Then he sank back in his chair with a more contented expression, though his gaze was still directed toward the loaf. The policeman grinned silently at this curious manoeuvre.

      The doctor left, and Hewitt accompanied him to the door of the room. “He will not be moved just yet, I take it?” Hewitt asked as they parted.

      “It may take an hour or two,” the doctor replied. “Are you anxious to keep him here?”

      “Not for long; but I think there’s a curious inside to the case, and I may perhaps learn something of it by a little watching. But I can’t spare very long.”

      At a sign from Hewitt the loaf was removed.

      Then Hewitt pulled the small table closer to the Frenchman and pushed the pen and sheets of paper toward him. The manoeuvre had its result. The man looked up and down the room vacantly once or twice and then began to turn the papers over.

      From that he went to dipping the pen in the inkpot, and presently he was scribbling at random on the loose sheets. Hewitt affected to leave him entirely alone, and seemed to be absorbed in a contemplation of a photograph of a police-division brass band that hung on the wall, but he saw every scratch the man made.

      At first there was nothing but meaningless scrawls and attempted words. Then rough sketches appeared, of a man’s head, a chair or what not. On the mantelpiece stood a small clock — apparently a sort of humble presentation piece, the body of the clock being set in a horse-shoe frame, with crossed whips behind it. After a time the Frenchman’s eyes fell on this, and he began a crude sketch of it. That he relinquished, and went on with other random sketches and scribblings on the same piece of paper, sketching and scribbling over the sketches in a half mechanical sort of way, as of one who trifles with a pen during a brown study. Beginning at the top left-hand corner of the paper, he travelled all round it till he arrived at the left-hand bottom corner. Then dashing his pen hastily across his last sketch he dropped it, and with a great shudder turned away again and hid his face by the fireplace.

      Hewitt turned at once and seized the papers on the table. He stuffed them all into his coat-pocket, with the exception of the last which the man had been engaged on, and this, a facsimile of which is subjoined, he studied earnestly for several minutes.

      Hewitt wished the men good-day, and made his way to the inspector.

      “Well,” the inspector said, “not much to be got out of him, is there? The doctor will be sending for him presently.”

      “I fancy,” said Hewitt, “that this may turn out a very important case. Possibly — quite possibly — I may not have guessed correctly, and so I won’t tell you anything of it till I know a little more. But what I want now is a messenger. Can I send somebody at once in a cab to my friend Brett at his chambers?”

      “Certainly. I’ll find somebody. Want to write a note?”

      Hewitt wrote and despatched a note, which reached me in less than ten minutes. Then he asked the inspector, “Have you searched the Frenchman?”

      “Oh, yes. We went all over him, when we found he couldn’t explain himself, to see if we could trace his friends or his address. He didn’t seem to mind. But there wasn’t a single thing in his pocket — not a single thing, barring a rag of a pocket-handkerchief with no marking on it.”

      “You noticed that somebody had stolen his watch, I suppose?”

      “Well, he hadn’t got one.”

      “But he had one of those little vertical buttonholes in his waistcoat, used to fasten a watchguard to, and it was much worn and frayed, so that he must be in the habit of carrying a watch; and it is gone.”

      “Yes, and everything else too, eh? Looks like robbery. He’s had a knock or two in the face — notice that?”

      “I saw the bruises and the cut, of course; and his collar has been broken away, with the back button; somebody has taken him by the collar or throat. Was he wearing a hat when he was found?”

      “No.”

      “That would imply that he had only just left a house. What street was he found in?”

      “Henry Street — a little off Golden Square. Low street, you know.”

      “Did the constable notice a door open near by?”

      The inspector shook his head. “Half the doors in the street are open,” he said, “pretty nearly all day.”

      “Ah, then there’s nothing in that. I don’t think he lives there, by the bye. I fancy he comes from more in the Seven Dials or Drury Lane direction. Did you notice anything about the man that gave you a clue to his occupation — or at any rate to his habits?”

      “Can’t say I did.”

      “Well, just take a look at the back of his coat before he goes away — just over the loins. Good-day.”

      As I have said, Hewitt’s messenger was quick. I happened to be in — having lately returned from a latish lunch — when he arrived with this note:—

      “My dear B., — I meant to have lunched with you to-day, but have been kept. I expect you are idle this afternoon, and I have a case that will interest you — perhaps be useful to you from a journalistic point of view. If you care to see anything of it, cab away at once to Fitzroy Square, south side, where I’ll meet you. I will wait no later than 3.30. Yours, M. H.”

      I had scarce a quarter of an hour, so I seized my hat and left my chambers at once. As it happened, my cab and Hewitt’s burst into Fitzroy Square from opposite sides almost at the same moment, so that we lost no time.

      “Come,”