He stayed in bed accordingly the next day. His housekeeper was a little
uneasy about him. He ate nothing and his eyes were strangely bright and
feverish. She overheard him once muttering something to himself about
"the unknown quantity," and that made her think that he had been working
too hard. She decided he must see the doctor. The Professor refused peremptorily. He declared he would be quite well again in the morning. The
housekeeper, an old servant, agreed, but sent for the doctor all the
same; and when he had come the Professor felt he could not refuse to see
him without appearing peculiar. And he did not wish to appear peculiar. So he saw the doctor, but declared there was nothing much the matter, he
merely felt a little unwell and out of sorts and tired. "You have hurt your hand?" the doctor asked, noticing how it was
bandaged. "I cut it slightly--a trifle," the Professor answered. "Yes," the doctor answered, "I see there is blood on it." "What?" the Professor stammered. "There is blood upon your hand," the doctor repeated. The Professor looked. In fact, a deep, wide stain showed crimson upon
the bandages in which he had swathed his hand. Yet he knew that the
moment before the linen had been fair and white and clean. "It is nothing," he said quickly, hiding his hand beneath the bed
clothes. The doctor, a little puzzled, took his leave, but had not gone ten
yards when the housekeeper flew screaming after him. It seemed she had
heard a fall, and when she had gone into the Professor's bedroom she had
found him lying there dead upon the hearthrug. There was a razor in his
hand, and there was a ghastly gash across his throat. The doctor went back at a run, but there was nothing he or any man could
do. One thing he noticed, with curiosity, was that the bandage had been
torn away from the dead man's hand and that oddly enough there seemed to
be on the hand no sign of any cut or wound. There was a large solitary
drop of blood on the palm, at the root of the thumb; but, of course,
that was no great wonder, for the wound the dead man had dealt himself
had bled freely. Apparently death had not been quite instantaneous, for with a last
effort the Professor seemed to have traced an _X_ upon the floor in his
own blood with his forefinger. The doctor mentioned this at the
inquest--the coroner had decided at once that in this case an inquest
was certainly necessary--and he suggested that it showed the Professor
had worked too hard and was suffering from overwork which had disturbed
his mental balance. The coroner took the same view, and in his short address to the jury
adduced the incident as proof of a passing mental disturbance. "Very probably," said the coroner, "there was some problem that had
worried him, and that he was still endeavouring to work out. As you are
aware, gentlemen, the sign _X_ is used to symbolise the unknown
quantity." An appropriate verdict was accordingly returned, and the Professor was
duly interred in the same family vault as that in which so short a time
previously his cousin had been laid to rest. II

THE ARMLESS MAN


I first met Bob Masters in the hotel at a place called Fourteen Streams,
not very far from Kimberley. I had for some months been trying to find gold or diamonds by digging
holes in the veldt. But since this has little or nothing to do with the
story, I pass by my mining adventures and come back to the hotel. I came
to it very readily that afternoon, for I was very thirsty. A tall man standing at the bar turned his head as I entered and said
"Good-day" to me. I returned the compliment, but took no particular
notice of him at first. Suddenly I heard the man say to the barman:

"I'm ready for another drink." That surprised me, because his glass was still three-quarters full. But
I was still more startled by the action of the barman who lifted up the
glass and held it whilst the man drank. Then I saw the reason. The man had no arms. You know the easy way in which Englishmen chum together anywhere out of
England, whilst in their native country nothing save a formal
introduction will make them acquainted? I made some remark to Masters
which led to another from him, and in five minutes' time we were
chatting on all sorts of topics. I learnt that Masters, bound for England, had come in to Fourteen
Streams to catch the train from Kimberley, and, having a few hours to
wait, had strolled up to the collection of tin huts calling itself a
town. I was going down to Kimberley too, so of course we went together, and
were quite old friends by the time we reached that city. We had a wash and something to eat, and then we walked round to the
post-office. I used to have my letters addressed there, _poste
restante_, and call in for them when I happened to be in Kimberley. I found several letters, one of which altered the whole course of my
life. This was from Messrs. Harvey, Filson, and Harvey, solicitors,
Lincoln's Inn Fields. It informed me that the sudden death of my cousin
had so affected my uncle's health that he had followed his only son
within the month. The senior branch of the family being thus extinct the
whole of the entailed estate had devolved on me. The first thing I did was to send off two cablegrams to say that I was
coming home by the first available boat, one to the solicitors, the
other to Nancy Milward. Masters and I arranged to come home together and eventually reached Cape
Town. There we had considerable trouble at the shipping office. It was
just about the time of year when people who live in Africa to make
money, come over to England to spend it, and in consequence the boats
were very crowded. Masters demanded a cabin to himself, a luxury which
was not to be had, though there was one that he and I could share. He
made a tremendous fuss about doing this, and I thought it very strange,
because I had assisted him in many ways which his mutilation rendered
necessary. However, he had to give way in the end, and we embarked on
the Castle liner. On the voyage he told me how he had lost his arms. It seemed that he had
been sent up country on some Government job or other, and had had the
ill-fortune to be captured by the natives. They treated him quite well
at first, but gave him to understand that he must not try to escape. I
suppose that to most men such a warning would be a direct incitement to
make the attempt. Masters made it and failed. They cut off his right arm
as a punishment. He waited until the wound was healed and tried again. Again he failed. This time they cut off his other arm. "Good Lord," I cried. "What devils!" "Weren't they!" he said. "And yet, you know, they were quite
good-tempered chaps when you didn't cross them. I wasn't going to be
beaten by a lot of naked niggers though, and I made a third attempt. "I succeeded all right that time, though, of course, it was much more
difficult. I really don't know at all how I managed to worry through.