But I knew in my heart that all would come right,
and that I should arrange their future as I expected to arrange that of
my kind doctor, John Archer. However, I should never have troubled
myself about visiting them just then, had it not been, as I say, that
the music of the tinkling hammer had for me this strong fascination. I
would sit for hours, listening and listening, and when a stray sunbeam
struck the inlaid steel, the sensation it gave me was almost too keen
to endure. My eyes would become fixed, dilating with a pleasure that
stretched every nerve almost to breaking, until some movement of the
old armourer cut off the ray of sunlight, then, still thrilling
secretly, I leaned back and listened again to the sound of the
polishing rag, swish! swish! rubbing rust from the rivets. Constance worked with the embroidery over her knees, now and then pausing
to examine more closely the pattern in the coloured plate from the
Metropolitan Museum. "Who is this for?" I asked. Hawberk explained, that in addition to the treasures of armour in the
Metropolitan Museum of which he had been appointed armourer, he also
had charge of several collections belonging to rich amateurs. This was the
missing greave of a famous suit which a client of his had traced to a
little shop in Paris on the Quai d'Orsay. He, Hawberk, had negotiated for
and secured the greave, and now the suit was complete. He laid down his
hammer and read me the history of the suit, traced since 1450 from owner
to owner until it was acquired by Thomas Stainbridge. When his superb
collection was sold, this client of Hawberk's bought the suit, and since
then the search for the missing greave had been pushed until it was,
almost by accident, located in Paris. "Did you continue the search so persistently without any certainty of the
greave being still in existence?" I demanded. "Of course," he replied coolly. Then for the first time I took a personal interest in Hawberk. "It was worth something to you," I ventured. "No," he replied, laughing, "my pleasure in finding it was my reward." "Have you no ambition to be rich?" I asked, smiling. "My one ambition is to be the best armourer in the world," he answered
gravely. Constance asked me if I had seen the ceremonies at the Lethal Chamber. She herself had noticed cavalry passing up Broadway that morning, and had
wished to see the inauguration, but her father wanted the banner
finished, and she had stayed at his request. "Did you see your cousin, Mr. Castaigne, there?" she asked, with the
slightest tremor of her soft eyelashes. "No," I replied carelessly. "Louis' regiment is manoeuvring out in
Westchester County." I rose and picked up my hat and cane. "Are you going upstairs to see the lunatic again?" laughed old Hawberk. If Hawberk knew how I loathe that word "lunatic," he would never use it
in my presence. It rouses certain feelings within me which I do not care
to explain. However, I answered him quietly: "I think I shall drop in and
see Mr. Wilde for a moment or two." "Poor fellow," said Constance, with a shake of the head, "it must be hard
to live alone year after year poor, crippled and almost demented. It is
very good of you, Mr. Castaigne, to visit him as often as you do." "I think he is vicious," observed Hawberk, beginning again with his
hammer. I listened to the golden tinkle on the greave plates; when he had
finished I replied:

"No, he is not vicious, nor is he in the least demented. His mind is a
wonder chamber, from which he can extract treasures that you and I would
give years of our life to acquire."' Hawberk laughed. I continued a little impatiently: "He knows history as no one else could
know it. Nothing, however trivial, escapes his search, and his memory is
so absolute, so precise in details, that were it known in New York that
such a man existed, the people could not honour him enough." "Nonsense," muttered Hawberk, searching on the floor for a fallen rivet. "Is it nonsense," I asked, managing to suppress what I felt, "is it
nonsense when he says that the tassets and cuissards of the enamelled
suit of armour commonly known as the 'Prince's Emblazoned' can be found
among a mass of rusty theatrical properties, broken stoves and
ragpicker's refuse in a garret in Pell Street?" Hawberk's hammer fell to the ground, but he picked it up and asked, with
a great deal of calm, how I knew that the tassets and left cuissard were
missing from the "Prince's Emblazoned." "I did not know until Mr. Wilde mentioned it to me the other day. He said
they were in the garret of 998 Pell Street." "Nonsense," he cried, but I noticed his hand trembling under his leathern
apron. "Is this nonsense too?" I asked pleasantly, "is it nonsense when Mr.
Wilde continually speaks of you as the Marquis of Avonshire and of Miss
Constance--"

I did not finish, for Constance had started to her feet with terror
written on every feature. Hawberk looked at me and slowly smoothed his
leathern apron. "That is impossible," he observed, "Mr. Wilde may know a great many
things--"

"About armour, for instance, and the 'Prince's Emblazoned,'" I
interposed, smiling. "Yes," he continued, slowly, "about armour also--may be--but he is wrong
in regard to the Marquis of Avonshire, who, as you know, killed his
wife's traducer years ago, and went to Australia where he did not long
survive his wife." "Mr. Wilde is wrong," murmured Constance. Her lips were blanched, but her
voice was sweet and calm. "Let us agree, if you please, that in this one circumstance Mr. Wilde is
wrong," I said. II

I climbed the three dilapidated flights of stairs, which I had so often
climbed before, and knocked at a small door at the end of the corridor. Mr. Wilde opened the door and I walked in. When he had double-locked the door and pushed a heavy chest against it,
he came and sat down beside me, peering up into my face with his little
light-coloured eyes. Half a dozen new scratches covered his nose and
cheeks, and the silver wires which supported his artificial ears had
become displaced. I thought I had never seen him so hideously
fascinating. He had no ears. The artificial ones, which now stood out at
an angle from the fine wire, were his one weakness. They were made of wax
and painted a shell pink, but the rest of his face was yellow. He might
better have revelled in the luxury of some artificial fingers for his
left hand, which was absolutely fingerless, but it seemed to cause him no
inconvenience, and he was satisfied with his wax ears. He was very small,
scarcely higher than a child of ten, but his arms were magnificently
developed, and his thighs as thick as any athlete's. Still, the most
remarkable thing about Mr. Wilde was that a man of his marvellous
intelligence and knowledge should have such a head. It was flat and
pointed, like the heads of many of those unfortunates whom people
imprison in asylums for the weak-minded. Many called him insane, but I
knew him to be as sane as I was.