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The Case of Euphemia Raphash ........................................................................................................................1

"The Doctor, sirsaw him with my own eyeshe is on foot must have passed through the north park

I ran to the lawn; saw him slowly coming in the old frockcoat of thin stuff, his eyes studying the ground.

I said nothing more, nor he. For the first time in his life he felt fearfear to ask the question which I felt fear

We passed into the gloomy halfruined pile, an ancient place, the home of a race most ancient. In the little

room we called "study", he seated himself on the divan, and with perfect composure said:

His face was stone; but he sallowed. After a time I distinctly heard him mutter:

I see him now; spare and small, mighty in forehead, which at the top was thinly covered with a cropped

irongrey scrub: thick, tight lips; sallow, shaven face; and those eyes, grey, so unquiet, never for an instant of

life ceasing the internal inquisition in which they wandered fro and to, down, and up, and round.

A name high in the view of the world was hisas an apostle of science, as hierophant among the

archpriests of learning. During the fifteen years I had acted as his secretary, we had produced nine books,

each monumental in its way. His activities in the domain of thought were, in fact, immeasurablethough I

will not say that they were continuous; or, at least, not continuous so far as I was concerned; for the doctor

would ever and anon leave me, perhaps in the midst of some work, and without warning snatch himself

wholly for long weeks from Raphash Towers; nor could I then determine whether sarcophagi of old Egyptian

dynasties had lured him overseas, or excavations at Mycenae, or the enticements of Khorsabad and Balbec. I

knew only that he had quietly and mysteriously disappeared; that he as quietly returned in due course to his

An old housekeeper and myself, beside the Doctor and Miss Euphemia, were the only inmates of the old

mansion. We occupied an insignificant portion of the ground floor of one of the immense wings. Never

visitor broke our solitude, except a gentleman whose calls always corresponded with the Doctor's absences.

The lengthy teteatetes of this personage with Miss Euphemia led me to suspect an old flame, to which the

Miss Euphemia was a lady of fortyfive years, taller than her brother, but remarkably like him. She, too, had

become learned by dint of reading the Doctor's books. For the life of me I cannot now say how it was, for

they hardly ever exchanged a word, but I had gradually arrived at the conviction that each of these two lives

Yet for three weeks the newspapers had been discussing her singular disappearance, and he, of all others,

knew not one word of the matter! He looked at me through halfclosed lids, and said, with that utter dryness

I answered: "I was away in London on business connected with your Shropshire seat, and can only repeat the

depositions of old Mrs. Grant. Miss Raphash had, strange to say, been persuaded to attend the funeral of a

lady, known to her in youth, at Ringlethorpe; and, staying afterwards with the mourning friends, did not

return till midnight. She wore, it seems, some old family jewels. By one, however, the house was in darkness;

and it was an hour later that a scream shrilled through the night. Mrs. Grant was able to light a candle, and

had opened her door, when she dimly saw a man rushing towards her with some singular weapon in his hand

which flashed vividly in the halfdarka small, wiry man, she thinks. She had but time to slam her door,

when he dashed himself frantically against it, whereupon she fancies she heard the angry remonstrance of

another voice. Here, however, her evidence is vague; hours later when she woke to consciousness, she rushed

"Clearly he was. He, or they, took other things, valuables from your room and mine to the amount of four

"Quite certainly not. The park has been subjected to too minute a scrutiny for that."

"Not in the house, and again not in the grounds. It was for some ghastly reason conveyed away."

"Noif the most recondite search in the darkest recesses of the mansion are of any value."

"One. It would seem that the assassin, or one of them, before gaining entrance, drew off his boots, and on

"No. Had his foot, as measured by his boot, been onethird as small, it could never have been urged into a

"And yet Mrs. Grant says he was a small man; it is peculiar he should have so immense a foot."

"Yet I incline to the oneman theory; for through some failure of courage or memory, one might leave the

jewels, but hardly two. Mrs Grant, distracted, may have mistaken his stature; and in the course of my

anthropological experience, I have even come across that very discrepancy between man and footan

"But that is a clue!" he said. "I have the man in my grasp. Have you now told me everything?"

"Tall, blackdressed, middleaged, with sidewhiskers. I have seem him here when you have been away.

Mrs. Grant says that Miss Raphash spoke to him with some show of anger, though no words could be made

"It is not impossible," he continued after a while, "that deeps, black to the eye of a policeman, may lighten to

Science had taught the Doctor to labour without the stimulus of expectancy. On this hopeless search we spent

several hours in the mouldy vastnesses of the house; in the solemn silence of old Tudor wings which perhaps

no foot had set abarking with echoes for centuries; deep down in the nitrecrusted vaults. We came at

length to an old room on the second floor of the south wing overlooking a patch of garden, rank now with

shrubs. The chamber was very damp and gloomy; its tapestries of Arras had mouldered to grey shreds. The

Doctor had partly used it as a depository: here were stacked bones of mammoths, embrya in flasks, fossils,

spongiadae, implements of stone, iron, and bronze. Along one side was a vast oaken chest, carved, black with

centuries of age. It, as well as a secret recess behind a panel in the wall, contained piles of bones methodically

The lock of the door was of peculiar construction, and the Doctor had the key always about him. I could not

He glanced at me, and passed in doggedly. Through the grime of the window light hardly entered. Here a

piece of old armour, there a cinerary urn of Etruria showed in the gloom its grey freckles of fungus; a dank

"The catch of the window seems awry: notice the dust on the floor; does it not look "

He opened the window. Below was the stone balcony of the first floor of the wing; and from it to a point near

the window a tin rain spout ran up. It was among the bushes of the garden beneath the balcony that the

"He climbed up, you see, by the spout," said the Doctor. "The feat seems superhuman: but there is the spout,

and here is the turned windowcatch. We must confront phenomena as we find them."

"She is not in here, now?" he said, and tapped the oaken chest with his knuckles.

"No, Doctor, she is not in there. The man does not live who could force the centuryold secret of that riveted

We went out, and he locked the old silences and solitudes within the room once more. Men of great minds

undertake tasks which, from their very vastness, seem nothing less than silly to men of smaller gauge. The

region of the impossible, indeed, is the true sphereofaction of genius. But, on the other hand, the crowd

may be excused if, observing this, they become sometimes incredulous, resentful, and even cachinatory.

And, I confess, it was not without resentment that I listened to Doctor Raphash as he said to me:

"Let us find him, Parkerthe murderer of my sisterthe secreter of her body. This is a task we must not

leave to the crude intellects of the recognized authorities. Let us hunt him downand, after that, we shall

But his method, at least, was singular. To acquire personal intimacy with the whole criminal class of London

is an undertaking, if possible, at all events far from light. Yet this was his notion. In a few months we had

learned a new language, become acclimatized denizens of a new worldthe language and the world of the

East of London. Our dress was the dress of the "navvy"; our habits those of the ne'erdowell.

And now most wondrously were revealed to me ineffable deeps in Doctor Raphash's character. The intensity

of this hatred of an unknown man to me seemed hellish. "Let us hunt him down." His life became the

incarnation of that sentence. It was the man of science turned beast of prey, but retaining the perfect scientific

calm; an intensity bordering on lunacy shrouding itself behind the serenity of oceandepths; the avenging

Days and nights we spent in public houses, gamblinghells, cells of pawnbrokers, with roughs at

slumcorners, stormy crowds at musichall doors. We were boon companions of men who related to one

another without secrecy or shameblush their achievements in every species of crime. In the morning we

parted; to compare late at night notes of the day's haps. Then far into the morning hours I would hear the slow

soft tread of that divine patience to and fro in his room near mine. This, and a heightened glare in his eyes,

"Oh, he must fish for hisself, he must. I took his boots, the last thing I've got, to the pawn this morning, and

"S'help me. I nearly tore his eyes out over them same boots. I buys my lord a sevenandeleven pair in the

summer and sends him hoppicking in them; two months ago he turns up with his own boot on the right foot

"There's where the provoking part of it comes in. Every time I asks him about it, it's 'Drop it, mate', and 'Drop

it, I tell you, mate.' He was on the job, you may bet, got into some scrape, and now dursn't say nothink about

I need not mention the steps by which, in halfanhour, I had become the bosom friend of these two women.

The time, place, and circumstances of the boots profoundly impressed me, and when I parted from them I felt

assured that the name and address I had obtained were those of the man we sought. When Doctor Raphash

returned, haggard and pallid, to our little garret that night, I pressed his hand.

"I have heard something that may have some bearing on the case." I told him the incident.

"Not at all! Tonight, mannownowis the time to find what we seek"and he stamped on the floor.

I glanced, startled, at him. The action seemed like a sign of the breakup of that supernal serenity which

We passed out, I taking the precaution to bring with me a Colt's revolver. When, by the way of endless

"There is no light, you see; he is, probably, still out. Suppose you wait till he comes; then speak, take him

under the lamp there, see the boots, and ask him to drink with you. I, waiting at yonder corner, will then join

Flakes of snow drifted downwards. I walked sentinelwise; the Doctor crouched still at his post. From a

Swedish chapel I heard the strokes of twelve, and at the same moment a workingman approached me.

His teeth chatteredhis face wore a blue hue. Turnedup coatcollar, and buried hands, and forward pose,

The light fell upon him. A sense of contempt and disappointment overcame me at the sight of his weak face,

sheepish blue eyes. But there, at any rate, were the counterparts of the odd boots I had handed over to the

The Doctor had slowly approached us, and was in the middle of the road when Hardy, glancing, saw him.

His eyes glared; he tottered, livid, against a railing; then, suddenly taking to his heels, fled, as for dear life,

The Doctor followed, and then I. And now powers of physique, as unexpected as previously depths of soul in

my old friend, stood visible to me. He distanced me. His feet grew winged. Hardy, indeed, had an advantage

in his knowledge of the intricate grimy courts down which he dodged. Sometimes for a moment he

disappeared. But the Doctor slowly gained upon him, "hunting him down'. The streets were all but deserted.

Suddenly Hardy dashed into a culdesac. The house at the end was empty, every window broken. If the

fugitive, then, could gain an entrance his escape by the back was safe. I judged that this was the house for

which he had all along been making. On reaching it, Hardy dashed down the area steps to a basement below

This I was far from willing to do, but it was already too late; for Hardy had disappeared. A minute afterwards

we, too, had rushed down the steps, and through a gatelike door passed into a low, wide, damp cellar of

which the ground was a soft, powdery earth covering our ankles. There was no other visible means of egress,

and I was looking about for Hardy, when the gatedoor banged suddenly behind us, and a bar clanged down

So that we were prisoners. That the man had entered the cellar was certain, and also that he had found some

means of leaving it other than the door. But here our knowledge ended. The darkness was Erebus itself;

whole clouds rose with every step and choked us; and the intensity of damp cold, after our run, hardly made

speech possible. I groped round the walls, fired my revolver; but the flash revealed nothing but a portion of

unhewn wall and low ceiling; I shouted at the door; but the neighbouring houses were ruinsan echo

Towards the early morning I received, I confess, a thrilling shock of horror from Doctor Raphash. That he

was not himself, that he suffered far more than I, became apparent. Once or twice only had he spoken through

the night, sitting crouched in the dust of a corner, his knees bent up, his head buried in his arms. By palpation

I walked for warmth to and fro, treading warily on the dust. A deep groan drew me to him: my cold fingers

An hour, and I knew that he was stalking swiftly up and down the whole length of the cellar; swiftly! filling it

with a continuous convolute reek of the brown incense of the dust. Long I stood, noting his faint sounds as he

came near, losing them, following in fancy his cloudy progress, determining that now he was here, now there,

now yonder. His disjointed mutterings guided me. He seemed oblivious of my presence.

When the air had finally become unbreatheable, I moved to go to him. My head came into contact with

something, which on seizing I found to be a rope pendant from the ceiling. Unable to guess its purpose, I

succeeded after many efforts in climbing it. My head struck the ceiling. Groping round with my hand, I

encountered what seemed like the inner panels of a trapdoor. The means of Hardy's escape flashed upon me. I

pushed with my knuckles, and a thin stream of light entered. In another minute I was free on the other

A strange, pallid face looked up at me, rolling wild eyes. I drew him up, and together we passed out to the

"Parker!"his breath came in gasps"be a leech in your tenacityas you love me, man! Hunt him down!

And before I could surge from the depths of maze and stupor into which the hissed words had plunged me, he

After Dr. Raphash's mysterious desertion of our quest when success seemed near, I simply returned to the

Towers, and waited. I now, in fact, considered my duty done when I had described to the police the fellow

It was a month later that I observed one evening, as I walked about the grounds, that a man, hearing my

approaching footsteps, had ducked his head from my sight in a clump of bushesthe very bushes, by the

"Do not run, simply rise, and hold your hands over your head. I happen to be armedand you see the dog."

The crack of a pistol would have much less surprised me than the hangdog air with which he rose before

"Well, Charles, you must come with me," I said. I led him by the arm into a room of the house, instructing

Mrs. Grant at the entrance to send for a couple of the rather distant local police. I then closed the door, and

"Now, Hardy," I said, "dry your tears, and tell me how came you in those bushes tonight."

"I was looking for the rings and things. It was hunger drove methey've been hunting me like an animal for

"The rings I dropped in those bushes. I thought that, anyway, one of them might by chance be left there still."

"Yes, master, I admit it. It was my first, and it will be my last. I haven't had a moment's peace since. I even

"Murder, master?" he cried with scared face"murder! Why, it wasn't me who did the murder, it was one of

"I and a mate of mine, sir, came down hoppicking. He was a wild chap, and hops was too slow for him; so

he says to me as how some of these country houses was mere child's play, with plenty to be got, and not

much danger, besides. He was one of those chaps it's no use saying 'no' to, so one night here we stood behind

the old shed on the other side, waiting till the old lady was well asleep, when all of a sudden, as if he'd sprung

from the ground, this old gent stood between us. I started running; he looked like a spirit to me; but Jim, who

was more bolder like than me, he stands his ground; soon he whistles to me, and when I come up, he ses,

''Ere's a lark, Charlie,' ses he, 'the old chap's on the job hisself!' 'Partnership's a leaky ship, Jim,' ses I; but he

only ses, 'Oh, bother, live and let live.' Well, pretty soon I and Jim take our boots off, and we all get inside.

No sooner inside, than the old man takes the lead, showing the way, telling us what to do, and me and Jim

does everything he tells us, quite nat'ral like. He knew every crick of the place; and first he takes us into a

room, and ses he, quite wild like, 'Plunder now! raven and harry! to your souls' content!' And then he reaches

down a case from a shelf, and takes out a strange, shiny knife, locks the case againI believe he had keys to

every lock in the placeand rushes out of the room into the one opposite. 'Queer chap, that,' ses Jim, looking

queer hisself, 'makes me feel shivery all over', and before I could tell him I felt sure the man was a devil or a

ghost, we hear a struggle in the opposite rooma gasping for breathand then a long shriek which I ain't

ever going to forget while I live. Immediately after, out he flies with blazing eyes, and dashes hisself against

the other old woman's door yonder. Jim, sweating cold, plucks up courage to reason with him a bit, and at last

he runs back to the murdered lady, and dashes out again with her in his arms, light as a feather, a gash

showing right across her chest, her grey hair trailing on the ground. And now he comes up to us, and quite

lofty like ses he, 'Marshal yourselves before memarch! march! and I will lead you where trophies and

treasures lie thickheaped for yer 'arvesting!' His words is branded into my brain. And then he makes us walk

before him right across the building into the other wing and up two flights of stairs, till we come to a dusty

room with a lot of bones of dead peopleand there, oh great God! hide me! theretherethere he is! He

He started wildly about, rushed behind my chair, and crouched down there. The man's shriek of panic horror

thrilled me through, and as the ponderous door swung slowly wide on its hinges, and Dr. Raphash calmly

"Well, Parker," he said in the old callous dry voice, "here I am again, you see. But whom have we . . . the

murderer caught at last, surely!" and triumph lighted his eyes as they rested on Hardy, who, pale and panting,

"Yes, the murderer!" gasped Hardy, "but that's not me! Oh, there's plenty of proofs if it comes to that! That

long coat is the very one you worehave you washed out the bloodsplash on the sleeve yet?"

Dr. Raphash sat, barely smiling, examining the face of Hardy. Presently he looked at his arm.

"It is a remarkable thing," he said, speaking to himself: "I have noticed a stain here on my sleeve; it cannot be

"It is blood," continued Hardy, gaining courage from the Doctor's calm"you know it is, or perhaps you

were too mad that night to know anything. Who but a madman would have carried the lady's body all the

distance to that old chest; and there, didn't you chase Jim round and round the room and stab him like a dog,

because you said one body wasn't enough to fill the chest? And if I hadn't slipped down to the balcony by a

spout, wouldn't you have killed me, too; and didn't you look out of the window and tell me to prepare myself

because you was coming, and didn't I have to jump from the balcony to the ground, rolling over, and

dropping all the things I had; and didn't I just have time to draw on two of the boots when you came down

I was looking at Dr. Raphash; during this categorical charge, no sound had issued from his lips; gradually a

yellow pallor as of death had overspread his features, and the muscles of his face became tense and fixed; his

head drooped forward, and his arms and legs stretched stiffly from his body; the cold stony glare in his eyes

I ran and seized the clammy fingers in mine; but he did not recognize me. So he remained for several

Then, still rigid in all his limbs, he raised his head, and let it drop heavily over the back of the chair; and, with

the action, there burst from his blanched lipshigher and higher, peal on peal, in horrid articulation, in

shrillest staccatoa carillon of maniac laughter. When this had passed, his whole face slowly settled into the

With creeping flesh, I seized Hardy by the arm, rushedfaintfrom the room, and locked the door upon the

In this way Dr. Arnot Raphash hunted down the murderer of his sister; and so, with him, fell the Jewish

When I tell you that I am the proprietor of the private asylum from which this letter is dated,

and a cousin of Dr. Raphash, you will at once conjecture that his (to you) unaccountable

absences from home always corresponded with his voluntary sojourns in my establishment.

He well knew the warning symptomshead pains, a high temperature, etc.and he usually

had two or three days grace before the definite onset of the malady. Sometimes, again, the

attack was more sudden, especially when preceded by any excitement; thus, when he reached

my establishment a month ago he was already mad, and I at once guessed some previous

violent agitation.... His first paroxysm occurred at the age of thirty, when he destroyed a

justmarried wife by locking her in a room filled by him with a poisonous gas. In the sane

state he had no recollection of his insane acts, which were distinguished by their cunning and

a strongly marked homicidal mania, directed chiefly against those for whom he most cared.

He never knew of his wife's fate, for he was at once placed under my care, and on returning

home found her buried.... When he was leaving me, "cured", after the death of his sister, I

deemed it prudent to say nothing to him of the tragedy, preferring that the journey to the

Towers should intervene before the shock of the news fell on his newly restored powers;

hence his ignorance of the matter.... You have probably seen me on my visits to Miss

Raphash when the Doctor was away from home; their object was to give that minute report

of her brother which alone could satisfy her. On the very day of the tragedy I had a somewhat

angry dispute with her respecting the expediency of putting her brother into irons, she

deprecating, I insisting. Unfortunately, I allowed her to influence me, and her death was the

result.... It is now beyond all doubt that the Doctor escaped from my establishment on that

night, though how he contrived to pass out of the house and grounds and into them again

without detection is yet unexplained; but to his cunning, as I have hinted, there were

positively no bounds.... I need only add that I shall soon haveI may almost say the

pleasureof announcing to you the death of Dr. Raphash. He may still, indeed, linger for a