"By repeating the latter process many times, a gradual and symmetrical
shrinkage was produced until the head had dwindled to the size of a
man's fist or even smaller, leaving the features, however, practically
unaltered. Finally he decorated the little head with bright-colored
feathers--the Mundurucús were very clever at feather work--and fastened
the lips together with a string, by which the head was suspended from
the eaves of his hut or from the beams of the council house.

"It was highly ingenious. The question was whether heads so preserved
would be of any use for the study of facial characters. I had intended
to get a dead monkey from Jamrach's and experiment in the process. But
now it seemed that the monkey would be unnecessary if only the
preparation could be produced without injuring the skull; and I had no
doubt that, with due care and skill, it could.

"At daybreak I went down to the dining-room. The policeman was dozing in
his chair; there was a good deal of cigar-ash about, and the
whiskey-decanter was less full than it had been, though not unreasonably
so. I roused up the officer and dismissed him with a final cigar and
what he called an 'eye-opener'--about two fluid-ounces. When he had gone
I let myself into the museum lobby. The burglar was quite dead and
beginning to stiffen. That was satisfactory; but was he the right man? I
snipped off a little tuft of hair and carried it to the laboratory where
the microscope stood on the bench under its bell-glass. I laid one or
two hairs on a slide with a drop of glycerine and placed the slide on
the stage of the microscope. Now was the critical moment. I applied my
eye to the instrument and brought the objective into focus.

"Alas! The hairs were uniformly colored with brown pigment! He was the
wrong man.