may throw some fresh light on it.




III

THE HOUSEMAID'S FOLLOWERS


The contrast in effect between suspicion and certainty is very curious
to observe. When I had walked through the private museum of my poor
friend Challoner and had looked at the large collection of human
skeletons that it contained, a suspicion that there was something queer
about those skeletons had made me quite uncomfortable. Now, after
reading his first narrative, I knew all about them. They were the relics
of criminals whom he had taken red-handed and preserved for the
instruction of posterity. Thus were my utmost suspicions verified, and
yet, strange as it may seem, with the advent of certainty, my horror of
them vanished. Even the hideous little doll-like heads induced but a
passing shudder. Vague, half superstitious awe gave place to scientific
interest.

I took an early opportunity of renewing my acquaintance with the
astonishing and gruesome "Museum Archives." The second narrative was
headed "Anthropological Series, 2, 3 and 4." It exhibited the same
singular outlook as the first, showing that to Challoner the criminal
had not appeared to be a human being at all, but merely a sub-human form,
anatomically similar to man.