Next I found a considerable number of notes, which were in large part unintelligible to me and perhaps to anyone except the man who made them. There were many abbreviations in them, and very often they were illegible. They included descriptions of a number of people with outlandish names, and particulars as to where and how it was supposed they were to be found. Unfortunately, it was just in these particulars that the abbreviations and illegibility made the difficulties of the reader most serious. There were also recorded the movements, or a great part of the movements, of a personage called “X.” in the months June to September in the year 1882.
Further, on a separate sheet of paper, I found an indication of the reason why Peters had desisted from his pursuit of that person X. whom I thought myself able to identify. This sheet of paper was headed “Description given me of the convict Arkell executed at Singapore in November, 1882.” The description corresponded very well with that given in the journal of the presumable murderer of Longhurst, and so far as it went it seemed to show that the convict Arkell might well have been confused with the successful and respected financier, William Vane-Cartwright. At the foot of the paper was a note, with the dates queried, as to the time when Arkell had been, as he seems to have been, on the island of Sulu.
There was also among these papers one which began, “These, so far as I can recollect them, are the facts told me by MacAndrew in regard to the agreements made in 1880 between X. and L.” MacAndrew’s story had apparently related to changes made in the draft of the agreement, at the instance of X., which MacAndrew evidently thought that L. had not understood. The note seemed to have been finished in haste and to have left out some important facts, which Peters no doubt carried in his memory. A lawyer, among my friends, tells me that without these facts it is impossible to be certain what exactly was the trick which X. played upon L., and that it is even possible to suppose that there was no dishonesty at all in his proceedings.
XIV
Towards the end of November, 1896, I again saw Callaghan. I had some time before ascertained that he had returned to London, and I daresay it may appear to the reader strange that I should not immediately upon his return have sought him out and again compared notes with him. But (not to mention that I had no reason, so far, to set great store upon Callaghan’s observations and theories) it must be remembered that I had received a very grave warning as to his possible character. It is a serious matter for a father of a family to enter into intimate relations with a gentleman who, according to an eminent specialist, is a homicidal lunatic. So I made first a few enquiries from acquaintances of his in regard to his character and recent proceedings. For a while I intended to put off seeing him till a time, which I was now unhappily compelled to foresee, when my wife and children would be safe out of the country. But in the end my enquiries and my wife’s absolute conviction satisfied me that the idea of his lunacy was really, as I had at first supposed, quite unfounded and foolish.
Anyway, I at last invited Callaghan to stay for a couple of days in our new home. He accepted, but for one night only. He arrived in the afternoon full of his Parisian adventures and to a less extent of his detective researches. With these, or with an adorned version of them, he entertained me for an hour or so before dinner. It seems that his sudden departure for Paris was not altogether motiveless. He had, on his arrival in London, heard by some accident of a gentleman in Paris who was a correspondent and intimate of Thalberg. He had immediately conceived the notion of scraping acquaintance with this gentleman and using him as a means of information about Thalberg, and he was further drawn towards Paris by a fancy that he would like to study French methods of criminal investigation, into which, through the good offices of some friends of his, he thought he could get some insight. In the latter respect he was gratified. Now it seems that he had already begun before Peters’ death to cherish the ambition of getting high employment in the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard. So it came to pass that his studies in the science of criminal investigation generally, occupied more of his attention from that time till our present meeting than the particular investigation which had at first fascinated him. Moreover, before he had been long in Paris he discovered, to his huge amusement, that he was himself the subject of suspicion and of close observation, and without regard to how this might affect his cherished ambition of an appointment at Scotland Yard, he entered upon, and continued during three whole months, an elaborate scheme of mystification for the French
