the detective was not sorry when, a little later, he found that the ladies had prevailed upon the count to accompany them on their trip ashore; and that, therefore, he would be left alone on the yacht with maxwell kane. and, as soon as the yacht was deserted, save for themselves and the crew, the two friends lost no time in getting into the bathing-suits.
before either of them dived into the depths of the water, however, nick dropped into one of the chairs under the awning and motioned to kane to take the seat beside him.
“we have plenty of time,” he said, “and i would like to get a few more whiffs out of this cigar before i throw it away. tell me, max, how do you account for that resemblance?”
“what resemblance?”
“between the pirate and the count.”
“why, i have not thought to try to account for it. i suppose it is one of those extraordinary coincidences which are always inexplicable.”
“did you ever happen to run across a coincidence which was entirely inexplicable, max?” asked nick.
“why, yes, i think so.”
“well, i have not.”
“eh? what do you mean?”
[41]
“i meant that the things we denominate by the rather vague term ‘coincidence’ inevitably have a direct relation between them, if you take the trouble to trace each one to its original source.”
“which means—what?”
“which means that, according to my theory, there should be something more than now appears on the surface to explain this unaccountable resemblance between the pirate and the count.”
“surely, nick, you don’t mean to accuse the count of——”
“i don’t mean to accuse anybody of anything. i am merely endeavoring to explain a circumstance which strikes me as being remarkable, to say the least.”
“but, nick——”
“wait, please. if you had been the only one to notice the resemblance, i should have paid no attention whatever to it.”
“thanks, awfully!”
“i don’t mean my remark that way, max. i do mean that your unsupported theory in that respect would not have been of sufficient importance to have attracted my attention. i should, in that case, have regarded it merely as a phantom of your own brain.”
“i see what you are getting at.”
“no, you don’t—yet. not quite.”
“well, go ahead, then, and explain.”
“let us look at the thing calmly, candidly, and logically.”
“certainly.”
[42]
“you have known—and so have i—circumstances where you have thought a child to exactly resemble its father, while another person would be equally strong in the belief that it hadn’t a trace of its father about it, but, on the contrary, was a picture of its mother.”
“hundreds of them.”
“again, we might go out some evening, and, while we were together, meet with a person of whom i would say, ‘max, that young woman reminds me of your wife’s sister,’ and i would be surprised when you replied that they were no more alike than chalk and cheese. you know of instances of that kind, eh?”
“loads of them.”
“and i don’t suppose it ever occurred to you to make any effort to explain this seemingly remarkable diversity of opinion upon a very simple and apparently plain subject, eh?”
“no, save that i have always let it go with the private opinion that the other fellow was not half as observant as i.”
“exactly. but if you had chosen to investigate, you would have discovered a well-defined reason for the difference of opinion.”
“humph! well, i never thought about it. what is it?”
“this: no human being appears exactly the same to one acquaintance or friend as he does to another. to make it more plain, there are no two persons in the world to whom your personality, and therefore your appearance, is the same. the count does not look at[43] you through the same glasses that i use. the captain of your yacht does not know you as your engineer knows you, and vice versa. you have as many personalities as you have associates, acquaintances, friends—what you will.”
“i will grant you that; but what has all this to do with the particular case we are discussing?”
“much, if you will wait till i finish.”
“all right, old man; go ahead.”
“associated with every person alive there are points of resemblance which might be denominated common property. another person who has been introduced to the count, as i have been this morning, would recognize him as i would, also, if they happened to encounter each other on the street; but, if you should dress the count up in a costume similar to the one the pirate wore, there is not one out of ten who would even be reminded of the count at such an encounter, unless he made some gesture—not one, but several, mind you—which would bring him to mind. i don’t know if i make myself plain.”
“oh, yes, you do—entirely so!”
“now, if, on the other hand, it was expected that the count would appear in some such outlandish costume, the whole ten would recognize him at once—see?”
“yes.”
“oliver wendell holmes tells us that when john and thomas encounter each other on the highway, there are six persons talking.”
[44]
“how is that? you are getting beyond me now.”
“there is john as he thinks he is, john as thomas thinks he is, and john as god knows he is; and there is thomas as he thinks he is, thomas as john thinks he is, and thomas as god knows he is. so, you see, there are six, quite plainly.”
“well, nick?”
“when that pirate chief came aboard this yacht, while he was standing here on the deck with you, his personality was like his face, masked.”
“exactly.”
“when your wife’s sister came on the deck, she sought at once—as any other person would have done—to pierce that mask.”
“yes.”
“her impressions were not coerced in any direction by misgivings. she had not been frightened; she did not know that there was occasion for fear of any kind; her first idea of the affair was that it was some sort of a hoax.”
“yes.”
“and in her first effort to pierce that mask which the pirate wore over his personality, if i may use the expression to convey an idea, she saw what you had already seen—a suggestion of the count.”
“that is as sure as you are born!”
“as she advanced toward you, that first impression grew upon her, and it was not until he had made some pronounced gesture, muscular or vocal, that she changed her opinion.”
[45]
“right.”
“now, let us go a little further. when your wife came on deck, her mind was in the same condition as miss harlan’s; that is, she also saw no occasion for fright. but, again, the count was with her, and, therefore, she could not mistake the pirate for him. but, notwithstanding all that, she saw the likeness, or felt it, and it was so evident to her that it was impressed as strongly upon her as upon her sister.”
“well, gee whiz, nick, the pirate wasn’t the count!”
“i know that. but the pirate, whose whole personality was cloaked in a disguise, and who wore a mask upon his face as well as upon his person, still possessed those attributes which every person finds it almost impossible to conceal; certain characteristics which are born with us, which we inherit, or which we assume from constant habit, and which may be found among members of the same family, almost without exception.
“now, wait, max. i, personally, have made it my study to know what those attributes and characteristics are, so far as i am directly concerned, in order that, in the pursuit of my profession, i may throw them aside, as far as possible, when i have occasion to assume a disguise; and i have studied them in others, in order that i may be able to recognize another person by them, when that other person has assumed a disguise.”
“i see.”
“but the average man has not done so. for example, you could not so disguise yourself that i would not recognize you on the instant; but i could so change[46] my appearance that you would not guess my personality in a thousand years.”
“i believe that—in fact, i know it.”
“what i could perform in that particular, the average man would find impossible of accomplishment. you are an average man under the rule i am laying down, and so is the pirate chief.”
“precisely. i follow you.”
“on the occasion of his visit to this yacht, his mask and his disguise sufficiently concealed his identity so that he had no fear, or even thought, of being recognized when he was seen again by any of you, if he ever should be.”
“yes.”
“and, again, it is a presumption that he has never met any of you, and, therefore, there was, in his opinion, no occasion to conceal those attributes and characteristics to which i have already referred.”
“i am beginning to catch on to your idea.”
“therefore, he brought his attributes and his characteristics with him. he did not think it necessary to put them aside with his citizens’ clothing. he wore them, just as he wore his arms, his legs, and his head—because they were a necessary part of him.”
“precisely. i see the point.”
“now, you, miss harlan and your wife had no means of identifying the man himself; you could only identify his characteristics.”
“i like attributes better; the word comprehends more.”
“all right. let it go at that. you could only identify[47] his attributes; that is to say, his gestures, mannerisms, the keynote of his voice, rather than the voice itself; his carriage; his step in walking, rather than the walk itself——”
“you refer to the method of putting his foot to the deck—that is what i noticed.”
“yes; his method of putting his foot down. that is inevitably a family characteristic, and may be almost invariably recognized, whether a man is bow-legged, halt, or crippled in any way. you could only recognize the outward visible signs. your wife and her sister were in the same category. there was no suggestion made to any one of you, or between any two of you. in each case it was an individual opinion, based upon some recognized quality.”
“by jove, nick!”
“with you, that recognized quality consisted in his manner of putting his feet to the deck when he walked; in the cases of your wife and her sister, the quality was doubtless a different one in each case, so we may conclude that there were at least three separate and distinct characteristics which led three people to the same conclusion; and bear in mind that not one of you three people is a close observer. bear in mind, also, that not one of the three were expecting what was discovered, but that the thing you did discover was an unmistakable suggestion of the personality of your guest, the count of cadillac.”
“great jehoshaphat, nick! what in the world do you mean to try to deduce from all that? eh?”
[48]
“what do you think about it yourself?”
“i’m blessed if i know what to think! you’ve got me all tangled up, if anybody should ask you. tell me what you think?”
“well, max, my profession is a strange one. i go my ways by signs. family characteristics and personal attributes, as applied to identification, is one of my hobbies. i don’t intend, at the present moment, to cast any unkind insinuation upon your guest; but, all the same, while i am looking for this pirate, i shall also look up the family traits, characteristics, and personal attributes of jean, compte de cadillac.”
