“Perhaps,” said Turl, addressing particularly Florence, “you know already what was Murray Davenport's state of mind during the months immediately before his disappearance. Bad luck was said to attend him, and to fall on enterprises he became associated with. Whatever were the reasons, either inseparable from him, or special in each case, it's certain that his affairs did not thrive, with the exception of those in which he played the merely mechanical part of a drudge under the orders, and for the profit, of Mr. Bagley. As for bad luck, the name was, in effect, equivalent to the thing itself, for it cut him out of many opportunities in the theatrical market, with people not above the superstitions of their guild; also it produced in him a discouragement, a self-depreciation, which kept the quality of his work down to the level of hopeless hackery. For yielding to this influence; for stooping, in his necessity, to the service of Bagley, who had wronged him; for failing to find a way out of the slough of mediocre production, poor pay, and company inferior to him in mind, he began to detest himself.

“He had never been a conceited man, but he could not have helped measuring his taste and intellect with those of average people, and he had valued himself accordingly. Another circumstance had forced him to think well of himself. On his trip to Europe he had met—I needn't say more; but to have won the regard of a woman herself so admirable was bound to elevate him in his own esteem. This event in his life had roused his ambition and filled him with hope. It had made him almost forget, or rather had braced him to battle confidently with, his demon of reputed bad luck. You can imagine the effect when the stimulus, the cause of hope, the reason for striving, was—as he believed—withdrawn from him. He assumed that this calamity was due to your having learned about the supposed shadow of bad luck, or at least about his habitual failure. And while he did this injustice to you, Miss Kenby, he at the same time found cause in himself for your apparent desertion. He felt he must be worthless and undeserving. As the pain of losing you, and the hope that went with you, was the keenest pain, the most staggering humiliation, he had ever apparently owed to his unsuccess, his evil spirit of fancied ill-luck, and his personality itself, he now saw these in darker colors than ever before; he contemplated them more exclusively, he brooded on them. And so he got into the state I just now described.

“He was dejected, embittered, wearied; sick of his way of livelihood, sick of the atmosphere he moved in, sick of his reflections, sick of himself. Life had got to be stale, flat, and unprofitable. His self-loathing, which steadily grew, would have become a maddening torture if he hadn't found refuge in a stony apathy. Sometimes he relieved this by an outburst of bitter or satirical self-exposure, when the mood found anybody at hand for his confidences. But for the most part he lived in a lethargic indifference, mechanically going through the form of earning his living.

“You may wonder why he took the trouble even to go through that form. It may have been partly because he lacked the instinct—or perhaps the initiative—for active suicide, and was too proud to starve at the expense or encumbrance of other people. But there was another cause, which of itself sufficed to keep him going. I may have said—or given the impression—that he utterly despaired of ever getting anything worth having out of life. And so he would have, I dare say, but for the not-entirely-quenchable spark of hope which youth keeps in reserve somewhere, and which in his case had one peculiar thing to sustain it.

“That peculiar thing, on which his spark of hope kept alive, though its existence was hardly noticed by the man himself, was a certain idea which he had conceived,—he no longer knew when, nor in what mental circumstances. It was an idea at first vague; relegated to the cave of things for the time forgotten, to be occasionally brought forth by association. Sought or unsought, it came forth with a sudden new attractiveness some time after Murray Davenport's life and self had grown to look most dismal in his eyes. He began to turn it about, and develop it. He was doing this, all the while fascinated by the idea, at the time of Larcher's acquaintance with him, but doing it in so deep-down a region of his mind that no one would have suspected what was beneath his languid, uncaring manner. He was perfecting his idea, which he had adopted as a design of action for himself to realize,—perfecting it to the smallest incidental detail.

“This is what he had conceived: Man, as everybody knows, is more or less capable of voluntary self-illusion. By pretending to himself to believe that a thing is true—except where the physical condition is concerned, or where the case is complicated by other people's conduct—he can give himself something of the pleasurable effect that would arise from its really being true. We see a play, and for the time make ourselves believe that the painted canvas is the Forest of Arden, that the painted man is Orlando, and the painted woman Rosalind. When we read Homer, we make ourselves believe in the Greek heroes and gods. We know these make-believes are not realities, but we feel that they are; we have the sensations that would be effected by their reality. Now this self-deception can be carried to great lengths. We know how children content themselves with imaginary playmates and possessions. As a gift, or a defect, we see remarkable cases of willing self-imposition. A man will tell a false tale of some exploit or experience of his youth until, after years, he can't for his life swear whether it really occurred or not. Many people invent whole chapters to add to their past histories, and come finally to believe them. Even where the knowing part of the mind doesn't grant belief, the imagining part—and through it the feeling part—does; and, as conduct and mood are governed by feeling, the effect of a self-imposed make-believe on one's behavior and disposition—on one's life, in short—may be much the same as that of actuality. All depends on the completeness and constancy with which the make-believe is supported.

“Well, Davenport's idea was to invent for himself a new past history; not only that, but a new identity: to imagine himself another man; and, as that man, to begin life anew. As he should imagine, so he would feel and act, and, by continuing this course indefinitely, he would in time sufficiently believe himself that other man. To all intents and purposes, he would in time become that man. Even though at the bottom of his mind he should always be formally aware of the facts, yet the force of his imagination and feeling would in time be so potent that the man he coldly knew himself to be—the actual Murray Davenport—would be the stranger, while the man he felt himself to be would be his more intimate self. Needless to say, this new self would be a very different man from the old Murray Davenport. His purpose was to get far away from the old self, the old recollections, the old environment, and all the old adverse circumstances. And this is what his mind was full of at the time when you, Larcher, were working with him.

“He imagined a man such as would be produced by the happiest conditions; one of those fortunate fellows who seem destined for easy, pleasant paths all their lives. A habitually lucky man, in short, with all the cheerfulness and urbanity that such a man ought to possess. Davenport believed that as such a man he would at least not be handicapped by the name or suspicion of ill-luck.

“I needn't enumerate the details with which he rounded out this new personality he meant to adopt. And I'll not take time now to recite the history he invented to endow this new self with. You may be sure he made it as happy a history as such a man would wish to look back on. One circumstance was necessary to observe in its construction. In throwing over his old self, he must throw over all its acquaintances, and all the surroundings with which it had been closely intimate,—not cities and public resorts, of course, which both selves might be familiar with, but rooms he had lived in, and places too much associated with the old identity of Murray Davenport. Now the new man would naturally have made many acquaintances in the course of his life. He would know people in the places where he had lived. Would he not keep up friendships with some of these people? Well, Davenport made it that the man had led a shifting life, had not remained long enough in one spot to give it a permanent claim upon him. The scenes of his life were laid in places which Davenport had visited but briefly; which he had agreeable recollections of, but would never visit again. All this was to avoid the necessity of a too definite localizing of the man's past, and the difficulty about old friends never being reencountered. Henceforth, or on the man's beginning to have a real existence in the body of Davenport, more lasting associations and friendships could be formed, and these could be cherished as if they had merely supplanted former ones, until in time a good number could be accumulated for the memory to dwell on.

“But quite as necessary as providing a history and associations for the new self, it was to banish those of the old self. If the new man should find himself greeted as Murray Davenport by somebody who knew the latter, a rude shock would be administered to the self-delusion so carefully cultivated. And this might happen at any time. It would be easy enough to avoid the old Murray Davenport's haunts, but he might go very far and still be in hourly risk of running against one of the old Murray Davenport's acquaintances. But even this was a small matter to the constant certainty of his being recognized as the old Murray Davenport by himself. Every time he looked into a mirror, or passed a plate-glass window, there would be the old face and form to mock his attempt at mental transformation with the reminder of his physical identity. Even if he could avoid being confronted many times a day by the reflected face of Murray Davenport, he must yet be continually brought back to his inseparability from that person by the familiar effect of the face on the glances of other people,—for you know that different faces evoke different looks from observers, and the look that one man is accustomed to meet in the eyes of people who notice him is not precisely the same as that another man is accustomed to meet there. To come to the point, Murray Davenport saw that to make his change of identity really successful, to avoid a thousand interruptions to his self-delusion, to make himself another man in the world's eyes and his own, and all the more so in his own through finding himself so in the world's, he must transform himself physically—in face and figure—beyond the recognition of his closest friend—beyond the recognition even of himself. How was it to be done?

“Do you think he was mad in setting himself at once to solve the problem as if its solution were a matter of course? Wait and see.

“In the old fairy tales, such transformations were easily accomplished by the touch of a wand or the incantation of a wizard. In a newer sort of fairy tale, we have seen them produced by marvellous drugs. In real life there have been supposed changes of identity, or rather cases of dual identity, the subject alternating from one to another as he shifts from one to another set of memories. These shifts are not voluntary, nor is such a duality of memory and habit to be possessed at will. As Davenport wasn't a 'subject' of this sort by caprice of nature, and as, even if he had been, he couldn't have chosen his new identity to suit himself, or ensured its permanency, he had to resort to the deliberate exercise of imagination and wilful self-deception I have described. Now even in those cases of dual personality, though there is doubtless some change in facial expression, there is not an actual physical transformation such as Davenport's purpose required. As he had to use deliberate means to work the mental change, so he must do to accomplish the physical one. He must resort to that which in real life takes the place of fairy wands, the magic of witches, and the drugs of romance,—he must employ Science and the physical means it afforded.

“Earlier in life he had studied medicine and surgery. Though he had never arrived at the practice of these, he had retained a scientific interest in them, and had kept fairly well informed of new experiments. His general reading, too, had been wide, and he had rambled upon many curious odds and ends of information. He thus knew something of methods employed by criminals to alter their facial appearance so as to avoid recognition: not merely such obvious and unreliable devices as raising or removing beards, changing the arrangement and color of hair, and fattening or thinning the face by dietary means,—devices that won't fool a close acquaintance for half a minute,—not merely these, but the practice of tampering with the facial muscles by means of the knife, so as to alter the very hang of the face itself. There is in particular a certain muscle, the cutting of which, and allowing the skin to heal over the wound, makes a very great alteration of outward effect. The result of this operation, however, is not an improvement in looks, and as Davenport's object was to fabricate a pleasant, attractive countenance, he could not resort to it without modifications, and, besides that, he meant to achieve a far more thorough transformation than it would produce. But the knowledge of this operation was something to start with. It was partly to combat such devices of criminals, that Bertillon invented his celebrated system of identification by measurements. A slight study of that system gave Davenport valuable hints. He was reminded by Bertillon's own words, of what he already knew, that the skin of the face—the entire skin of three layers, that is, not merely the outside covering—may be compared to a curtain, and the underlying muscles to the cords by which it is drawn aside. The constant drawing of these cords, you know, produces in time the facial wrinkles, always perpendicular to the muscles causing them. If you sever a number of these cords, you alter the entire drape of the curtain. It was for Davenport to learn what severances would produce, not the disagreeable effect of the operation known to criminals, but a result altogether pleasing. He was to discover and perform a whole complex set of operations instead of the single operation of the criminals; and each operation must be of a delicacy that would ensure the desired general effect of all. And this would be but a small part of his task.

“He was aware of what is being done for the improvement of badly-formed noses, crooked mouths, and such defects, by what its practitioners call 'plastic surgery,' or 'facial' or 'feature surgery.' From the 'beauty shops,' then, as the newspapers call them, he got the idea of changing his nose by cutting and folding back the skin, surgically eliminating the hump, and rearranging the skin over the altered bridge so as to produce perfect straightness when healed. From the same source came the hint of cutting permanent dimples in his cheeks,—a detail that fell in admirably with his design of an agreeable countenance. The dimples would be, in fact, but skilfully made scars, cut so as to last. What are commonly known as scars, if artistically wrought, could be made to serve the purpose, too, of slight furrows in parts of the face where such furrows would aid his plan,—at the ends of his lips, for instance, where a quizzical upturning of the corners of the mouth could be imitated by means of them; and at other places where lines of mirth form in good-humored faces. Fortunately, his own face was free from wrinkles, perhaps because of the indifference his melancholy had taken refuge in. It was, indeed, a good face to build on, as actors say in regard to make-up.

“But changing the general shape of the face—the general drape of the curtain—and the form of the prominent features, would not begin to suffice for the complete alteration that Davenport intended. The hair arrangement, the arch of the eyebrows, the color of the eyes, the complexion, each must play its part in the business. He had worn his hair rather carelessly over his forehead, and plentiful at the back of the head and about the ears. Its line of implantation at the forehead was usually concealed by the hair itself. By brushing it well back, and having it cut in a new fashion, he could materially change the appearance of his forehead; and by keeping it closely trimmed behind, he could do as much for the apparent shape of his head at the rear. If the forehead needed still more change, the line of implantation could be altered by removing hairs with tweezers; and the same painful but possible means must be used to affect the curvature of the eyebrows. By removing hairs from the tops of the ends, and from the bottom of the middle, he would be able to raise the arch of each eyebrow noticeably. This removal, along with the clearing of hair from the forehead, and thinning the eyelashes by plucking out, would contribute to another desirable effect. Davenport's eyes were what are commonly called gray. In the course of his study of Bertillon, he came upon the reminder that—to use the Frenchman's own words—'the gray eye of the average person is generally only a blue one with a more or less yellowish tinge, which appears gray solely on account of the shadow cast by the eyebrows, etc.' Now, the thinning of the eyebrows and lashes, and the clearing of the forehead of its hanging locks, must considerably decrease that shadow. The resultant change in the apparent hue of the eyes would be helped by something else, which I shall come to later. The use of the tweezers on the eyebrows was doubly important, for, as Bertillon says, 'no part of the face contributes a more important share to the general expression of the physiognomy, seen from in front, than the eyebrow.' The complexion would be easy to deal with. His way of life—midnight hours, abstemiousness, languid habits—had produced bloodless cheeks. A summary dosing with tonic drugs, particularly with iron, and a reformation of diet, would soon bestow a healthy tinge, which exercise, air, proper food, and rational living would not only preserve but intensify.

“But merely changing the face, and the apparent shape of the head, would not do. As long as his bodily form, walk, attitude, carriage of the head, remained the same, so would his general appearance at a distance or when seen from behind. In that case he would not be secure against the disillusioning shock of self-recognition on seeing his body reflected in some distant glass; or of being greeted as Murray Davenport by some former acquaintance coming up behind him. His secret itself might be endangered, if some particularly curious and discerning person should go in for solving the problem of this bodily resemblance to Murray Davenport in a man facially dissimilar. The change in bodily appearance, gait, and so forth, would be as simple to effect as it was necessary. Hitherto he had leaned forward a little, and walked rather loosely. A pair of the strongest shoulder-braces would draw back his shoulders, give him tightness and straightness, increase the apparent width of his frame, alter the swing of his arms, and entail—without effort on his part—a change in his attitude when standing, his gait in walking, his way of placing his feet and holding his head at all times. The consequent throwing back of the head would be a factor in the facial alteration, too: it would further decrease the shadow on the eyes, and consequently further affect their color. And not only that, for you must have noticed the great difference in appearance in a face as it is inclined forward or thrown back,—as one looks down along it, or up along it. This accounts for the failure of so many photographs to look like the people they're taken of,—a stupid photographer makes people hold up their faces, to get a stronger light, who are accustomed ordinarily to carry their faces slightly averted.

“You understand, of course, that only his entire appearance would have to be changed; not any of his measurements. His friends must be unable to recognize him, even vaguely as resembling some one they couldn't 'place.' But there was, of course, no anthropometric record of him in existence, such as is taken of criminals to ensure their identification by the Bertillon system; so his measurements could remain unaffected without the least harm to his plan. Neither would he have to do anything to his hands; it is remarkable how small an impression the members of the body make on the memory. This is shown over and over again in attempts to identify bodies injured so that recognition by the face is impossible. Apart from the face, it's only the effect of the whole body, and that rather in attitude and gait than in shape, which suggests the identity to the observer's eye; and of course the suggestion stops there if not borne out by the face. But if Davenport's hands might go unchanged, he decided that his handwriting should not. It was a slovenly, scratchy degeneration of the once popular Italian script, and out of keeping with the new character he was to possess. The round, erect English calligraphy taught in most primary schools is easily picked up at any age, with a little care and practice; so he chose that, and found that by writing small he could soon acquire an even, elegant hand. He would need only to go carefully until habituated to the new style, with which he might defy even the handwriting experts, for it's a maxim of theirs that a man who would disguise his handwriting always tries to make it look like that of an uneducated person.

“There would still remain the voice to be made over,—quite as important a matter as the face. In fact, the voice will often contradict an identification which the eyes would swear to, in cases of remarkable resemblance; or it will reveal an identity which some eyes would fail to notice, where time has changed appearances. Thanks to some out-of-the-way knowledge Davenport had picked up in the theoretic study of music and elocution, he felt confident to deal with the voice difficulty. I'll come to that later, when I arrive at the performance of all these operations which he was studying out; for of course he didn't make the slightest beginning on the actual transformation until his plan was complete and every facility offered. That was not till the last night you saw him, Larcher,—the night before his disappearance.

“For operations so delicate, meant to be so lasting in their effect, so important to the welfare of his new self, Davenport saw the necessity of a perfect design before the first actual touch. He could not erase errors, or paint them over, as an artist does. He couldn't rub out misplaced lines and try again, as an actor can in 'making up.' He had learned a good deal about theatrical make-up, by the way, in his contact with the stage. His plan was to use first the materials employed by actors, until he should succeed in producing a countenance to his liking; and then, by surgical means, to make real and permanent the sham and transient effects of paint-stick and pencil. He would violently compel nature to register the disguise and maintain it.

“He was favored in one essential matter—that of a place in which to perform his operations with secrecy, and to let the wounds heal at leisure. To be observed during the progress of the transformation would spoil his purpose and be highly inconvenient besides. He couldn't lock himself up in his room, or in any new lodging to which he might move, and remain unseen for weeks, without attracting an attention that would probably discover his secret. In a remote country place he would be more under curiosity and suspicion than in New York. He must live in comfort, in quarters which he could provision; must have the use of mirrors, heat, water, and such things; in short, he could not resort to uninhabited solitudes, yet must have a place where his presence might be unknown to a living soul—a place he could enter and leave with absolute secrecy. He couldn't rent a place without precluding that secrecy, as investigations would be made on his disappearance, and his plans possibly ruined by the intrusion of the police. It was a lucky circumstance which he owed to you, Larcher,—one of the few lucky circumstances that ever came to the old Murray Davenport, and so to be regarded as a happy augury for his design,—that led him into the room and esteem of Mr. Bud down on the water-front.

“He learned that Mr. Bud was long absent from the room; obtained his permission to use the room for making sketches of the river during his absence; got a duplicate key; and waited until Mr. Bud should be kept away in the country for a long enough period. Nobody but Mr. Bud—and you, Larcher—knew that Davenport had access to the room. Neither of you two could ever be sure when, or if at all, he availed himself of that access. If he left no traces in the room, you couldn't know he had been there. You could surmise, and might investigate, but, if you did that, it wouldn't be with the knowledge of the police; and at the worst, Davenport could take you into his confidence. As for the rest of the world, nothing whatever existed, or should exist, to connect him with that room. He need only wait for his opportunity. He contrived always to be informed of Mr. Bud's intentions for the immediate future; and at last he learned that the shipment of turkeys for Thanksgiving and Christmas would keep the old man busy in the country for six or seven weeks without a break. He was now all ready to put his design into execution.”