“I have abandoned useless effort to rehabilitate myself in the misfit garments of a civilization and culture for which the configuration of my mental structure, by nature, renders me unsuited. My child indicated the off-springs natural to me. My emotion and actions in the forest of Haiti gave evidence of the degree of the pure spirit of religion to be found in my inmost soul, and my conduct, following natural inclinations, since my return to Boston, has demonstrated how little control civilization, morality, or pity have over my inherent savage nature.” The man seemed in a peculiar way to derive some satisfaction from rehearsing the story of his hopeless condition, and in the fact that he had reached the limit of descent. “I should have fled to the mountains of Haiti, had I not been led to fight against my own kinsmen. For the moment I was blinded by the thread-bare thought that I was of the white instead of black race, and when I had time to free my mind from that old misleading idea, my hands were stained with the blood of my own race. I was obliged to leave Haiti or suffer the fate that ever overtakes a traitor to his race.” “There is no hope of the restoration of my wife’s mental faculties, and even should there be that is all the more reason for my fleeing from Boston and forever disappearing, I retain enough of the borrowed refinement of the whites in my recollection to know that as I am now I should be loathesome to her.” “Here, I must shun the sight of those who know me, realizing that I can no longer appear in the assumed character that I formerly did. Here, I skulk the streets at night in the apparel of a tramp seeking gratification of proclivities that are natural to me.” “I know that I must leave this city and country as quickly as possible. The long repressed desires natural to me break forth with a fury that renders me oblivious to consequences and my own safety. Repression by civilization and culture foreign to a race but serves to increase the violence of the outburst when the barrier once is broken.” “I will go to the office today, secure some private documents and notify Mr. Dunlap that I desire to withdraw at once from the firm of J. Dunlap. I will nerve myself for one more act in the farce. I will don the costume in which I paraded the stage so long for one more occasion.” Burton arose slowly from his recumbent position as if reluctant to resume even for a day a character that had become tiresome and obnoxious to his negro nature. * * * * * David Chapman had on several occasions made suggestions to the head of the Police Department in Boston that had resulted in the detection and apprehension of elusive criminals. Unlike many professional detectives, Chief O’Brien welcomed the aid of amateurs and listened respectfully to theories, sometimes ridiculous, but occasionally suggestive of the correct solution of an apparently incomprehensible crime.