England -- Fiction; Gothic fiction; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction
"Now, if you observe, the chin in this face, by reason of the marked
prominence of the nose, has the effect of receding, but it does not. If
you continue the perpendicular line of ze forehead, ze chin, you see,
meets it. The upper lip, though short and well-formed, projects a good
deal. Ze under lip rather retires, and this adds to the receding effect
of the chin, you see. My _coup-d'œil_ assured me that it was practicable
to give to this feature the character of a projecting under-jaw. The
complete depression of the nose more than half accomplished it. The rest
is done by cutting away two upper and four under-teeth, and substituting
false ones at the desired angle. By that application of dentistry I
obtained zis new line." (He indicated the altered outline of the
features, as before, with his pipe). "It was a very pretty operation.
The effect you could hardly believe. He was two months recovering,
confined to his bed, ha! ha! We can't have an immovable mask of living
flesh, blood, and bone for nothing. He was threatened with erysipelas,
and there was a rather critical inflammation of the left eye. When he
could sit up, and bear the light, and looked in the glass, instead of
thanking me, he screamed like a girl, and cried and cursed for an hour,
ha, ha, ha! He was glad of it afterward: it was so complete. Look at it"
(he held up the mask of Yelland Mace): "a face, on the whole,
good-looking, but a little of a parrot-face, you know. I took him into
my hands with that face, and" (taking up the mask of Mr. Longcluse, and
turning it with a slow oscillation so as to present it in every aspect),
he added, "these are the features of Yelland Mace as I sent him into the
world with the name of Herr Longcluse!"
"You mean to say that Yelland Mace and Walter Longcluse are the same
person?" cried David Arden, starting to his feet.
"I swear that here is Yelland Mace _before_, and here _after_ the
operation, call him what you please. When I was in London, two months
ago, I saw Monsieur Longcluse. _He_ is Yelland Mace; and these two masks
are both masks of the same Yelland Mace."
"Then the evidence is complete," said David Arden, with awe in his face,
as he stood for a moment gazing on the masks which the Baron Vanboeren
held up side by side before him.
"Ay, the masks and the witness to explain them," said the baron,
sturdily.
"It is a perfect identification," murmured Mr. Arden, with his eyes
still riveted on the plaster faces. "Good God! how wonderful that proof,
so complete in all its parts, should remain!"
"Well, I don't love Longcluse, since so he is named; he disobliged me
when I was in London," said the baron. "Let him hang, since so you
ordain it. I'm ready to go to London, give my evidence, and produce
these plaster casts. But my time and trouble must be considered."
"Certainly."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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