Records, however, had only records. Old records. Seven years old.
If Gogor, Teodro, had committed any more recent offenses against his Royal and Imperial Majesty, His Realm, His Crown and Staff, he had not been apprehended for the crime.
Those other and perhaps equally important sources of information upon which the police of the world’s great cities (and, perhaps, their small ones, too) depend — to wit: informers — had nothing to say upon the subject,
either. His former employers, against whom the fogery had been committed (and, interestingly enough, they did deal in job-lots of oil-cloth), had heard nothing of him since. And wanted to hear nothing of him now. His family, consisting of an exceedingly respectable brother and sister in the provincial city of Praz (and no city is more respectable than Praz), knew nothing of his present or recent or post-prison career, either. They did offer the suggestion that he might have gone to America. Or to Australia.
“He was in Gross-Kroplets this same year,” Eszterhazy insisted. “Well. You keep onto that. I have some loose ends of my own which I must try to tie together. I shall see you tomorrow.”
On the third fldor of the house at 33, Turkling Street, Herra Hugo von Sltski was (after Dr. Eszterhazy himself) supreme. Here was Dr. Eszterhazy’s Library. And Herra von Sltski was Dr. Eszterhazy’s Librarian. This scholar had a bad complexion, a bad breath, and a worse temper; but he was familiar with all the languages and dialects of the Triune Monarchy — plus French, English, Latin, Greek, and Sanksrit — he was absolutely indefatigable. His employer had only to send him, via the pneumatic tube, a message to this effect: Gogor, Teo, in the
Criminal Phrenological Examinations, First Series: for the envelope to reach him, via the same tube, in less than five minutes.
He opened it and drew out the yellow-paper chart. Down the left-hand margin were listed the Proclivities, Propensities, and Faculties. Across the top were the ratings, ranging from Overdeveloped through Underdeveloped to Absent, with graduations between. At the bottom, in a series of small boxes, were the cranial measurements, taken by Eszterhazy himself, with calipers and other instruments (one of them, of his own invention). But he was not foremostly interested jn the measurements, a glance at them showing that Gogor had an average head as far as size and shape went. It had been his intention, after taking the readings of each quarter, to assess each one, and to make a Summary on the inner leaf of the chart. However, that year — the year he had first taken such readings of a large number of criminals — that year had also been an Epidemic Year. He had not had time to make the assessments. He had made them each quarter-year afterwards. Somehow, he had never gone back to the First Series.
Ah, well. So, then, now to it.
PHRENOLOGICAL ASSESS-
MENT OF TEODRO GOGOR, AGED 25, NATIONAL SUBJECT. The Region of the lower Back of the Head: SOCIAL PROCLIVITIES. Amativeness: Very large. Conjugality: Underdeveloped.
Philoprogenitiveness: Absent. Adhesiveness: Deficient. Inhabitive- ness: Oddly developed. Continuity: Overdeveloped.
The Regions behind and above the Ears: SELFISH PROPENSITIES. Vitativeness: Average Combativeness: Uncertain. Destructiveness: Weak. Alimentiveness: Deficient. Acquisitiveness: Strongly but oddly developed. Cuatiousness: Deficient.
The regions approaching and reaching the Crown of the head: THE ASPIRING FACULTIES, or LOWER SENTIMENTS. Appro- bativeness: strongly developed.
Self-esteem: Overdeveloped. Firmness: Overdeveloped.
The Coronal Region: THE MORAL SENTIMENTS: Conscientiousness: Deficient. Hope: Excessive development. Sprduality: Excessive. Veneration: Excessive. Benevolence: Deficient.
The Region of the Temples: THE SEMI-INTELLECTUAL or PERFECTIVE FACULTIES. Constructiveness: Slightly underdeveloped. Ideality: Strong. Sublimity: Overdeveloped. Imitation: Overdeveloped. Mirthfulness: Absent.
The Region of the Upper Forehead: THE REASONING FACULTIES. Causalty: Excessive. Comparison: Weak. Human Nature: Deficient. Agreeableness: Average.
The Region of the Center of the Forehead. THE LITERARY FACULTIES. Eventuality: Well- developed. Time: Average. Tune: Defective. Language: Average.
The Region of the Brows: THE PERCEPTIVE FACULTIES. Individuality: Slightly underdeveloped. Form: Average. Size: Average. Color: Average. Order: Developed. Calculation: Odd. Locality: Average.
Eszterhazy considered a segar, decided to let the plesure await him at the end of his task. But he did allow himself the pleasure of addressing an observation to himself. “I foresee,” he said aloud, “that great possibility, amounting almost to probability, that phrenology must give way to newer and younger sciences, which even now stand waiting at the door to accept, and without acknowledgement, the hard-won discoveries of their elder sister. The intangible aspects, the immaterial ones, will be taken over by psychology. The material and tangible ones, by physical anthropology. Calculations based upon the cephalic index and other cranial measurements have already taught us much about primitive man and will try to teach us even more about his modern descendants.” He bent to his work, then, lifting his head once more, said, slowly, “And it may be that these younger sisters of the sciences will find others, younger yet, waiting to suplantthem ....”
Long he pondered over the yellow-paper chart, and much he pondered. Overhead, in the great gasoliers wrought in red bronze in the shapes of mermaids with naked bosoms, the gas flames (each one cupped in the hands of one mermaid) cast their golden light all about.
One man may look at a mountain and see only rock. Most men, looking at a mountain, would see only rock. That one man in hundreds of thousands, trained in observation by geology, looking at the self-same mountain, will see half-a-hundred different kinds of rock, will see indications of ores buried in mine and matrix deep below the surface (though not that deep as to be beyond delving and discovering), will know what ancient writhings of the earth — ancient-most of mothers — sent which stratum buckling up, or down, and which stratum lying level as a rule-yard.
So it was in this case of Teodro Gogor.
And Eszterhazy, having been the first man, now proceeded to be the other.
The faculty of Location was merely averagely developed. The fugitive (if such were the proper term) was thus not greatly attached to his native place, which now knew him not. He might indeed have gone to Australia (or to America), but nothing in his innate nature compelled him to be a rolling- stone. The faculties of Form, Size, Weight, and Color were also average. His sense of Order was developed, naturally, or he could neither have planned nor carried out the audacious theft, however ‘amateurishly.’ His faculty of Calculation, now. It had been marked “odd.” His was no common covetousness, obviously; no desire for mere gold coin had moved him. He had been able to calculate how to commit the crime and how to — for the present, anyway — get away with it. Individuality, slightly underdeveloped. That fit. He had a conception of himself as an individual — but as the wrong individual. For, whoever might (or might not) be the true King of Jerusalem, it was surely not he.