The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [5790]
"Ah," he replied, "there is another little thing I have not told you. After you had left the house with Miss Darrow on the night of the murder, and all the servants had retired, I locked the parlour securely and quietly slipped out to look about a bit. As you know, the moon was very bright and any object moderately near was plainly visible. I went around to the eastern side of the house where the prints of the hand and boards were found, and examined them with extreme care. What I particularly wished to learn was the direction taken by the assassin as he left the house and the point at which he had removed the boards from his feet. The imprints of the boards were clearly discernible so far as the loose gravel extended, but beyond that nothing could be discovered. I sat down and pondered over the matter. I had about concluded to drive two nails into the heels of my boots to enable me to distinguish my own footprints from any other trail I might intersect, and then, starting with the house as a centre, to describe an involute about it in the hope of being able to detect some one or more points where my course crossed that of the assassin, when I remembered that my friend Burwell, whose Uncle Tom's Cabin Combination recently stranded at Brockton was at home. As you are perhaps aware an Uncle Tom Company consists of a 'Legree,' one or two 'Markses,' one or two 'Topsies,' 'Uncle Tom,' a 'Little Eva,' who should not be over fifty years old,--or at least should not appear to be,--two bloodhounds, and anybody else that happens to be available. It really doesn't make the least difference how many or how few people are in the cast. I have heard that an Uncle Tom manager on a Western circuit, most of whose company deserted him because the 'ghost' never walked, succeeded in cutting and rewriting the piece so as to double 'George Harris' and 'Legree,' ' Marks' and 'Topsy,' 'Uncle Tom' and 'Little Eva.' As for the rest he had it so arranged that he could himself 'get off the door' in time to 'do,' with the aid of the dogs, all the other characters. You see the dogs held the stage while he changed, say, from 'Eliza' to Eva's father. 'George Harris' would look off left second entrance and say that 'Legree' was after him. Then he would discharge a revolver, rush off right first entrance, where he would pass his weapon to 'Eva' and 'Uncle Tom,' and this bisexual individual would discharge it in the wings at the imaginary pursuer, while 'Harris' would put on a wire beard, slouch hat, black melodramatic cape, and, rushing behind the flat, enter left as 'Legree.'
"The hardest thing to manage was the death of 'Little Eva' with 'Uncle Tom' by the bedside, but managerial genius overcame the difficulty after the style of Mantell's 'Corsican Brothers.' You see it is all easy enough when you know how. 'Little Eva' is discovered, sitting up in bed with the curtains drawn back. She says what she has to say to her father and the rest. Then her father has a line in which he informs 'Eva' that she is tired and had better try to sleep. She says she will try, just to please him, and he gently lowers her back upon the pillows and draws the curtains in front of the bed. But instead of utilising this seclusion for a refreshing sleep 'Eva' rolls out at the back side of the bed. 'Legree' snatches off 'Eva's' wig and 'Topsy' deftly removes the white nightdress concealing his--'Eva's'--'Uncle Tom' make-up, while the erstwhile little girl hastily blackens his face and hands, puts on a negro wig, and in less than a minute is changed in colour, race, and sex. He 'gets round' left and enters the sick room as 'Uncle Tom' with 'Topsy.' They are both told that 'Little Eva' is asleep, and 'Topsy' peeps cautiously between the curtains and remarks that the child's eyes are open and staring. The father looks in and, overcome by grief, informs the audience that his child is dead. 'Topsy,' tearful and grief-stricken, 'gets off'