This art of becoming inconspicuous was one of his greatest assets as a detective.Newspaper and magazine writers would have liked to dwell upon it.But he requested them not to emphasize it.As he modestly narrated his triumphs to the young journalists, who hung breathless upon his words, he was careful not to stress his talent for becoming just likeanybody and everybody else--his peculiar genius for being the average man.
The front which he presented to the world was, in reality, his cleverest creation.The magazine and newspaper articles which were written about him, the many pictures which were printed every month, presented the mental and physical portrait of a knowing, bustling, extraordinarily candid personality.A personality with a touch of smugness in it.This was very generally thought to be the real Wilton Barnstable.It was a fiction which he had succeeded in establishing.When he addressed meetings, talked with reporters, wrote articles about himself, or came into touch with the public in any manner, he assumed this personality.When he did not wish to be known he laid it aside.When he desired to pass incognito, therefore, it was not necessary for him to assume a disguise.He simply dropped one.
The two men with him, Barton Ward and Watson Bard, were his cleverest agents.They were learning from the master detective the art of looking like other people, and were at present practicing by looking like the popular conception of Wilton Barnstable.They were clever men.But Barton Ward and Watson Bard were, as Cleggett had felt at once, only men of extraordinary talent, while Wilton Barnstable was a genius.
As Cleggett talked he was given a rather startling proof of Wilton Barnstable's gift.He was astonished to find a change stealing over Wilton Barnstable's features.Subtly the detective began to look like someone else.The expression of the face, the turn of the eyes, the lines about the mouth, began to suggest someone whom Cleggett knew.It was rather a suggestion, an impression, than a likeness; it was rather the spirit of a personality than a definite resemblance.It was a psychic thing.Barnstable was disguising himself from the inside out; he had assumed the mental and spiritual clothing of someone else.
Cleggett could not think at first who it was that Wilton Barnstable suggested.But presently he saw that it was himself.He glanced at Barton Ward and Watson Bard; they still resembled the popular conceptionof Wilton Barnstable.
Gradually the look of Cleggett faded from Wilton Barnstable's face.It changed, it shifted, that look did; Cleggett almost cried out as he saw the face of Wilton Barnstable become an impressionistic portrait of the soul of Logan Black.He looked at Barton Ward.Barton Ward was now looking like Wilton Barnstable's conception of Cleggett.But Watson Bard, less facile and less creative, still clung stolidly to the popular conception of Wilton Barnstable.
But, even as Cleggett looked, this remarkable exhibition ceased; the Wilton Barnstable look dominated the faces again.Plump, yet dignified, smiling easily and kindly, three plain business men looked at him; respectable citizens, commonplace citizens, a little smug; faces that spoke of comfort, method, regularity; eyes that seemed to wink with the pressure of platitudes in the minds behind them; platitudes that desired to force their way to the lips and out into the world.
Yes, such was the genius of Wilton Barnstable that he could at will impose himself upon people as the apotheosis of the commonplace.He did it often.It was almost second nature to him now.His urbane smile was the only visible sign of his own enjoyment of this habitual feat.He knew his own genius, and smiled to think how easy it was to pass for an average man!
