"Well, Davenport was pondering this on his way home from Bagley's rooms, when he met Larcher. Partly a kind feeling toward a friend he was about to lose with the rest of his old life, partly a thought of submitting the question of this possible restitution to a less interested mind, made him invite Larcher to his room. There, by a pretended accident, he contrived to introduce the question of the money; but you had no light to volunteer on the subject, Larcher, and Davenport didn't see fit to press you. As for your knowing him to have the money in his possession, and your eventual inferences if he should disappear without using it for Bagley, the fact would come out anyhow as soon as Bagley returned to New York. And whatever you would think, either in condemnation or justification, would be thought of the old Murray Davenport. It wouldn't matter to the new man. During that last talk with you, Davenport had such an impulse of communicativeness--such a desire for a moment's relief from his long-maintained secrecy--that he was on the verge of confiding his project to you, under bond of silence. But he mastered the impulse; and you had no sooner gone than he made his final preparations.

"He left the house next morning immediately after breakfast, with as few belongings as possible. He didn't even wear an overcoat. Besides the Bagley money, he had a considerable sum of his own, mostly the result of his collaboration with you, Larcher. In a paper parcel, he carried a few instruments from those he had kept since his surgical days, a set of shaving materials, and some theatrical make-up pencils he had bought the day before. He was satisfied to leave his other possessions to their fate. He paid his landlady in advance to a time by which she couldn't help feeling that he was gone for good; she would provide for a new tenant accordingly, and so nobody would be a loser by his act.

The Mystery of Murray Davenport — Part 111

"He went first to a drug-store, and supplied himself with medicines of tonic and nutritive effect, as well as with antiseptic and healing preparations, lint, and so forth. These he had wrapped with his parcel. His reason for having things done up in stout paper, and not packed as for travelling, was that the paper could be easily burned afterward, whereas a trunk, boxes, or gripsacks would be more difficult to put out of sight. Everything he bought that day, therefore, was put into wrapping-paper. His second visit was to a department store, where he got the linen and other articles he would need during his seclusion,--sheets, towels, handkerchiefs, pajamas, articles of toilet, and so forth. He provided himself here with a complete ready-made 'outfit' to appear in immediately after his transformation, until he could be supplied by regular tailors, haberdashers, and the rest. It included a hat, shoes, everything,--particularly shoulder braces; he put those on when he came to be fitted with the suit and overcoat. Of course, nothing of the old Davenport's was to emerge with the new man.

The Mystery of Murray Davenport — Part 111