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Gender
Second e dition
Li S a Wade
o ccidental c ollege
Myra Marx Ferree
University of Wisconsin–Madison
W. W. NORTON & COMPANY, INC.
New York • London
W. W. Norton & Company has been independent since its founding in 1923, when William Warder Norton and Mary D. Herter Norton first published lectures delivered at the People’s Institute, the adult education division of New York City’s Cooper Union. The firm soon expanded its program beyond the Institute, publishing books by celebrated academics from America and abroad. By midcentury, the two major pillars of Norton’s publishing program—trade books and college texts—were firmly established. In the 1950s, the Norton family transferred control of the company to its employees, and today—with a staff of four hundred and a comparable number of trade, college, and professional titles published each year—W. W. Norton & Company stands as the largest and oldest publishing house owned wholly by its employees.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Wade, Lisa (Professor), author. | Ferree, Myra Marx, author.
Title: Gender / Lisa Wade, Occidental College, Myra Marx Ferree, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Description: Second Edition. | New York : W. W. Norton & Company, [2018] | Revised edition of the authors’ Gender : ideas, interactions, institutions, [2015] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018039801 | ISBN 9780393667967 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Sex role. | Sex differences. | Feminist theory.
Classification: LCC HQ1075 .W33 2018 | DDC 305.3–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn .loc.gov/2018039801
ISBN: 978-0-393-66796-7 (pbk.)
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a bo U t the aU thor S
Lisa Wade is an associate professor of sociology at Occidental College in Los Angeles, where she does research at the intersection of gender, sexuality, culture, and the body. She earned an MA in human sexuality from New York University and an MS and PhD in sociology from the University of Wisconsin−Madison. She is the author of over three dozen research papers, book chapters, and educational essays. Her newest book, American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus , is the definitive account of contemporary collegiate sexual culture. Aiming to reach audiences outside of academia, Dr. Wade appears frequently in print, radio, and television news and opinion outlets. You can learn more about her at lisa-wade.com or follow her on Twitter (@lisawade) or Facebook (/lisawadephd).
Myra Marx Ferree is the Alice H. Cook Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin−Madison. She is the author of Varieties of Feminism: German Gender Politics in Global Perspective (2012), co-author of Shaping Abortion Discourse (2002) and Controversy and Coalition (2000), and co-editor of Gender, Violence and Human Security (2013), Global Feminism (2006), and Revisioning Gender (1998) as well as numerous articles and book chapters. Dr. Ferree is the recipient of various prizes for contributions to gender studies, including the Jessie Bernard Award and Victoria Schuck Award. She continues to do research on global gender politics.
Pre Face
Writing a textbook is a challenge even for folks with lots of teaching experience in the subject matter. We would never have dared take on this project without Karl Bakeman’s initial encouragement. His confidence in our vision was inspiring and kept us going until the project could be placed into the very capable hands of Sasha Levitt, who ushered the first edition to completion with her meticulous reading, thoughtful suggestions, and words of encouragement. Sasha has since become an invaluable part of the revision process, with a perfect mix of stewardship, cheerleading, and collaborative fact-checking. She has kept us on target conceptually as well as chronologically, challenged us to think hard about the points that first-edition readers had raised, and yet kept the revision process smoothly moving forward to meet our deadlines. Without her firm hand on the tiller, our occasional excursions into the weeds might have swamped the revision with unnecessary changes, but her attention to updating sources kept us cheerful with the new evidence we landed. The revision might have ballooned with the new material we identified, but her editorial eye has kept us in our word limits without sacrificing anything important. Sasha has become a true partner in the difficult process of adding the new without losing the old, and we could not have pulled it off without her.
Of course, Karl and Sasha are but the top of the mountain of support that Norton has offered from beginning to end. The many hands behind the scenes include project editor Diane Cipollone for keeping us on schedule and collating our changes, production manager Ashley Horna for turning a manuscript into the pages you hold now, assistant editors Erika Nakagawa and Thea Goodrich for their logistical help in preparing that manuscript, designer Jillian Burr for her keen graphic eye, and our copyeditor, Katharine Ings, for crossing our t’s and dotting our i’s. The many images that enrich this book are thanks to photo editors Travis Carr and Stephanie Romeo and photo researchers Elyse Rieder and Rona Tuccillo. We are also grateful to have discovered Leland Bobbé, the artist
whose half-drag portraits fascinated us. Selecting just one for the first edition was a collaborative process aided by the further creative work of Jillian Burr and Debra Morton Hoyt. Selecting a second was equally exciting and challenging. We’re grateful for the result: striking covers that we hope catch the eye and spark conversation.
We would also like to thank the reviewers who commented on drafts of the book and its revision in various stages: Rachel Allison, Shayna Asher-Shapiro, Phyllis L. Baker, Kristen Barber, Miriam Barcus, Shira Barlas, Sarah Becker, Dana Berkowitz, Emily Birnbaum, Natalie Boero, Catherine Bolzendahl, Valerie Chepp, Nancy Dess, Lisa Dilks, Mischa DiBattiste, Erica Dixon, Mary Donaghy, Julia Eriksen, Angela Frederick, Jessica Greenebaum, Nona Gronert, Lee Harrington, Sarah Hayford, Penelope Herideen, Melanie Hughes, Miho Iwata, Rachel Kaplan, Madeline Kiefer, Rachel Kraus, Carrie Lacy, Thomas J. Linneman, Caitlin Maher, Gul Aldikacti Marshall, Janice McCabe, Karyn McKinney, Carly Mee, Beth Mintz, Joya Misra, Beth Montemurro, Christine Mowery, Stephanie Nawyn, Madeleine Pape, Lisa Pellerin, Megan Reid, Gwen Sharp, Mimi Schippers, Emily Fitzgibbons Shafer, Kazuko Suzuki, Jaita Talukdar, Rachel Terman, Mieke Beth Thomeer, Kristen Williams, and Kersti Alice Yllo, as well as the students at Babson College, Occidental College, Nevada State College, and the University of Wisconsin− Madison who agreed to be test subjects. Our gratitude goes also to the users of the first edition who offered us valuable feedback on what they enjoyed and what they found missing, either directly or through Norton. We’ve tried to take up their suggestions by not merely squeezing in occasional new material but by rethinking the perspectives and priorities that might have left such concerns on the cutting room floor the first time around. We hope the balance we have struck is satisfying but are always open to further criticism and suggestions.
Most of all, we are happy to discover that we could collaborate in being creative over the long term of this project, contributing different talents at different times, and jumping the inevitable hurdles without tripping each other up. In fact, we were each other’s toughest critic and warmest supporter. Once upon a time, Lisa was Myra’s student, but in finding ways to communicate our interest and enthusiasm to students, we became a team. In the course of the revision, we came to appreciate each other’s strengths more than ever and rejoice in the collegial relationship we had in making the revision happen. We hope you enjoy reading this book as much as we enjoyed making it.
Lisa Wade
Myra Marx Ferree
Gender
IDEAS, INTERACTIONS, INSTITUTIONS
Second e dition
a
man in heels is ridiculous.
—christian louboutin
i ntroduction
Among the most vicious and effective killers who have ever lived were the men of the Persian army. In the late 1500s, under the reign of Abbas I, these soldiers defeated the Uzbeks and the Ottomans and reconquered provinces lost to India and Portugal, earning the admiration of all of Europe. Their most lethal advantage was the high heel. 1 Being on horseback, heels kept their feet in the stirrups when they rose up to shoot their muskets. It gave them deadly aim. The first high-heeled shoe, it turns out, was a weapon of war.
Enthralled by the military men’s prowess, European male aristocrats began wearing high heels in their daily lives of leisure, using the shoe to borrow some of the Persian army’s masculine mystique. In a way, they were like today’s basketball fans wearing Air Jordans. The aristocrats weren’t any better on the battlefield than your average Bulls fan is on the court, but the shoes symbolically linked them to the soldiers’ extraordinary achievements. The shoes invoked a distinctly manly power related to victory in battle, just as the basketball shoes link the contemporary wearer to Michael Jordan’s amazing athleticism.
As with most fashions, there was trickle down. Soon men of all classes were donning high heels, stumbling around the cobblestone streets of Europe feeling pretty suave. And then women decided
they wanted a piece of the action, too. In the 1630s, masculine fashions were “in” for ladies. They cut their hair, added military decorations to the shoulders of their dresses, and smoked pipes. For women, high heels were nothing short of masculine mimicry.
These early fashionistas irked the aristocrats who first borrowed the style. The whole point of nobility, after all, was to be above everyone else. In response, the elites started wearing higher and higher heels. France’s King Louis XIV even decreed that no one was allowed to wear heels higher than his. 2 In the New World, the Massachusetts colony passed a law saying that any woman caught wearing heels would incur the same penalty as a witch. 3
But the masses persisted. And so the aristocrats shifted strategies: They dropped high heels altogether. It was the Enlightenment now, and there was an accompanying shift toward logic and reason. Adopting the philosophy that it was intelligence—not heel height—that bestowed superiority, aristocrats donned flats and began mocking people who wore high heels, suggesting that wearing such impractical shoes was the height of stupidity.
Ever since, the shoe has remained mostly out of fashion for men—cowboys excluded, of course, and disco notwithstanding—but it’s continued to tweak the toes of women in every possible situation, from weddings to the workplace. No longer at risk of being burned at the stake, women are allowed to wear high heels, now fully associated with femaleness in the American imagination. Some women even feel pressure to do so, particularly if they are trying to look pretty or professional. And there remains the sense that the right pair brings a touch of class.
The attempts by aristocrats to keep high heels to themselves are part of a phenomenon that sociologists call distinction , a word used to describe efforts to distinguish one’s own group from others. In this historical example, we see elite men working hard to make a simultaneously class- and gender-based distinction. If the aristocrats had had their way, only rich men would have ever worn high heels. Today high heels continue to serve as a marker of gender distinction. With few exceptions, only women (and people impersonating women) wear high heels.
Distinction is a main theme of this book. The word gender only exists because we distinguish between people in this particular way. If we didn’t
s hah a bbas i , who ruled Persia between 1588 and 1629, shows off not only his scimitar, but also his high heels.
care about distinguishing men from women, the whole concept would be utterly unnecessary. We don’t, after all, tend to have words for physical differences that don’t have meaning to us. For example, we don’t make a big deal out of the fact that some people have the gene that allows them to curl their tongue and some people don’t. There’s no concept of tongue aptitude that refers to the separation of people into the curly tongued and the flat tongued. Why would we need such a thing? The vast majority of us just don’t care. Likewise, the ability to focus one’s eyes on a close or distant object isn’t used to signify status and being right-handed is no longer considered better than being left-handed.
Gender, then, is about distinction. Like tongue aptitude, vision, and handedness, it is a biological reality. We are a species that reproduces sex ually. We come, roughly, in two body types: a female one built to gestate new life and a male one made to mix up the genes of the species. The word sex is used to refer to these physical differences in pri mary sexual charac teristics (the presence of organs directly involved in reproduction) and secondary sexual characteristics (such as patterns of hair growth, the amount of breast tissue, and distribution of body fat). We usually use the words male and female to refer to sex, but we can also use male-bodied and female-bodied to specify that sex refers to the body and may not extend to how a person feels or acts. And, as we’ll see, not every body fits neatly into one category or the other.
Unlike tongue aptitude, vision, and handedness, we make the biology of sex socially significant. When we differentiate between men and women, for example, we also invoke blue and pink baby blankets, suits and dresses, Maxim and Cosmopolitan magazines, and action movies and chick flicks. These are all examples of the world divided up into the masculine and the feminine , into things we associate with men and women. The word gender refers to the symbolism of masculinity and femininity that we connect to being male-bodied or female-bodied.
Symbols matter because they indicate what bodily differences mean in prac tice. They force us to try to fit our bodies into constraints that “pinch” both physically and symbolically, as high heels do. They prompt us to invent
l ouis X i V, king of France from 1643 to 1715, gives himself a boost with big hair and high heels.
ways around bodily limitations, as eyeglasses do. They are part of our collective imaginations and, accordingly, the stuff out of which we create human reality. Gender symbolism shapes not just our identities and the ideas in our heads, but workplaces, families, and schools, and our options for navigating through them.
This is where distinction comes in. Much of what we believe about men and women—even much of what we imagine is strictly biological—is not naturally occurring difference that emerges from our male and female bodies. Instead, it’s an outcome of active efforts to produce and maintain difference: a sea of people working together every day to make men masculine and women feminine, and signify the relative importance of masculinity and femininity in every domain.
Commonly held ideas, and the behaviors that both uphold and challenge them, are part of culture : a group’s shared beliefs and the practices and material things that reflect them. Human lives are wrapped in this cultural meaning, like the powerful masculinity once ascribed to high heels. So gender isn’t merely biological; it’s cultural. It’s the result of a great deal of human effort guided by shared cultural ideas.
o ne of these people is not like the others. We perform gendered distinctions like the one shown here every day, often simply out of habit.
Why would people put so much effort into maintaining this illusion of distinction?
Imagine those aristocratic tantrums: pampered, wig-wearing, facepowdered men stomping their high-heeled feet in frustration with the lowly copycats. How dare the masses blur the line between us, they may have cried. Today it might sound silly, ridiculous even, to care about who does and doesn’t wear high heels. But at the time it was a very serious matter. Successful efforts at distinction ensured that these elite men really seemed different and, more importantly, better than women and other types of men. This was at the very core of the aristocracy: the idea that some people truly are superior and, by virtue of their superiority, entitled to hoard wealth and monopolize power. They had no superpowers with which to claim superiority, no actual proof that God wanted things that way, no biological trait that gave them an obvious advantage. What did they have to distinguish themselves? They had high heels.
Without high heels, or other symbols of superiority, aristocrats couldn’t make a claim to the right to rule. Without difference, in other words, there could be no hierarchy. This is still true today. If one wants to argue that Group A is superior to Group B, there must be distinguishable groups. We can’t think more highly of one type of person than another unless we have at least two types. Distinction, then, must be maintained if we are going to value certain types of people more than others, allowing them to demand more power, attract more prestige, and claim the right to extreme wealth.
Wealth and power continue to be hoarded and monopolized. These inequalities continue to be justified—made to seem normal and natural—by producing differences that make group membership seem meaningful and inequality inevitable or right. We all engage in actions designed to align ourselves with some people and differentiate ourselves from others. Thus we see the persistence of social classes, racial and ethnic categories, the urban-rural divide, gay and straight identities, liberal and conservative parties, and various Christian and Muslim sects, among other distinctions. These categories aren’t all bad; they give us a sense of belonging and bring joy and pleasure into our lives. But they also serve as classifications by which societies unevenly distribute power and privilege.
Gender is no different in this regard. There is a story to tell about both difference and hierarchy and it involves both pleasure and pain. We’ll wait a bit before we seriously tackle the problem of gender inequality, spending several chapters learning just how enjoyable studying gender can be. There’ll be funny parts and fascinating parts. You’ll meet figure skaters and football players, fish and flight attendants and, yes, feminists, too. Eventually we’ll get to the part that makes you want to throw the book across the room. We won’t take it personally. For now, let’s pick up right where we started, with distinction.
The ones wi T h eyelashes are girls; boys don’ T have eyelashes.
—Four-year-old e rin describes her drawing 1
i deas
Most of us use the phrase “opposite sexes” when describing the categories of male and female. It’s a telling phrase. There are other ways to express this relationship. It was once common, for example, to use the phrase “the fairer sex” or “the second sex” to describe women. We could simply say “the other sex,” a more neutral phrase. Or, even, “an other sex,” which leaves open the possibility of more than two. Today, though, people usually describe men and women as opposites .
Seventeenth-century Europeans—the same ones fighting over high heels—didn’t believe in “opposite” sexes; they didn’t even believe in two sexes. 2 They believed men and women were better and worse versions of the same sex, with identical reproductive organs that were just arranged differently: Men’s genitals were pushed out of the body, while women’s remained inside. As Figure 2.1 shows, they saw the vagina as simply a penis that hadn’t emerged from the body; the womb as a scrotum in the belly; the ovaries just internal testes. As the lyrics to one early song put it: “Women are but men turned outside in.”3
Seventeenth-century anatomists were wrong, of course. We’re not the same sex. The uterus and fallopian tubes of the female body come from an embryonic structure that is dissolved during male fetal development. Conversely, men’s internal sexual and
reproductive plumbing has no corollary inside most women. The penis is not a protruding vagina, nor the vagina a shy penis.
But the idea that we are opposite sexes is not completely right either. The penis and scrotum do have something in common with female anatomy. The same tissue that becomes the scrotum in males becomes the outer labia in females; the penis and the clitoris are formed of the same erectile tissue and clustered nerve endings; and testes and ovaries are both gonads that make germ cells (sperm and eggs), one just a modified version of the other. If you’re curious what it feels like to have the genitals of the other sex—and who hasn’t wondered?—the truth is you probably already have a pretty good idea just by having genitals yourself. Our bodies are all human, developing from the same blob of tissue, modified to enable sexual reproduction. So while it’s not perfectly correct to say there’s only one sex, neither is it perfectly correct to say we’re opposites.
Nevertheless, opposite is the word we use, and it has strong implications: that whatever one sex is, the other simply is not. Today most people in most Western countries are familiar with this idea, referred to in sociology as the
figure 2.1 | 17 th century illustration of the vagina and uterus
This anatomical illustration from 1611 of the interior of a vagina (left) and the exterior of a vagina and uterus (right) shows the r enaissance idea of female genitalia—an internal phallus.
gender binary. The word binary refers to a system with two and only two separate and distinct parts, like binary code (the 1s and 0s used in computing) or a binary star system (in which two stars orbit each other). So the term gender binary refers to the idea that there are only two types of people— male-bodied people who are masculine and female-bodied people who are feminine—and those types are fundamentally different and contrasting.
Because we tend to think in terms of a gender binary, we routinely speak about men as if they’re all the same and likewise for women. The nervous parent might warn his thirteen-year-old daughter, for example, “boys only want one thing,” while the Valentine’s Day commercial insists all women love chocolate. In fact, most of us embrace gender categories in daily life and talk about “men” and “women” as if membership in one of these categories says a great deal about a person. We might say “I’m such a girl!” when we confess we’re addicted to strawberry lip balm, or repeat the refrain “boys will be boys” when observing the antics of a young male cousin. If we’re feeling hurt, we might even comfort ourselves by saying “all men suck” or “women are crazy.” All these phrases rely on the idea that the terms men and women refer to meaningful categories.
We often talk this way but, when push comes to shove, we’ll admit that we don’t necessarily believe in such rigid gender stereotypes, especially when they’re applied to us. When asked, most people will say they sort of do . . . and sort of don’t . . . conform to the relevant stereotype. Maybe we’re a woman who adores romantic comedies but is also first in line for the next superhero movie. Or maybe we’re a man who enjoys a hot bath after a rugby game. This sort of mixing and matching of interests is typical. Accordingly, a large number of us don’t believe we, personally, conform to a stereotype. And, in fact, when we stop and think about it, many and perhaps most of the people we know well don’t fit into the stereotypes either. This leads us to the first of many probing questions we will attempt to answer throughout this book:
If we don’t learn the idea of the gender binary by observing the people around us, where does the idea come from?
This chapter will show that people who grow up in most contemporary Western societies learn to use a set of beliefs about gender as a scaffold for understanding the world. If we are well socialized, we will put people and things into masculine and feminine categories and subcategories out of habit and largely without thinking. We apply the binary to human bodies, believing men and women to have different and nonoverlapping anatomies and physiologies. We also apply it to objects, places, activities, talents, and ideas.
We become so skilled at layering ideas about gender onto the world that we have a hard time seeing it for what it really is. We don’t notice when gender stereotypes don’t make sense. Even more, we tend to see and remember things consistent with gender stereotypes, while forgetting or misremembering things inconsistent with those stereotypes. In other words, gender is a logic that we are talented at manipulating, but it is manipulating us, too.
Don’t feel bad about it. Essentially all societies notice and interpret sexrelated differences in our bodies, so we are no different in that sense. In fact, we’ll explore some of the other ways that people have thought about gender in a later section. Before we do, though, let’s take a closer look at our own unusual ideas about gender—the gender binary—and review the biology of sex.
THE BINARY AND OUR BODIES
At thirteen years old, Georgiann Davis’s parents brought her to the doctor with abdominal pain. 4 After extensive examination and testing, she was told she had “underdeveloped ovaries” with a high chance of becoming cancerous. Her parents consented to surgery to remove them. Six years later she requested her medical records in the routine process of acquiring a new doctor, only to learn she’d never had ovaries at all. The doctors had lied: In fact, she’d had testes.
Georgiann was diagnosed with what physicians now call androgen insensitivity syndrome. 5 At fertilization, a Y sperm combined with an X egg, putting her on the biological path to becoming male. But her cells lacked the ability to detect the hormones that typically masculinize a body. So, even though she had XY chromosomes and testes that produced testosterone and other androgens, her testes remained in her abdomen as if they were ovaries, and the development of her external genitalia followed the female body plan.
People with androgen insensitivity syndrome are intersex , born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t fit the typical definitions of female or male. People who are intersex remind us that while we tend to take for granted that everyone is unambiguously male or female, the path to such a straightforward body involves many complicated steps. Step one is conception. If a sperm with an X chromosome meets an egg, the fertilization kicks off the development of a female; if the sperm contains a Y chromosome, it kicks off the development of a male. Since all eggs have an X chromosome, men typically have an XY chromosomal profile and women have an XX. This, however, is just the beginning of a complex process involving at least eight steps, as shown in Table 2.1. If the fertilized egg is XY, we should expect to see the development of testes. Setting this process in motion involves not just a Y chromosome but also several genes on the X chromosome and dozens of other genes located on yet other chro -
Table 2.1 | ste P s toWard B ecoM ing a “M an ” or a “WoM an ” in the united states
Step Male Path
Female Path
chromosomes XY XX
gonads
testes
ovaries
hormones androgens/estrogensestrogens/androgens
external genitalia
internal genitalia
secondary sex characteristics
gender identity
penis, scrotum
seminal vesicles, prostate, epididymis, vas deferens
mosomes. 6 If this situation occurs and the testes begin making their particular cocktail of androgens and estrogens, then internal and external genitalia typical of males will develop. At puberty, the boy will grow pubic hair in a different pattern than his female counterparts and experience a deepening of his voice. He will probably have less breast tissue than the average female-bodied person.
Without the intervention of a Y chromosome, a fertilized egg will follow a female development path. The fetus will develop ovaries and internal and external genitalia typical of females. At puberty, the brain will instruct the ovaries to produce a different cocktail of androgens and estrogens that stimulate feminine patterns of body fat, an upside-down triangle of pubic hair, breasts, and a menstrual cycle.
Becoming a “man” or “woman” in the United States today, though, involves more than just physical development. It is considered normal for a male-bodied person, for example, to identify as male, feel good about one’s identity as a man, and behave in masculine ways. This is his gender identity, a sense of oneself as male or female. Most of us also learn to communicate our gender identity through our appearance, dress, and behavior. This is our gender expression
Most of us assume that one’s body, gender identity, and gender expression will all line up but, as Georgiann’s case illustrates, sometimes they don’t. Dozens of conditions can result in a body that isn’t clearly male or female, or one that doesn’t match the identity or expression of the person who inhabits it. In fact, it is estimated that at least one out of every hundred people is intersex and more than one in ten report feeling as masculine as they do feminine, or more gender atypical than typical.7
The 10 Percent
People with intersex bodies are living proof that not everyone fits into a gender binary that allows only for opposite sexes. We all almost certainly know at least one intersex person—and we likely don’t know who they are. Like Georgiann, sometimes even the people with the intersex condition don’t know they are intersex. While some people are diagnosed as intersex at birth, other times it’s discovered later in life; sometimes a person never learns of it at all.
Some intersex conditions are chromosomal. While most humans have XX or XY sex chromosomes, others are XXY, XXXY, XXX, XYY, or X. These conditions are caused by an anomaly in the cell division with which our bodies make egg and sperm. Sometimes sex chromosomes “stick” to each other and resist dividing with the rest of our chromosomes. Through this process, a person can make a sperm or egg with no chromosomes or two chromosomes instead of just one. In other cases, variations in development can produce male-bodied individuals with XX chromosomes (in which a gene on the Y chromosome critical for the development of testes has crossed over onto an X) and female-bodied individuals with XY chromosomes (in which that same gene was damaged or deleted).
A person can carry XXY chromosomes, for example, if a sperm carrying an X and a Y merges with an egg with an X. 8 A person born with three X chromosomes (after an XX egg merges with an X sperm) has what is called triple X syndrome.9 Some women are born with only one chromosome, which occurs when an X egg or sperm merges with an egg or sperm without a sex chromosome. 10 Because the Y chromosome has so few genes, men can’t be born with only a Y; an X is essential to life.
With the exception of being born with a lone Y, none of these conditions is fatal and both children and adults with these conditions tend to blend in with XY and XX people relatively easily. Most have gender identities that match the appearance of their perceived sex. Most XXX women will never even know they have a chromosomal condition at all because they typically don’t exhibit any symptoms (other than being slightly tall). People with XXY chromosomes are often especially tall and have broader hips and less body hair than men who are XY. Women with only one X are somewhat more recognizable; they tend to be a bit short and have distinctive features. People with these chromosomal conditions are sometimes (but not always) infertile and sometimes (but don’t always) face specific health problems.
Intersex conditions can also be caused by hormones. Sometimes a fetus has a hyperactive adrenal gland that produces masculinizing hormones. If the fetus is XX, then the baby will be born with an enlarged clitoris that resembles a small-to-medium-sized penis. Most babies born with this condition identify as female when they grow older and are perfectly healthy, as it is not a medical prob-
lem to have a slightly large clitoris. Georgiann’s condition is also a hormonebased departure from the path to unambiguous male and female bodies; it is caused by an inability of cells to recognize androgens released by the testes both before and after birth. All of these outcomes occur in nature and reflect varieties of human development.
The gender binary, however, leaves no room for variety, so sometimes intersex children still undergo surgery in order to bring their bodies into line with social expectations, even when surgery is medically unnecessary. 11 Upon adulthood, many of these children have questioned the necessity of these procedures, noting the pain and suffering that accompanies any surgery, the frequent loss of physical function, the inability of infants or small children to give consent, and the mis-assignment of children to the “wrong” side of the binary. The work of intersex activists—those who, like Georgiann, have been trying to draw attention to the problems with medically unnecessary surgery before the age of consent—has influenced many doctors to delay surgery until people with intersex bodies can make informed decisions, but surgeries on infants have not ended. Discomfort with bodies that deviate from the gender binary continues to motivate some physicians and parents to choose medically unnecessary surgery for infants and children.
Another example of a group whose gender markers sometimes don’t conform to the gender binary are, in many parts of the Western world today, called transgender. Also referred to simply as trans , the term refers to a diverse group of people who experi ence some form of gender dysphoria , a discomfort with the relationship between their bodies’ assigned sex and their gender identity, or otherwise reject the gender binary.
In the United States, trans-identified people have recently gained much greater visibility. Laverne Cox, for example, star of the television show Orange Is the New Black , appeared on the cover of Time maga zine and was named Woman of the Year by Glamour magazine in 2014. Olympic decathlon gold medalist Caitlyn Jenner announced her transition on the cover of Vanity Fair in 2015. Jazz Jennings, a transgender teenager, was given a reality show on TLC that same year. And in 2017, Danica Roem became the first openly trans person elected to a state legislature; she defeated the incumbent, a man who had introduced a bill that would have restricted trans rights.
The term trans includes people who undergo a full surgical transition, but also people who do not.
d anica r oem is a singer in a death metal band and the first openly trans person to be elected and serve in a u s state legislature.
Some want nothing more than to be as male or female as possible. To this end, some trans people take hormones to masculinize or feminize their bodies, have gender-confirmation surgeries to remake their bodies into ones with which they feel more comfortable, and live as the other sex. Others do only some or none of these things. Thomas Beatie, for example, made headlines when he became pregnant with the first of what would be three children. Thomas was born female but began to identify as a boy during childhood. He underwent some surgical transformation at age twenty-three but chose not to undergo a hysterectomy, preserving his ability to get pregnant and bear children.
Some trans people, then, identify as men or women, others identify as trans men or trans women, and still others identify as nonbinary, outside of or between the binary between male and female (also described as genderqueer). This includes people who identify as gender fluid , without a fixed gender identity. In light of these new terms, the word cisgender is increasingly used to refer to male- and female-bodied people who comfortably identify and express themselves as men and women, respectively.
While some trans, genderqueer, gender-fluid, and nonbinary people prefer to be referred to by the pronouns he/him and she/her, others prefer genderneutral pronouns like the singular they/them or an alternative gender-neutral singular like ze/zir. Sometimes people choose a gender identity and stick with
Thomas beatie was female-bodied at birth but chose to live his adult life as a man. because he opted not to undergo a hysterectomy, he was able to give birth to three children.
it; other times they evolve. Increasingly, social organizations are responding to these preferences. Facebook now offers dozens of gender-identity labels as well as a freeform field. It also allows people to choose up to ten identities and decide which friends see which, allowing users to control how they present themselves to different audiences. Dating sites, including Grindr, Tinder, and OkCupid, now allow people to identify as nonbinary. Nods to nonbinary identities, gender fluidity, and simple nonconformity are happening throughout American society. The makeup company Cover Girl, for example, hired James Charles to be its first male-identified ambassador and Calvin Klein released a fragrance it describes as “gender free.”
These new ideas, shifting policies, and corporate decisions are increasingly inclusive of the estimated 10 percent (or more) of the human population who don’t—or don’t want to—fit into a rigid gender binary. And it’s becoming clearer, as we learn more about both biology and identity, that there is no obvious way we could place them into the binary anyway. How would we decide where people with intersex bodies go? To qualify as male or female, does a person’s body have to match every gender criterion, from chromosomes to hormones to genitals to identity? If so, what do we call the estimated 76 million people on earth who can’t claim a “perfectly” male or “perfectly” female body? Would it be better to pick just one criterion as the determinant of sex? Which one? Should genitals trump chromosomes? Or are chromosomes more “fundamental”?
Moreover, who cares? If bodies function but don’t fit into the gender binary, is that a problem? Who gets to decide? And where do we draw the line? How many millimeters separate a child with a small penis at birth and a child diagnosed as intersex? And if someone’s body does fit all the criteria but their identity and expression diverge, why not give them tools that allow them to better fit their bodies to their gender identity, just as we provide eyeglasses or allow surgery for people with limited vision? How much body manipulation is “good” and how much is “bad”? And who gets to decide what to demand or allow?
Questions abound. And the truth is, we can’t answer them satisfactorily. We can’t because we’re trying to impose a false binary on reality. Human bodies just don’t come in the neat packages a gender binary assumes. Not even, in fact, when we consider the 90 percent of the population who seem like they do.
a brand’s willingness to hire
James charles— cover g irl’s first coverboy—indicates growing support of genderqueer performances.
The Other 90 Percent
Remember, the gender binary doesn’t just allow for only two sexes, it also makes the much stronger claim that we are “opposite sexes.” The idea of “oppositeness” makes blurring the boundaries between masculinity and femininity “queer” and encourages cisgender men and women to maximize apparent difference in their gender expression, making the gender binary appear more real than it is. This is necessary because male and female bodies are not in a biological binary at all. They are far more alike than different. Even for physical characteristics on which there is a clear gender difference, we see a great deal of overlap.
Height is a great example. The average man is five and a half inches taller than the average woman. 12 So men are taller than women, right? Well, not really. The average man is taller than the average woman, but because both men and women come in a range of heights, some women are taller than many men, and many men are taller than some women. This is not a binary difference, one that posits that all men are taller than all women; it’s an average difference, a measure of tendency, not absolutes (Figure 2.2).
We see this type of overlap in all sex-related traits. There are hairy women and men who can’t grow a mustache; men with breasts and women with flat chests;
Source: Cheryl D. Fryar, Qiuping Gu, and Cynthia L. Ogden, “Anthropometric reference data for children and adults: United States, 2007–2010,” National Center for Health Statistics, Vital and Health Statistics 1, no. 252 (October 2012).
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further the infamous scheme in which your associates are engaged.
“But Stanley and I have talked it over, and if you will absolutely and unconditionally promise to sever yourself entirely from your associates, and never again to take part in any political plotting, we will do as you ask and bring the steam yacht to the place you mention, and remain there until you can make an opportunity to join us. We will then take you to America or Australia, or whatever country you think will be safest, will allow you a certain yearly sum which will enable you to begin life over again, and if possible to retrieve your terrible past. I tell you frankly that it is only after days of entreaty that I have got Stanley to consent to this. Had it not been that he knows my life is hanging by a thread, and that for you, my only brother, to be given up to the police by information which came through me would kill me, I believe he would have telegraphed at once to the police after receiving your letter and told them where you could be found. It is right to tell you that the terrible shock I received when I saw the ‘Daily Record,’ and knew that my half-brother was ‘Captain Shannon’ brought on hemorrhage of the lungs afresh, and so badly that my life was at first despaired of.
“But whether I live or die, Stanley has promised me— and you know he never goes back from his word—that if you will accept the conditions we impose he will help you to get out of the country. But he will do nothing until he has received that promise, so send us a line at once.
“And now, James, as it is quite possible that I may die before then and never see you again, I wish to make one last and perhaps dying request. You know how nobly my dear father acted when he found out about you; how, to save our mother’s reputation, he gave out that you were his nephew, whom he intended to adopt as his son. James, for his sake, for my sake, for our dead mother’s sake, promise me that should you be arrested you will
never let our connection with you be known. It could do you no good, and it would mean that our mother’s guilty secret would come out, and my innocent children would be disgraced and dishonoured throughout their lives by her shame and your guilt. If you have one spark of natural affection left you will promise me this.—Your brokenhearted sister,
“F.”
CHAPTER XV A DOCUMENT OF IMPORTANCE
It was a copy, and not the original, of this pitiful letter which I found in the cigar-case, as was evident from the fact that the document was in Green’s handwriting, and to this I attached some importance.
As matters stood it looked as if Green had in some way contrived to intercept Mullen’s correspondence; and it also looked as if, after making himself acquainted with the contents of Mullen’s letters, Green had carefully resealed them and let them go on to the person for whom they were intended. That he must have had some reason for not retaining in his possession what might prove so valuable a piece of evidence was very clear, and after thinking the matter over I came to the following conclusion.
Although Mullen had given an address to which a letter might be sent to him by his sister, it was not likely that he himself was actually to be found at that address. On the contrary, it was more than probable that he had arranged some complicated and roundabout system of reforwarding correspondence, so that even if the police should find out the address to which the letter was sent, they would still have before them the difficult task of tracing the letter to the address to which it had been reforwarded, and perhaps again reforwarded, before they could come to the actual hiding-place of the fugitive, who in the meantime would get wind of what was going on and would promptly decide that it was high time for him to change his quarters. And I felt tolerably sure that his manner of making a change would be like that of certain sea-fowl who, upon the approach of an enemy, dive out of sight beneath the water, where they twist and turn and eventually come up far out of reach and range, and in any other direction than that in which they are looked for.
Hence it was possible that though Green had succeeded, as I say, either in intercepting or obtaining access to Mullen’s correspondence, he might not be any nearer to discovering the criminal’s actual whereabouts. But if Green merely took a copy of this letter and then let it go on to Mullen, the latter would very likely fall into the trap of keeping the appointment which he had made with his sister, and could then be arrested and handed over to justice. For though his sister had—lest the letter should fall into other hands than those for which it was intended—cautiously refrained from mentioning her own or her husband’s name, or from giving any address except that of a foreign town, she had, woman-like, forgotten that there were not likely to be many large steam yachts belonging to an English gentleman, whose wife was in bad health, lying at the same moment off such a place as Stavanger. An experienced inquiry agent like Green would have no difficulty in learning the name of such a vessel and of its owner; and that he had taken steps to obtain the necessary information was very clear from the second document which I found in his cigar-case. Here it is—
Viscount Dungannon, shot in U. S. A. in 1881, } and { Mary Hatherwick Coyne, daughter of John Coyne, Esq., of Galway, had son, known as James Cross, who afterwards assumed the name of James Mullen.
This Mary Hatherwick Coyne (d. 1880) { was afterwards married to } Henry Cross (d. 1886); and had daughter, Flora Hatherwick Cross, b. 1865; m. in 1885 to Stanley Burgoyne, Esq.
The meaning of this document—a document which affords some interesting data to the student of heredity—evidently was that James Mullen was the illegitimate son of the famous, and also infamous, Lord Dungannon by a Miss Mary Coyne, the daughter of an Irish gentleman. The fact that Miss Coyne had been seduced and had given birth to a child had probably been kept a secret, for if Green’s notes were correct she had afterwards married a Mr. Henry Cross, by whom she had a daughter, Flora (now Mrs. Stanley Burgoyne), who was therefore Mullen’s half-sister, and the writer of the letter a copy of which I had found in Green’s cigar-case.
How Green had contrived to find out the address to which Mullen was having his letters sent there was no evidence to show. Whether it was due to a singularly lucky fluke or to his own astuteness I could not say, and am not likely ever to know, but I quite realised and understood that it was possible for him to have made such a discovery. And I recognised and understood also that, after having read the letter which gave him the clue to Mullen’s connection with Mrs. Stanley Burgoyne, the other facts which he had ferreted out in regard to Mullen’s parentage would not be difficult to arrive at. What I could not understand, however, was by what means he had succeeded in intercepting Mullen’s letters. If Green had been an official from Scotland Yard he would no doubt be allowed to intercept letters which might be written by or addressed to suspected persons, but that the postal authorities would permit a private inquiry agent to tamper with their mail bags was not to be entertained. That Green was staying in the same house as Mullen, and was able in that way to lay hands on the latter’s correspondence, was very unlikely. Nor was it likely that my late inquiry agent had succeeded in bribing a postman, for though it may not be impossible to find dishonest postmen, the odds are very much against finding the dishonest man in the one particular office with the mails of which one wishes to tamper.
A far more probable theory was that which had at first occurred to me, namely, that the letters had been directed to the care of a tobacconist, or, more likely still, of a hairdresser. It is matter of common knowledge that many hairdressers add to their business
takings by allowing letters, on each of which a fee of one penny is charged, to be addressed to their care. Though generally implying a not very creditable connection, these letters are, as a rule, of no more criminal character than assignations with people to whom the recipient has thought it unadvisable to give his real name or address, or whose letters he is anxious should not come under the notice of his family.
If Green had intercepted the letters at a tobacconist’s shop, the first thing to find out was where that tobacconist’s shop was situated, and the only way to do so would be to trace the inquiry agent’s recent movements. Hence I decided that I could not do better than run down to Yarby again and see what could be learned about him. But before I could do this with safety I should have to ascertain whether the body had been found, and whether suspicions of foul play were entertained, as in that case it would not be advisable to visit the neighbourhood for the present.
The morning paper of the following day settled that point satisfactorily, for on opening my “Daily News” I read the following announcement:—
“S D D .—Mr. Robert Bakewell
Green, a visitor from London, was accidentally drowned at Baxenham, near Yarby, yesterday. The body was discovered late last night on the beach by the Baxenham rural postman. From the fact that the unfortunate man was wearing no boots it is supposed that he had taken them off in order to pursue the pastime—so popular among Cockney visitors to the seaside—of paddling among the small pools left by the last tide. Doctor Ellis, who examined the body, is of opinion that while so engaged the deceased was overcome by faintness and was drowned in quite shallow water, the body being subsequently washed up upon the beach by the incoming tide. An inquest will be held.”
Five minutes after I had read this paragraph I was on my way to catch the next train to Yarby. The reader will remember that Green had given his address as “Care of Mrs. Brand, Elm Cottage, Baxenham,” and my first step was to interview this lady, under the pretence of being a Press representative who had come down to collect further particulars about her late lodger. From Mrs. Brand I learned among other facts that Green had been in the habit of paying frequent visits to Cotley, a seaside town some twenty miles inland.
To Cotley I according betook myself, and curiously enough the very first thing that caught my eye after leaving the station was the legend, “Letters Taken,” displayed in the window of a tobacconist’s shop immediately fronting the booking-office entrance. The door was closed, but as I pushed it open a bell overhead announced the arrival of a customer.
I found myself in a small shop with another room beyond, on the swing doors of which were the words, “To the Hairdressing Saloon.” There was no one behind the counter, nor, so far as I could see, was there any one in the hair-cutting rooms. But on the counter before me lay half a dozen letters, apparently thrown there by an impatient postman who could not wait for the proprietor’s return. One of them was for “Mr. Robert Bakewell Green,” the inscription being in his own handwriting; another was addressed in a woman’s hand to “Mr. Henry Jeanes,” and I saw that it bore a Norwegian stamp and the Stavanger postmark. Could “Henry Jeanes” be the name under which James Mullen was having letters sent to him?
CHAPTER XVI
HENRY JEANES, ALIAS JAMES MULLEN
It had been raining heavily when the train drew up at the Cotley platform, but as I did not know how far I might have to walk I had put up my umbrella when leaving the station only to put it down again as I entered the hairdresser’s shop. I was holding the half-closed umbrella in my hand when my eye caught sight of the two letters. To sweep them as if by accident into the folds of the umbrella was the work of a second, and then as I turned quickly round I saw a man without a hat and wearing a white apron slip out of the door of a publichouse opposite and run hastily across the road towards the shop, wiping his mouth with his hand as he did so.
As I expected, he was the proprietor of the establishment, and after wishing me good-morning and apologising for being out of the way by explaining that he had been across the road to borrow a postage stamp, he proceeded to tuck me up in a white sheet preparatory to cutting my hair.
The demand for postage stamps had evidently been heavy that afternoon, and the task of affixing them had no doubt resulted in an uncomfortable dryness of the mouth, which necessitated the frequent use of liquid. Under the circumstances I considered this rather fortunate than otherwise, for the man was not unaware of his condition, and did his best to palliate it by being so obligingly communicative in regard to any question I asked him that I could, had I wished it, have acquainted myself with all that he knew about every customer who patronised his establishment.
“You have letters addressed here sometimes, don’t you?” I asked, as he was brushing my hair.
“Yes, sir, we ’ave letters addressed ’ere,” he made answer; “but strictly confidential, of course,” whispering this in my ear with
drunken gravity, and adding, after a pause, with a meaning leer, “Hand very convenient too, under certain circumstances. Is there hany little thing you can do for us in that way yourself, sir? If so we should be ’appy to accept your commission.”
The only little thing I was minded to do for him was to kick him, and that right heavily, but repressing the unregenerate desire of the natural man, I affected to be thinking the matter over, and then replied—
“Why, yes, I think you might. My name is Smithers—Alfred John Smithers, so if any letters addressed to that name come here you’ll know they are for me, won’t you?”
“Certainly,” he said. “Only too ’appy to oblige a customer at hany time. Living ’ere, sir?”
“Staying for a week or so,” I answered, “and I may perhaps come to live, but am not sure yet. By-the-bye, do you ever get any letters for my friend Mr. Henry Jeanes?”
“Mr. Henry Jeanes? Oh, yes, sir. And you are the second gentleman that’s harsked me the same question. Mr. Green ’e harsked me as well.”
“Mr. James Bakewell Green?” I said. “Oh, yes; he is a friend of mine too.”
“Hindeed, sir!” (This with a deprecatory cough, as if he did not think much of the late Mr. Green, and was inclined in consequence to reconsider the favourable opinion he had apparently formed of myself.) “Curious gentleman, Mr Green. Never bought nothing in the shop, Mr. Green didn’t. Most gentlemen as ’as their letters addressed ’ere takes a bottle of our ’air wash now and then for the good of the ’ouse; but Mr. Green ’e never ’ad as much as a stick of shaving soap at hany time. ’E was halways harsking questions too, as I told Mr. Jeanes.”
“Oh,” I said, beginning to see daylight in regard to the means by which Mullen had got to know that Green was making inquiries about him. “How did you come to mention the matter to Mr. Jeanes?”
“Mr Jeanes ’e left particular word, sir, that if hanybody harsked after ’im we was to be sure and let ’im know.”
“I see,” I said. “And when do you expect Mr. Jeanes to call again?”
“Mr. Jeanes never calls, sir. We ’aven’t ever seen ’im. ’E sent us hinstructions that all letters wot come for ’im was to be put in a henvelope and addressed to ’im at Professor Lawrance’s ’air-cutting establishment at Stanby, and we was to let ’im know if any one harsked after ’im.”
At that moment the bell over the tobacconist’s shop outside announced the entrance of a customer, and two young men pushing open the swing door of the hairdressing saloon, seated themselves to await their turn.
Under the circumstances, and especially as I had learnt all I required, I did not think it wise to ask further questions, but I had a particular reason—which the reader shall shortly hear—for wishing to possess a specimen of the handwriting in which the letters for Henry Jeanes, Esq., that were sent on to the care of Professor Lawrance’s establishment at Stanby, were directed.
“Can you spare me a second in the outside shop?” I said to the hairdresser.
“With pleasure, sir,” he answered, following me out. “What can I do for you?”
“Look here,” I said, pushing half-a-sovereign towards him over the counter, “that’s for your trouble in letting me have my letters addressed here. And now another matter I’ve not been very well today, and want to see a doctor. Who’s the best man to go to?”
“Dr. Carruthers, Devonshire ’Ouse, Grayland Road, sir. Best doctor in the town, sir,” he responded.
“Would you mind writing it down for me? I’ve got a beastly memory.”
“With pleasure, sir,” he said, producing a bottle of ink, a pen, and a sheet of paper from a drawer. “That’s it, sir. Much obliged, sir. I’ll be very careful about the letters, and good-day, sir.”
CHAPTER XVII
ON THE HEELS OF JAMES MULLEN
I had already decided that my next destination must be Stanby, where it would be necessary to pay a visit to Professor Lawrance’s hair-cutting establishment. But first I had to read the letters I had secured, so I turned into a small quiet-looking hotel and, having ordered dinner, asked that I might have the use of a bedroom. Then I rang for a jug of boiling water, and on its arrival I dived into the folds of my umbrella, and having brought up the two epistles which were there secreted I proceeded to hold them over the steam until the gum was so moist that it was possible to open them.
The letter for Green was, as I have said, directed to himself in his own writing. It contained nothing more important than a sheet of blank notepaper, which, as the reader will already have surmised, had evidently been sent as a “blind,” its purpose being to afford the inquiry agent an excuse for calling at the shop where it had been delivered.
The letter addressed to Mr. Henry Jeanes—that which had attracted my attention from the fact of its bearing the postmark of the very town in Norway where I had reason to believe Mullen’s sister was staying—promised to be more interesting, and it was with no little eagerness that I opened it and read as follows:—
“J ,—Your letter to hand. I cannot reply at present, as Stanley has gone to Bergen; but I will write you again on his return.
“F.”
Though short, and unimportant as regards contents, this letter was of the highest importance in other respects. Firstly, because it was evidently from Mrs. Stanley Burgoyne, and intended for the eye of
James Mullen, and so in every way confirmed the genuineness of the letter I had found in Green’s cigar-case; and secondly, because it disclosed some information that I might otherwise have had much difficulty in discovering—the name under which Mullen’s correspondence was being addressed to him.
It was of the highest importance—if Mullen was to fall into the trap which I was preparing for him—that he should have no cause to suspect his correspondence was again being tampered with; so, as it was possible that Mrs. Burgoyne might refer to this epistle in a later letter, I carefully resealed the note and handed it to the postman, whom I saw delivering letters in the street where the shop whence I had obtained it was situated.
“What’s this?” he said when he had looked at it.
“You dropped it when making your last call,” I answered.
He looked surprised at first, and afterwards suspicious. “I don’t remember seeing that letter when I sorted my delivery,” he said; “and I ain’t in the habit of dropping letters in the street—been at it too long for that. How do I know this ain’t a put-up job?”
“Give it me back at once, you insolent fellow,” I replied, “and I’ll do what I ought to have done at first—take it to the head office and report you to the postmaster for negligence. I go out of my way to do you a courtesy, and perhaps save you from getting into trouble for carelessness in the execution of your duty, and I get insulted for my pains. Give it me back, or come with me to the head office and we’ll soon put this matter right.”
“I humbly ask your pardon, and hope there is no offence, sir, I am sure,” he answered, with a change of manner which showed that he did not relish the threat of being reported for negligence. “I’ll see the letter’s delivered all right, and I’m much obliged to you, sir, I am sure, and hope you won’t think no more of it.”
“I’m not sure that I oughtn’t to take the letter to the office now,” I said. “However, I don’t want to get a man into trouble for an accident, but keep a civil tongue in your head another time, young man, or you’ll not get off so cheaply as you have this.”
He touched his cap, and promising to profit by my advice, slipped the letter in with what I supposed were others bearing the same address; so wishing him good-day I entered a stationer’s shop and purchased a couple of envelopes and two sheets of paper. Each sheet of paper I folded and put into an envelope, which I then addressed in pencil to myself, at the post-office, Stanby. Then, after posting them, I made my way to the station and took a ticket to Stanby.
As I had to wait some time for a train, besides changing twice at junctions, it was late when I reached that town, and I had some difficulty in finding Professor Lawrance’s hair-cutting establishment, which was in a side street, and was already closed for the night. On the other side of the way, and only a few doors down, was a not very clean-looking temperance hotel and coffee palace, and here I secured a bedroom and sitting-room, from the latter of which, as it faced the street, I should be able to keep an eye upon every one who entered or left Professor Lawrance’s establishment.
I then went to bed, but was up early next morning and called at the post-office, where the two envelopes which I had posted on the preceding day at Cotley were awaiting me. These I took with me to my room at the hotel, and having bought a piece of india-rubber on the way I rubbed out the pencilled name and address, after which I re-addressed the envelope in ink to Mr. Henry Jeanes, at Professor Lawrance’s Hair-cutting Rooms, Stanby, imitating as closely I could the handwriting of the barber at Cotley, of whose calligraphy I had secured a specimen.
Most of my readers will already have guessed why I troubled to post these pencil-addressed letters to myself at Cotley, and then, after rubbing out the direction, re-addressed them in ink to Jeanes, at Professor Lawrance’s establishment at Stanby, but as some may fail to do so, I had better perhaps explain myself.
If a letter for Jeanes should be forwarded on to Professor Lawrance’s rooms from Cotley, that letter it would be my business, by hook or by crook, to abstract. But to do this without attracting suspicion, it would be necessary to have a dummy letter with which
to replace it, and the dummy would have to bear the Cotley postmark, and be directed in a hand as much resembling the handwriting on the original letter as possible. How to arrange all this had puzzled me at first, for though I did not anticipate any difficulty in hitting upon a pretext by which to obtain a specimen of the Cotley barber’s handwriting, or in imitating that handwriting when obtained, I could not see how to get over the difficulty of the postmark. A postmark is not an easy thing to forge without specially prepared tools, and until the idea occurred to me of posting at Cotley a letter addressed in pencil to myself at Stanby, and then rubbing out the address and re-addressing it to Jeanes, I was rather at a loss to know how to effect my purpose. However, the difficulty was now satisfactorily surmounted, and armed with my dummy letters I set out to make the acquaintance of Professor Lawrance.
He was an extremely unprepossessing, not to say villainouslooking man, and regarded me with what I could not help thinking was a suspicious eye when I entered. I submitted to be shaved and shampooed, both of which operations he performed badly, though he regaled me meanwhile with his views in regard to the winner of the Derby, and also of a prize-fight which was coming off that day.
“By-the-bye,” I said, as I was drawing on my gloves, “can one have letters addressed here?”
“No,” he replied shortly, “yer can’t. It don’t pay—on the usual terms.”
“I know that,” I said, “or I shouldn’t have asked you. But I’m willing to pay special terms.”
“Is it ’orses?” he inquired gruffly.
“Yes, horses,” I said, taking up the cue which he had given me; “but it’s a fool’s game, and I’ve lost a lot of money over it already.”
“Ah!” with a grin. “And yer’ve got a hintroduction, of course. I don’t take on customers of that sort without a hintroduction. It ain’t safe.”
The affair was panning out beyond my reckoning, but from what had transpired I felt sure that I should be safe in assuming he was more of a betting agent than a barber, and that the wisest thing for
me to do would be, by bluffing boldly, to lead him to suppose I knew all about him; so I nodded assent as airily as possible, and as if his question had been a mere matter of course.
“Who is it?” he asked point blank.
“Morrison,” I replied, without a moment’s hesitation—“Henry Morrison, of Doncaster. You recollect him—tall man, clean-shaven and small eyes. Wears a fawn coat and a brown billycock. He said any money I put on with you would be quite safe.”
The barber nodded. “Like as not, though I don’t rekerllect him from yer description. Well, wot d’yer want me to back?”
“Ah, that’s what I wish you to tell me,” I said—this time at least with absolute truthfulness, for as a matter of fact I did not know as much as the name of one of the horses, or what was the race which we were supposed to be discussing.
“Greased Lightning’s the lay,” he said. “It’s a dead cert. I can get yer level money now It’ll be four to two hon to-morrow How much are yer going to spring?”
I replied that he could put a “flimsy” on for me; and after he had entered the amount and my name—which I gave as Henry Watson— in a greasy notebook, I wished him good morning, promising to call again soon to see if there were any letters.
The rest of the day I spent for the most part in my bedroom watching the customers who patronised Professor Lawrance’s saloon; nor was my vigil without result in assisting me to form an opinion as to the class of business which was there carried on. Not more than a dozen people entered the establishment during the day, and the majority of them had called neither to be shaved nor to have their hair cut. My reason for coming to this conclusion was not that I had such telescopic and microscopic eyes as to be able to detect in every case whether the caller had been under the barber’s hand since his entrance, but because most of Professor Lawrance’s customers did not remain inside his shop more than half a minute, and because, too, I saw a letter in the hand of more than one of those who came out. And as the postman never passed the door
without making a delivery, and the callers were all more or less horsey in dress and appearance, the evidence seemed to point pretty clearly to the fact that Professor Lawrance was, as I had already surmised, more of a betting agent than a barber.
I looked in next morning, ostensibly to be shaved, but in reality to try to get sight of any letters which might have come addressed to the Professor’s care. That worthy forestalled me by gruffly volunteering the information that there were no letters; nor could I succeed in leading the conversation to the subject in which I was interested.
The morning after, however, I waited until I saw some one—who looked more like a customer in search of a barber than of a betting agent—enter the shop, and then followed him. He was at that moment being lathered for shaving, so after wishing the Professor good-morning, and remarking that I was in no hurry, I took a seat close to the mantel-shelf and pretended to read the “Daily Telegraph.” It was on this mantel-shelf, as I was aware, that the box containing the letters was kept, but on looking round I saw to my dismay that the mantel-shelf had been cleared for the display of a big coarsely-coloured picture of “The Great Fight between Slade and Scroggins.” The picture was labelled, “To be raffled for—the proceeds for the benefit of the widow.”
Whether this was intended as a delicate way of intimating that the conflict had proved fatal to one of the conflicting parties, or whether the widow in question was the relict of the artistic genius whose brain had conceived and whose hand had drawn the picture, I am unable to say, as particulars were not given. In regard to the details of the raffle, however, the promoters of the enterprise had condescended to be more explicit, as another label announced that the price of tickets was sixpence, and that they were “to be obtained of the Professor.” I was, however, more concerned at the moment in ascertaining what had become of the letters, so I scanned the room carefully, shifting meanwhile the outspread and interposed broadsheet of the “Daily Telegraph”—like a yachtsman setting his canvas close to the wind—so as to keep myself out of reach of the Professor’s too-inquisitive glance, and switching my eyes from object
to object until they discovered the missing letters placed upon a rack which hung upon the wall near the window.
“It’s very dark here, or else my sight’s getting bad and I shall have to take to glasses. I’m hanged if I can read this small print,” I said aloud, standing up and moving towards the window, as if to get a better light. For half a minute I pretended to read, and then I leisurely shook out the newspaper to its fullest extent, in order to reverse the sheet, thus hiding myself completely from the Professor’s eye.
As I did so I took the opportunity to snatch the packet of letters from the rack. It was no easy matter to shuffle through them with one hand and without attracting attention, but I accomplished the task successfully, and not without result, for the bottom letter of the packet was for Mr. Henry Jeanes, and was in the handwriting of the barber at Cotley.
The reader will remember that I had prepared two envelopes bearing the Cotley postmark, and addressed to Jeanes in as close an imitation of the barber’s handwriting as possible. Into one of these envelopes I had that morning slipped a sheet of blank paper on which was pasted the newspaper cutting about the finding of the body of poor Green (I had a reason for doing so which will shortly transpire), and this envelope I was at that moment carrying just inside my sleeve. To abstract the original letter and replace it by the dummy was the work of a few seconds. It was well that I had come thus prepared, for in the next instant the Professor had snatched the packet from my hand, and was asking in a voice quivering with fury, “What the dickens I meant by such impudence?”
“What’s the excitement?” I said, as calmly and unconsciously as possible. “I was only looking if there was one for me? There’s no harm done.”
“Oh, isn’t there?” he said. “But there soon will be if yer get meddling ’ere again,” and with one swiftly-searching and darklysuspicious glance at my face he fell to examining the letters, and, as I could see by the movement of his lips, counting them one by one to see that none was missing. My heart, I must confess, jumped a bit when he came to the forgery with which I had replaced the letter I
had abstracted. But the result was apparently satisfactory, for he put the packet back upon the rack without further comment and took up the discarded shaving brush to continue his task. I did not feel at the best of ease when, after the customer had paid and departed, a surly “Now then!” summoned me to the operating chair, for it was not altogether reassuring to have a razor, in the grip of such a ruffian, at one’s throat. But, though the shave was accomplished with none too light a hand, and the scoundrel drew blood by the probably intentional and malicious way in which he rasped my somewhat tender skin, he did me no serious injury, and it was not long before I was back at the hotel and engaged in opening the abstracted letter.
There were two documents inside, the first of which was addressed to Jeanes in Mrs. Stanley Burgoyne’s handwriting, and ran as follows:—
“J ,—We are glad to have your promise, and will carry out our part of the contract faithfully. We shall remain here as you direct until you telegraph the word ‘Come,’ when we shall start for England at once, and you can count on the yacht being at the place you mention within four days and ready to start again at a few hours’ notice. We shall be just off the boat-builder’s yard where our little yacht is laid up.
“I do not see any necessity for doing as you say in regard to sending the present crew back to England under the pretence that we are not likely to be using the yacht for some time, and then, after getting the ship’s appearance altered by repainting and rechristening her the name you mention, engaging another crew of Norwegians.
“This seems to me a very unnecessary precaution. Your connection with us is never likely to be discovered, unless by your own confession. However, I suppose you know best, and we will do as you say.
“F.”
The other letter was on a half-sheet of notepaper, and in the handwriting of the barber at Cotley. Here it is:—
“R S ,—Mr. Green has not called since I last wrote you. But a person named Smithers came and asked questions. I did not like the look of him and would not tell him anything, but said I did not know any Mr. Jeanes.— Respectfully,
“J D .
“P. S.—Smithers smelt of rum. He had been drinking. He was a low-looking man, and I did not like his eye.”
“I’m pained to hear you don’t like my eye, Mr. James—Mr. ‘Truthful James,’” I said sarcastically as I put the letter down, glancing sideways all the same at a mirror on the wall to see if I could detect any sinister expression in my eye which could account for the unfavourable opinion Mr. James had formed of that feature. “And so you didn’t tell me anything, didn’t you, you precious rascal? Some day I may have an opportunity of telling you something, and then it is possible you may find something else to dislike about me as well as my eye. In the meantime I’ll take the liberty of detaining your letter, as it would put Mullen on the alert if I let it go on to him. His sister’s letter he must have, for if I fail to set hands on him here, I can take him when he keeps his appointment with her on the steam yacht, on board which he hopes to get out of the country So I mustn’t lose a moment in resealing her letter and getting it back by hook or by crook to the letter-rack whence I got it. I’m not easy about the forgery with which I replaced it. If there had chanced to be only two or three letters waiting to be called for this morning, and I had abstracted one without replacing it with a dummy, the Professor would be bound to have noticed that a letter was missing. But I’m running a risk in leaving the forged dummy there a moment longer than I can help. Mullen might call and have it given him, or it may get sent on; and though I flatter myself that the forgery is so well done that even Mullen is not likely to notice any difference in the handwriting, and though it is possible also that he will think the cutting about Green’s
death had been sent him by the Cotley barber, I’d much rather that the dummy didn’t fall into his hands.
“To have forged a letter from the Cotley barber would have been extremely dangerous, for I didn’t then know how the rascal addressed Mullen. And to have enclosed a blank sheet of paper would at once suggest the trick which had been played. The newspaper cutting was the only thing I could think of that had the look of being a bona fide enclosure from the rascal at Cotley. He had to my knowledge informed Mullen that Green was inquiring about him, and what was more natural than that, seeing a notice of Green’s death in the papers, he should send it on to his principal. But all the same, the sooner I get the dummy back into my own hands the better, for I don’t think—”
At this point I broke off my meditations abruptly. I had been sitting in full view of Professor Lawrance’s door, and just then I saw him put his head out, look up and down the street as if to see whether he could safely be away for a few minutes without the probability of a customer popping in, and then cross the road in the direction of the nearest publichouse.
“If I’m to make the exchange, it’s now or never,” I said, snatching up the letter from Mrs. Burgoyne which, after copying, I had put back into its envelope and resealed. In another half-minute I had crossed the road and was ascending the stairs which led to Professor Lawrance’s hair-cutting establishment.
