The Plattner Story

Whether the story of Gottfried Plattner is to be credited or not is a
pretty question in the value of evidence. On the one hand, we have seven
witnesses--to be perfectly exact, we have six and a half pairs of eyes,
and one undeniable fact; and on the other we have--what is it?--prejudice,
common-sense, the inertia of opinion. Never were there seven more
honest-seeming witnesses; never was there a more undeniable fact than the
inversion of Gottfried Plattner's anatomical structure, and--never was
there a more preposterous story than the one they have to tell! The most
preposterous part of the story is the worthy Gottfried's contribution (for
I count him as one of the seven). Heaven forbid that I should be led into
giving countenance to superstition by a passion for impartiality, and so
come to share the fate of Eusapia's patrons! Frankly, I believe there is
something crooked about this business of Gottfried Plattner; but what that
crooked factor is, I will admit as frankly, I do not know. I have been
surprised at the credit accorded to the story in the most unexpected and
authoritative quarters. The fairest way to the reader, however, will be
for me to tell it without further comment.

Gottfried Plattner is, in spite of his name, a freeborn Englishman. His
father was an Alsatian who came to England in the 'sixties, married a
respectable English girl of unexceptionable antecedents, and died, after a
wholesome and uneventful life (devoted, I understand, chiefly to the
laying of parquet flooring), in 1887. Gottfried's age is seven-and-twenty.
He is, by virtue of his heritage of three languages, Modern Languages
Master in a small private school in the south of England. To the casual
observer he is singularly like any other Modern Languages Master in any
other small private school. His costume is neither very costly nor very
fashionable, but, on the other hand, it is not markedly cheap or shabby;
his complexion, like his height and his bearing, is inconspicuous. You
would notice, perhaps, that, like the majority of people, his face was not
absolutely symmetrical, his right eye a little larger than the left, and
his jaw a trifle heavier on the right side. If you, as an ordinary
careless person, were to bare his chest and feel his heart beating, you
would probably find it quite like the heart of anyone else. But here you
and the trained observer would part company. If you found his heart quite
ordinary, the trained observer would find it quite otherwise. And once the
thing was pointed out to you, you too would perceive the peculiarity
easily enough. It is that Gottfried's heart beats on the right side of his
body.

Now, that is not the only singularity of Gottfried's structure, although
it is the only one that would