Part 19 (1/2)
”For long?”
”We don't know, sir. He has gone into Kent, on research business, I believe.”
Agnes had been for a long time in the professor's service, and was greatly trusted. The professor had come upon her originally when making investigations into ”second sight,” a faculty which she claimed to possess. By the way she was also an efficient parlor-maid.
”Kent!” said Malling. ”Do you know where he is staying?”
”The address he left is the Tankerton Hotel, Tankerton, near Whitstable-on-Sea, sir.”
”Thank you, Agnes,” said Malling.
”It is a haunted house somewhere Birchington way the professor is after, I believe, sir.”
”Luck favors me!” said Malling to himself, unscientifically, as he walked away from the house.
On the following day it was in a singularly expectant and almost joyously alert frame of mind that he bought a first-cla.s.s ticket for Whitstable-on-Sea, which is the station for Tankerton.
He would involve Stepton in this affair. There was a mystery in it.
Malling was now convinced of that. And his original supposition did not satisfy him. But perhaps Mr. Harding meant to help him. Perhaps Mr.
Harding intended to be explicit. The difficulty there was that he also was walking in darkness, as Malling believed. His telegram had come like a cry out of this darkness.
”Faversham! Faversham!” the fair Kentish porters were calling. Only about twenty minutes now! Would the rector be at the station?
He was. As the train ran in alongside the wooden platform, Mailing caught sight of the towering authoritative figure. Was it his fancy which made him think that it looked slightly bowed, even perhaps a little shrunken?
”Good of you to come!” said the rector in a would-be hearty voice, but also with a genuine accent of pleasure. ”All the afternoon I have been afraid of a telegram.”
”Why?” asked Malling, as they shook hands.
”Oh, when one is anxious for a thing, one does not always get it. Ha, ha!”
He broke into a covering laugh.
”Here is a porter. You've only got this bag. Capital! I have a fly waiting. We go down these steps.”
As they descended, Malling remarked:
”By the way, we have a friend staying here. Have you come across him?”
”No, I have seen n.o.body--that is, no acquaintance. Who is it?”
”Stepton.”
”The professor down here!” exclaimed Mr. Harding, as if startled.
”At the hotel, I believe. He's come down to make some investigation.”
”I haven't seen him.”
They stepped into the fly, and drove through the long street of Whitstable toward the outlying houses of Tankerton, scattered over gra.s.sy downs above a quiet, brown sea.