Part 35 (2/2)

”The Professor himself is remarkably sane,” Lenora observed.

”Precisely,” Quest agreed, ”but then, you see, his brain was big enough, to start with. It could hold all there was for it to hold. It's like pouring stuff into the wrong receptacle when a man like Craig tries to follow him. However, that's only a theory. Here we are, and the front door wide open. I wonder how our friend's feeling to-day.”

They found the Professor on his hands and knees upon a dusty floor.

Carefully arranged before him were the bones of a skeleton, each laid in some appointed place. He had a chart on either side of him, and a third one on an easel. He looked up a little impatiently at the sound of the opening of the door, but when he recognised Quest and his companion the annoyance pa.s.sed from his face.

”Are we disturbing you, Mr. Ashleigh?” Quest enquired.

The Professor rose to his feet and brushed the dust from his knees.

”I shall be glad of a rest,” he said simply. ”You see what I am doing? I am trying to reconstruct from memory--and a little imagination, perhaps--the important part of my missing skeleton. It's a wonderful problem which those bones might have solved, if I had been able to place them fairly before the scientists of the world. Do you understand much about the human frame, Mr. Quest?”

Quest shook his head promptly.

”Still life doesn't interest me,” he declared. ”Bones are bones, after all, you know. I don't even care who my grandfather was, much less who my grandfather a million times removed might have been. Let's step into the study for a moment, Professor, if you don't mind,” he went on. ”Lenora here is a little sensitive to smell, and a spray of lavender water on some of your bones wouldn't do them any harm.”

The Professor ambled amiably towards the door.

”I never notice it myself,” he said. ”Very likely that is because I see beyond these withered fragments into the prehistoric worlds whence they came. I sit here alone sometimes, and the curtain rolls up, and I find myself back in one of those far corners of South America, or even in a certain spot in East Africa, and I can almost fancy that time rolls back like an unwinding reel and there are no secrets into which I may not look.

And then the moment pa.s.ses and I remember that this dry-as-dust world is shrieking always for proofs--this extraordinary conglomeration of human animals in weird attire, with monstrous tastes and extraordinary habits, who make up what they call the civilized world. Civilized!”

They reached the study and Quest produced his cigar case.

”Can't imagine any world that existed before tobacco,” he remarked cheerfully. ”Help yourself, Professor. It does me good to see you human enough to enjoy a cigar!”

The Professor smiled.

”I never remember to buy any for myself,” he said, ”but one of yours is always a treat. Miss Lenora, I am glad to see, is completely recovered.”

”I am quite well, thank you, Mr. Ashleigh,” Lenora replied. ”I am even forgetting that I ever had nerves. I have been in the courthouse all the morning, and I even looked curiously at your garage as we drove up.”

”Very good--very good, my dear!” the Professor murmured. ”At the courthouse, eh? Were those charming friends of yours from Bethel being tried, Quest?”

Quest nodded.

”Red Gallagher and his mate! Yes, they got it in the neck, too.”

”Personally,” the Professor exclaimed, his eyes sparkling with appreciation of his own wit, ”I think that they ought to have got it round the neck! However, let us be thankful that they are disposed of. Their attack upon you, Mr. Quest, introduced rather a curious factor into our troubles. Even now I find it a little difficult to follow the workings of our friend French's mind. It seems hard to believe that he could really have imagined you guilty.”

”French is all right,” Quest declared. ”He fell into the common error of the detective without imagination.”

”What about that unhappy man Craig?” the Professor asked gloomily. ”Isn't the _Durham_ almost due now?”

Quest took out the cablegram from his pocket and pa.s.sed it over. The Professor's fingers trembled a little as he read it. He pa.s.sed it back, however, without immediate comment.

”You see, they have been cleverer over there than we were,” Quest remarked.

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