BRITISH MYSTERIES - Fergus Hume Collection: 21 Thriller Novels in One Volume. Fergus Hume

said, carelessly playing with his glass.

      “Ah, yes,” answered Sir Gilbert, leaning back in his chair. “It was a most curious chance. I was greatly in want of his works, but had not the least idea where to get them. I went up to London, to see my agent about looking through the Continental libraries for them, when one day I found out an old book-stall, kept by a man named Black.”

      “Yes?” interrogatively.

      “Well, he had it,” replied Sir Gilbert, nodding his head, “that is, only the second volume. He said it had been brought from Germany by his son, who had lately died. But it is only the second volume. I wish I knew where the first is.”

      “I can satisfy your curiosity,” said the German, bending forward; “the first volume is in the library at Heidelberg.”

      “Indeed.” Sir Gilbert looked amazed. “How did the two volumes come to be separated?”

      “The son of the book-stall keeper whom you mention,” said the Professor, nervously twisting a ring on his finger, “was a student at the Heidelberg University. Being a great admirer of the works of Giraldus, and leaving Heidelberg hurriedly, he carried with him to England the second volume only. I found the first in his lodgings, by chance.”

      “Were you looking for it?” asked Sir Gilbert.

      “Yes,” answered Brankel. “I wanted to illustrate a certain point to my class, which I was unable to do satisfactorily without the aid of Giraldus.”

      “I must send this second volume back to Heidelberg,” said the bookworm in a vexed tone, “as it was taken from there.”

      “I don’t see it,” replied the Professor, calmly. “Giraldus is a very obscure alchemist, and if you send the value of the book to the University, I dare say you can have the first volume also. By-the-bye, Sir Gilbert, I think I omitted to tell you that I intend to stay in England for at least six months, and any assistance I can afford you I shall be most happy.”

      “Oh, thank you,” answered the baronet, eagerly. “I shall be delighted to avail myself of it. Where are you staying?”

      “At present at an hotel in Launceston,” answered the German; “but I have taken a house near you, which I am about to fit up. I shall be established in it in about a week, and then you may expect to see me pretty frequently in your library.”

      “I shall be glad,” said Sir Gilbert; “but where is the house you have taken?”

      “It is called Wolfden,” replied the Professor.

      “Wolfden?” exclaimed Philippa, catching the name. “Are you going to live there, Professor?”

      “Yes, why not?” he asked, rather amused at her sudden entry into the conversation.

      “It is such a gloomy place,” she answered, with a little nervous laugh, for those serpent eyes were fixed upon her, “and has not been inhabited for the last twenty years, except by the ghost of the former proprietor, who hanged himself.”

      “Ghost? Bah,” said the Professor with a sneer, which wrinkled up the corners of his thin mouth. “I’m not afraid of that. This is the nineteenth century.”

      “Well, ghosts or no ghosts, I wouldn’t live there,” replied Philippa gaily, as she rose, “it’s extremely damp, and bad for the health.” And with a bow she swept out of the door, which the Professor held open, for which civility he was rewarded by a frown from Lord Dulchester, who considered that as his special province.

      The two savants began to discuss chemistry over their wine, so Dulchester, after moodily toying with his glass for some minutes, rose and went off to the drawing-room in search of Miss Harkness.

      He found that young lady seated by the fire, staring dreamily into the heart of the red coals.

      He came forward, and, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece, looked down on her with a smile.

      “Dreaming, Phil?” he asked, softly, as he looked into her face, ringed round with the flare of the fire.

      “I was thinking of the Professor, Jack,” she said, abstractedly, leaning back and folding her hands. “Is he not a strange man?”

      “I don’t like him,” retorted Jack, bluntly.

      “Nor do I,” she answered, “but he has a remarkable face—like Mephistopheles’. I don’t read much poetry, but when I saw his eyes I could not help thinking they were like the witch’s in Christabel—like a serpent’s.”

      “Does he stay here long?” asked Dulchester, giving the fire a poke with the toe of his boot, and thereby causing the downfall of a fantastical castle of burning coal.

      “About six months,” answered Philippa. “Hand me that fan, Jack; you have made the fire so hot that it is scorching my face.”

      Jack did so, and, kneeling down beside her, looked up into her face with a laugh.

      “Let us put away all thought of this Professor, sweetheart,” he said, catching her hand, “and talk of something interesting.”

      It must have been very interesting, for Sir Gilbert and the Professor, coming into the room half an hour afterwards, found them in the same position, with Philippa’s hand straying through Jack’s chestnut curls.

      When discovered thus, Jack sprung to his feet with a growl, and became deeply interested in a picture hanging near him, while Miss Harkness directed her attentions to the Chinese pictorial representations on her fan.

      The Professor looked at them with a kind of half-sneer, which made Jack long to knock him down, and then, at Philippa’s request, went to the piano, and began to play. Sir Gilbert was sound asleep in his arm-chair by the fire; Jack sat opposite him with his arm resting on his knee and his chin in his hand, watching Philippa, who was flirting with her fan and staring into the fire. Away in the semi-darkness, sat the Professor at the piano, playing the music of Mendelssohn and Schubert. The situation truly “had its charm,” as Jack thought; but again the presence of the German seemed an unsympathetic element. Besides, Jack did not care for soft harmonies, and preferred the lusty hunting songs of Whyte-Melville to all the pathos and melody of the masters of music.

      Yet there was a kind of dreamy soporific influence about the Professor’s playing which, at that time, seemed eminently satisfactory.

      Suddenly the Professor stopped playing and began to speak.

      “I will play a composition of my own,” he said slowly. “It is called ‘A Dream Phantasy.’”

      He commenced to play again, beginning with a low crescendo of minor arpeggios in the bass, gradually ascending and becoming louder and more agitated, then changed the tempo and dreamily gliding into the swing and rhythm of a cradle-song, as if waves of sleep were closing softly over the head of the dreamer.

      Then with an introductory prelude of sharp, clear chords came a grand movement in march-time, with the thunder and tread of many feet, and the silver sound of trumpets drifting into a sorrowful and pathetic melody, which seemed full of the grief and pathos of death.

      A shower of silvery tones like the falling of summer rain on the sea, and then a wild, delicious waltz, fantastic and capricious as one of Chopin’s ethereal compositions.

      Then followed a beautifully smooth modulation with wondrous extended harmonies, and the player glided into a quaint barcarolle, as if a boat were afloat on the breast of a calm summer sea, sailing towards the burning heart of the sunset, and drifting——

      “By Jove, you know, Jack, I think the run to-day was the best of the season.”

      Philippa had been thinking for a long time before she delivered this eminently commonplace remark.

      The Professor thought that she was listening to his music, whereas, her thoughts were far away with the red-coated field, with the gallant fox flying ahead.

      He shut down the piano