"
The Professor smiled.
"My friend," he said, "it is seldom in my life that I have had to have
recourse to physical violence, but I flatter myself that there is no man
who would do me any harm. We will meet, then, at my house. You will bring
the young ladies?"
"Sure!" Quest replied. "I am just sending word up to them now."
The Professor moved towards the door.
"If only this may prove to be the end!" he sighed.
* * * * *
Quest spent the next hour or so in restless deliberations. There were
still many things which puzzled him. At about a quarter past nine Lenora
and Laura arrived, dressed for their expedition. Quest threw open the
window and looked out across the city. A yellowish haze which, accompanied
by a sulphurous heat, had been brooding over the city all day long, had
suddenly increased in density. The air was stifling.
"I'm afraid we are in for a bad thunderstorm, girls," Quest remarked.
Laura laughed.
"Who cares? The automobile's there, Mr. Quest."
"Let's go, then," he replied.
They descended into the street and drove to the Professor's house in
silence. Even Laura was feeling the strain of these last hours of anxiety.
On the way they picked up French and a plain-clothes man, and the whole
party arrived at their destination just as the storm broke. The Professor
met them in the hall. He, too, seemed to have lost to some extent his
customary equanimity.
"Come this way, my friends," he invited.
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