“French,” he decided, “we must find the Professor. Will you have your men search the house and grounds immediately?”
The Inspector left the room like a dazed man. They could hear him giving orders outside.
“The next page,” Lenora begged. “Just one page more!”
Quest hesitated for a moment. Then he turned it over. All three read again:
“Ten years of horror, struggling all the while to keep him from that other self, that thing of bestiality, to keep his horrible secret from the world, to cover up his crimes, even though their shadow should rest upon me. Now Sanford Quest has come. Will this mean discovery?”
“Another page,” Lenora faltered.
“No more,” Quest said. “Don’t you see where it is leading us? We have the truth here. Wait!”
He strode hastily to the door. French and one of the plain-clothes men were descending the stairs.
“Well?” Quest asked breathlessly.
“The Professor is not in the house,” French reported. “We are going to search the grounds.”
Quest returned to the library. Lenora clung to his arm. The diary lay still upon the table.
Quest opened the volume slowly. Again they all read together:
“The evil nature is growing stronger every day. He is developing a sort of ferocious cunning to help him in his crimes. He wanders about in the dark, wearing a black velvet suit with holes for his eyes, and leaving only his hands exposed. I have watched him come into a half-darkened room and one can see nothing but the hands and the eyes; sometimes if he closes his eyes, only the hands.”
“Mrs. Rheinholdt!” Quest muttered. “Wait. I know where that suit is.”
He hastened to a cupboard at the farther end of the room, snatched some garments from it and vanished into the hall.
“One moment, girls,” he said. “I see now how he did it. Wait. I’ll show you.”
They stood quite still, a little terrified. In a moment or two the door reopened. A finger turned out all the electric lights but one. Then there was nothing to be seen but a pair of white hands, which seemed to come floating towards them through the darkness—a pair of white hands and a pair of gleaming eyes. Lenora screamed wildly. Even Laura was unnerved.
“Stop that!” she cried out. “Who are you, anyway?”
The lights were suddenly turned on. Quest threw off his disguise.
“There you are,” he exclaimed triumphantly. “Ingenious, but one ought to have seen through it long ago. The stroke of genius about it was that as soon as he had used a dodge once or twice and set you thinking about it, he dropped it.”
The door was suddenly opened and French entered.
“Beaten!” he exclaimed tersely.
“You haven’t found him?” Quest asked.
French shook his head.
“We’ve searched every room, every cupboard, every scrap of the cellar in the house,” he announced. “We’ve been into every corner of the grounds, searched all the place inside and out. There’s no sign of the Professor.”
Quest pocketed the diary.
“You’re perfectly certain that he is not in this house or anywhere upon the premises?”
“Certain sure!” French replied.
Quest shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, we’d better get back,” he said. “You come, too, French. We’ll sit down and figure out some scheme for finding him.”
They made their way to the front door and crowded into the autos. The two men left with marked reluctance. The two girls had but one idea in their heads—to get away, and get away quickly.
“Do start, please,” Lenora begged. “There’s just one thing in life I want, and that is to be in my own room, to feel myself away from his world of horrible, unnatural mysteries.”
“The kid has the right idea,” Laura agreed. “I’ve had enough myself.”
They were on the point of starting, the chauffeur with his hand upon the starting handle, French with the steering wheel of the police car already in his hand. And then the little party seemed suddenly turned to stone. For a few breathless seconds not one of them moved. Out into the clammy night air came the echoes of a hideous, inhuman, blood-curdling scream. Quest was the first to recover himself. He leaped from his seat and rushed back across the empty hall into the study, followed a little way behind by French and the others. An unsuspected panel door which led into the garden, stood slightly ajar. The Professor, with his hand on the back of a chair, was staring at the fireplace, shaking as though with some horrible ague, his face distorted, his body curiously hunched-up. He seemed suddenly to have dropped his humanity, to have fallen back into the world of some strange creatures. He heard their footsteps, but he did not turn his head. His hands were stretched out in front of him as though to keep away from his sight some hateful object.
“Stop him!” he cried. “Take him away! It’s Craig—his spirit! He came to me in the garage, he followed me through the grounds, he mocked at me when I hid in the tree. He’s there now, kneeling before the fireplace. Why can’t I kill him! He is coming! Stop him, some one!”
No one spoke or moved; no one, indeed, had the power. Then at last Quest found words.
“There is no one in the room, Professor,” he said, “except us.”
The sound of a human voice seemed to produce a strange effect. The Professor straightened himself, shook his head, his hands dropped to his side. He turned around and faced them. He was ghastly pale, but his smile was once more the smile of the amiable naturalist.
“My friends,” he said, “forgive me. I am very old, and the events of these last few hours have unnerved me. Forgive me.”
He groped for a moment and sank into a chair. Quest fetched a decanter and a glass from the sideboard, poured out some wine and held it to his lips. The Professor drank it eagerly.
“My dear friend,” he exclaimed, “you have saved me! I have something to tell you, something I must tell you at once, but not here. I loathe this place. Let me come with you to your rooms.”
“As you please,” Quest answered calmly.
The Professor rose hastily to his feet. As he turned around, he saw French concealing something in his hands. He shivered.
“I don’t need those!” he cried. “What are they? Handcuffs? Ah, no! I am only too anxious to tell you all that I know. Take care of me, Mr. Quest. Take me with you.”
He gripped Quest’s arm. In silence they passed from the room, in silence they took their places once more in the automobiles, in silence they drove without a pause to Quest’s rooms. The Professor seemed to breathe more freely as they left the neighbourhood of his house behind. He walked up the stairs to Quest’s library almost blithely. If he was aware of it, he took no notice of French and the two plain-clothes men behind. As he stepped into the room, he drew a long sigh of relief. He made his way at once to his favourite easy-chair, threw off his overcoat and leaned back.
“Quest,” he pronounced, “you are the best friend I have in my life! It is you who have rid me of my great burden. Tell me—help me a little with my story—have you read that page from the Medical Journal which Craig has kept locked up all these years?”
“We have all read it,” Quest replied.
“It was forged,” the Professor declared firmly, “forged by Craig. All the years since, he has blackmailed me. I have been his servant and his tool. I have been afraid to speak. At last I am free of