“Apologize to our friends,” it ran, “for the slight change of programme. Norbury is anxious that I should get my experiments over before the Director returns, so as to save discussion. He has asked me to begin tonight and says he will see Mr. and Miss Bellingham here, at the Museum. Please bring them along at once. I think some matters of importance may transpire at the interview—J. E. T.”
“I hope you don’t mind,” I said apologetically, when I had read the note to Ruth.
“Of course I don’t,” she replied. “I am rather pleased. We have so many associations with the dear old Museum, haven’t we?” She looked at me for a moment with a strange and touching wistfulness and then turned to descend the stone stairs.
At the Temple gate I hailed a hansom, and we were soon speeding westward and north to the soft twinkle of the horse’s bell.
“What are these experiments that Doctor Thorndyke refers to?” she asked presently.
“I can only answer you vaguely,” I replied. “Their object, I believe, is to ascertain whether the penetrability of organic substances by the X-rays becomes altered by age; whether, for instance, an ancient block of wood is more or less transparent to the rays than a new block of the same size.”
“And of what use would the knowledge be, if it were obtained?”
“I can’t say. Experiments are made to obtain knowledge without regard to its utility. The use appears when the knowledge has been acquired. But in this case, if it should be possible to determine the age of any organic substance by its reaction to X-rays, the discovery might be found of some value in legal practise—as in demonstrating a new seal on an old document, for instance. But I don’t know whether Thorndyke has anything definite in view; I only know that the preparations have been on a most portentous scale.”
“How do you mean?”
“In regard to size. When I went into the workshop yesterday morning, I found Polton erecting a kind of portable gallows about nine feet high, and he had just finished varnishing a pair of enormous wooden trays each over six feet long. It looked as if he and Thorndyke were contemplating a few private executions with subsequent postmortems on the victims.”
“What a horrible suggestion!”
“So Polton said, with his quaint, crinkly smile. But he was mighty close about the use of the apparatus all the same. I wonder if we shall see anything of the experiments, when we get there. This is Museum Street, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” As she spoke, she lifted the flap of one of the little windows in the back of the cab and peered out. Then, closing it with a quiet, ironic smile, she said:
“It is all right; he hasn’t missed us. It will be quite a nice little change for him.”
The cab swung round into Great Russell Street, and, glancing out as it turned, I saw another hansom following; but before I had time to inspect its solitary passenger, we drew up at the Museum gates.
The gate porter, who seemed to expect us, ushered us up the drive to the great portico and into the Central Hall, where he handed us over to another official.
“Doctor Norbury is in one of the rooms adjoining the Fourth Egyptian Room,” the latter stated in answer to our inquiries: and, providing himself with a wire-guarded lantern, he prepared to escort us thither.
Up the great staircase, now wrapped in mysterious gloom, we passed in silence with bittersweet memories of that day of days when we had first trodden its steps together; through the Central Saloon, the Medieval Room and the Asiatic Saloon, and so into the long range of the Ethnographical Galleries.
It was a weird journey. The swaying lantern shot its beams abroad into the darkness of the great, dim galleries, casting instantaneous flashes on the objects in the cases, so that they leaped into being and vanished in the twinkling of an eye. Hideous idols with round, staring eyes started forth from the darkness, glared at us for an instant and were gone. Grotesque masks, suddenly revealed by the shimmering light, took on the semblance of demon faces that seemed to mow and gibber at us as we passed. As for the life-sized models—realistic enough by daylight—their aspect was positively alarming; for the moving light and shadow endowed them with life and movement, so that they seemed to watch us furtively, to lie in wait and to hold themselves in readiness to steal out and follow us. The illusion evidently affected Ruth as well as me, for she drew nearer to me and whispered:
“These figures are quite startling. Did you see that Polynesian? I really felt as if he were going to spring out on us.”
“They are rather uncanny,” I admitted, “but the danger is over now. We are passing out of their sphere of influence.”
We came out on a landing as I spoke and then turned sharply to the left along the North Gallery, from the center of which we entered the Fourth Egyptian Room.
Almost immediately, a door in the opposite wall opened; a peculiar, high-pitched humming sound became audible, and Jervis came out on tiptoe with his hand raised.
“Tread as lightly as you can,” he said. “We are just making an exposure.”
The attendant turned back with his lantern, and we followed Jervis into the room from whence he had come. It was a large room, and little lighter than the galleries, for the single glow-lamp that burned at the end where we entered left the rest of the apartment in almost complete obscurity. We seated ourselves at once on the chairs that had been placed for us, and, when
