The Dweller on the Threshold Part 26

The season ended. Goodwood was over, and Malling went off to Munich and Bayreuth for music. Then he made a walking-tour with friends in the Oberammergau district, and returned to England only when the ruddy banners of autumn were streaming over the land.

Still there was no communication from the professor. Malling might of course have written to him or sought him. He preferred to possess his soul in patience. Stepton was an arbitrary personage, and the last man in the world to consent to a process of pumping.

Meanwhile Stepton had forgotten all about Malling. He was full of work of various kinds, but the work that most interested him was connected with the reverend gentlemen of St. Joseph's. As Malling surmised, he had lost little time in beginning his "approach," and that approach had been rather circuitous. He had taken his own advice and studied the link.

This done, the intricate and fascinating subject of nervous dyspepsia had claimed his undivided attention. When he had finished his prolonged interview with Blandford Sikes, sidling back to the waiting-room to gather up various impedimenta, he had encountered the unfortunate clergyman whom he had kept waiting. Marcus Harding was the man. They exchanged only a couple of words, but the sight of the flaccid bulk, the hanging cheeks and hands, the eyes in which dwelt a sort of faded despair, whipped up into keen alertness every faculty of the professor's mind. As he walked into Cavendish Square he muttered to himself:

"I never saw a clergyman look more promising for investigation, by Jove!

Never! There's something in it. Malling was not entirely wrong. There's certainly something in it."

But what? Now for Henry Chichester!

Stepton was by nature unemotional, but he was an implicit believer in the hysteria of others, and he thought clergymen, as a cla.s.s, more liable to that malady than other cla.s.ses of men. Curates, being as a rule young clergymen, were, in his view, specially subject to the inroads of the cloudy complaint, which causes the mind to see mountains where only mole-hills exist, and to appreciate anything more readily and accurately than the naked truth. Henry Chichester was young and he was a curate.

He was therefore likely to be emotional and to be attracted by the mysterious, more especially since he had recently been knocking on its door, according to Malling's statement.

After a good deal of thought, the professor resolved to cast aside convention, and to make Chichester's acquaintance without any introduction; indeed, with the maximum of informality.

He learned something about Chichester's habits, and managed to meet him several times when he was walking from the daily service at St. Joseph's to his rooms in Hornton Street. In this walk Chichester pa.s.sed the South Kensington Museum. What more natural than that the professor should chance to be coming out of it?

The first time they met, Stepton looked at the curate casually, the second time more sharply, the third time with scrutiny. He knew how to make a crescendo. The curate noticed it, as of course the professor intended. He did not know who Stepton was, but he began to wonder about this birdlike, sharp-looking man, who evidently took an interest in him.

And presently his wonder changed into suspicion. This again accorded with the professor's intention.

One day, after the even-song at St. Joseph's, Stepton saw flit across the face of the curate, whom he was meeting, a flicker of something like fear. The two men pa.s.sed each other, and immediately, like one irresistibly compelled, the professor looked back. As he did so, Chichester also turned round to spy upon this unknown. Encountering the gaze of the professor, he started, flushed scarlet, and pursued his way, walking with a quickened step.

The professor went homeward, chuckling.

"To-day's Tuesday," he thought. "By Sat.u.r.day, at latest, he'll have spoken to me. He'll have to speak to me to relieve the tension of his nerve-ganglions."

Chichester did not wait till Sat.u.r.day. On Friday afternoon, coming suddenly upon Stepton at a corner, he stopped abruptly, and said:

"May I ask if you want anything of me?"

"Sir!" barked Stepton. "Mr. Chichester!"

"You know my name?" said the curate.

"And probably you know mine--Professor Stepton."

A relief that was evidently intense dawned in the curate's face.

"You are Professor Stepton! You are Mr. Malling's friend!"

"Exactly. Good day."

And the professor marched on.

Chichester did not follow, but the next day, on the pavement not far from the museum, he stopped once more in front of the professor with a "Good afternoon."

"Good day," said Stepton.

"Since you know who I am," began the curate, "and I have heard so much of you, I hope you will forgive me for asking you something."

"Certainly."

"What is it in me which has attracted your attention?"

"I wish I knew," returned the professor.

"You wish you knew! Do you mean that you don't know?"

"I don't know at all."

"But--but--you--I was not wrong in feeling sure that you were--that something in me had aroused your attention?"

"Not wrong at all; but 'something' is not the word."

"What is the word?"

"Everything. Everything in you rouses my attention, Mr. Chichester. But I can't think why."

"Did you know I was Mr. Harding's curate the first time you met me?"

"Yes; I had seen you at St. Joseph's once or twice when I came to hear your rector preach. You didn't interest me at all then, I'm bound to say."

Chichester stood in silence for a minute. Then he said:

"I might walk a little way back with you, if you have no objection."

Stepton jerked his head in a.s.sent. And so the acquaintance of these two men was begun. Their first conversation was a delight to the professor.

After a short silence the curate said:

"I could not help seeing each time we have met how your attention was fastened upon me."

"Just so," rejoined Stepton, making no apology.

"And I really think," continued Chichester, with a sort of pressure--"I really think I am ent.i.tled to ask for some explanation of the matter."

"Certainly you are."

"Well?" He paused, then said again, "Well, Professor Stepton?"

"I'm afraid I've nothing to tell you, I like to stick to facts."

"I only ask you for facts."

"The facts amount to very little. Coming from the museum I ran across a man. You were the man. My attention was riveted at once. I said to myself, 'I must see that man again.' Next day I took my chance. I had luck. You were there at pretty much the same hour."

"I always come from St. Joseph's--"