“If there is any poor soul in trouble it becomes a duty. Very well, I will come.”
“And surely there is room for me,” pleaded Malone.
“Of course there is, young fellah! What I mean—I expect that old, red-headed bird at the office sent you round with no other purpose. Ah, I thought so. Well, you can write an adventure that is not perfect bilge for a change—what! There’s a train from Victoria at eight o’clock. We can meet there, and I’ll have a look in at old man Challenger as I pass.”
They dined together in the train and after dinner reassembled in their first-class carriage, which is the snuggest mode of travel which the world can show. Roxton, behind a big black cigar, was full of his visit to Challenger.
“The old dear is the same as ever. Bit my head off once or twice in his own familiar way. Talked unadulterated tripe. Says I’ve got brain-softenin’ if I could think there was such a thing as a real spook. ‘When you’re dead you’re dead.’ That’s the old man’s cheery slogan. Surveyin’ his contemporaries, he said, extinction was a doosed good thing! ‘It’s the only hope of the world,’ said he. ‘Fancy the awful prospect if they survived.’ Wanted to give me a bottle of chlorine to chuck at the ghost. I told him that if my automatic was not a spook-stopper, nothin’ else would serve. Tell me, padre, is this the first time you’ve been on Solfari after this kind of game?”
“You treat the matter too lightly, Lord John,” said the clergyman, gravely. “You have clearly had no experience of it. In answer to your question I may say that I have several times tried to help in similar cases.”
“And you take it seriously?” asked Malone, making notes for his article.
“Very, very seriously.”
“What do you think these influences are?”
“I am no authority upon the general question. You know Algernon Mailey, the barrister, do you not? He could give you facts and figures. I approach the subject rather perhaps from the point of view of instinct and emotion. I remember Mailey lecturing on Professor Bozzano’s book on ghosts where over five hundred well-authenticated instances were given, every one of them sufficient to establish an a priori case. There is Flammarion, too. You can’t laugh away evidence of that kind.”