"You are now Mr. Johns, an Oxford tutor, Sir John. I am a young Japanese gentleman, my own name will serve, whom you are coaching. We are going into the country with this disguise. It is one which will easily account for your being in the company of an Asiatic gentleman, and which you will have no difficulty in sustaining."
It was, indeed, a simple and excellent plan for avoiding undue curiosity. I said so, and then: "Now perhaps you will tell me where we are going. I have my ideas...."
"We are going west," he answered gravely. "To Cornwall."
My heart beat fast. It was what I wanted him to say. "To the home of Helzephron?"
"Yes. For it is there we shall be in the very centre of the web. In those far western solitudes, despite the recent opening up of the Duchy to tourists, there are still vast spaces of lonely moorland and unvisited coast where one may walk for half a day and meet no living soul. There is a great Hinterland between the little town of St. Ives and the Land's End that for all practical purposes is unknown and unexplored. Later on, I will show you certain maps.... It is in one of the remotest spots of all that Major Helzephron has his house. I tell you, Sir John," he continued, with a sort of passion, "that in those lost and forgotten solitudes, where England stretches out her granite foot to spurn the Atlantic, strange secrets lie hid to-day! On those grey and lonely moors, where the last Druids practised their mysterious rites, and which are still covered with sinister memorials of the past, lies the explanation of the terror which is troubling the world! There, and there only, shall we discover the secrets of the air, and—if human skill and determination are of any avail—Miss Constance Shepherd!"
An obsequious waiter came with iced consommé. He was followed by the great Nicholas himself, bulging out of his buttoned frock-coat—Nicholas never wore evening dress—who bowed low and had a whispered confabulation with Danjuro.
I remarked on this unusual honour. "I do what I wish here," the Japanese replied. "It is, of course, through Mr. Van Adams. I hold this place in the hollow of my hand—as you will presently see!"
He gave one of his rare and weary smiles, and then said quietly: "Please do not get up or move. Major Helzephron has just come into the gallery!"
I could not have moved. His words turned me to stone.