As he seated himself, Mr. Philpotts eyed him in a fashion which was certainly not too friendly.
"What did you mean by disappearing just now in that extraordinary manner, frightening Bloxham half out of his wits? Where did you get to?"
The new comer was stroking his heavy moustache with a hand which, for a man of his size and build, was unusually small and white. He spoke in a lazy, almost inaudible, drawl.
"I just popped outside."
"Just popped outside! I must have been coming in just when you went out. I saw nothing of you; you've put Bloxham into a pretty state of mind."
Re-seating himself, Mr. Philpotts turned to put the paper he was holding on to the little table. "I don't want to make myself a brute, but it strikes me that your presence here at all requires explanation. When several fellows club together to give another fellow a fresh start on the other side of the world----"
Mr. Philpotts stopped short. Having settled the paper on the table to his perfect satisfaction, he turned round again towards the man he was addressing--and as he did so he ceased to address him, and that for the sufficiently simple reason that he was not there to address--the man had gone! The chair at Mr. Philpotts' side was empty; without a sign or a sound its occupant had vanished, it would almost seem, into space.
CHAPTER II
Under the really remarkable circumstances of the case, Mr. Philpotts preserved his composure to a singular degree. He looked round the room; there was no one there. He again fixedly regarded the chair at his side; there could be no doubt that it was empty. To make quite sure, he passed his hand two or three times over the seat; it met with not the slightest opposition. Where could the man have got to? Mr. Philpotts had not, consciously, heard the slightest sound; there had not been time for him to have reached the door. Mr. Philpotts knocked the ash off his cigar. He stood up. He paced leisurely two or three times up and down the room.
"If Bloxham is ill, I am not. I was never better in my life. And the man who tells me that I have been the victim of an optical delusion is talking of what he knows nothing. I am prepared to swear that it was Geoffrey Fleming who touched me on the shoulder; that he spoke to me; and that he seated himself upon that chair. Where he came from, or where he has gone to, are other questions entirely." He critically examined his finger nails.