The professor lived in Westminster, in a house with Adam ceilings, not far from the Houses of Parliament. He was unmarried, and Malling found him alone after dinner, writing busily in his crowded library. He had but recently returned from Paris, whither he had traveled to take part in a series of "sittings" with the famous medium, Mrs. Groeber.
In person the professor was odd, without being specially striking. He was of medium height, thin and sallow, with gray whiskers, thick gray hair, bushy eyebrows, and small, pointed and inquiring features which gave him rather the aspect of a prying bird. His eyes were little and sparkling. His mouth, strangely enough, was ecclesiastical. He nearly always wore very light-colored clothes. Even in winter he was often to be seen clad in yellow-gray tweeds, a yellow silk necktie, and a fawn-colored Homburg hat. And no human being had ever encountered him in a pair of boots unprotected by spats. One peculiarity of his was that he did not possess a walking-stick, another that he had never—so at least he declared—owned a pocket-handkerchief, having had no occasion to use one at any moment of his long and varied life. When it rained he sometimes carried an umbrella, generally shut. At other times he moved briskly along with his arms swinging at his sides.
As Malling came in he looked up and nodded.
"Putting down all about Mrs. Groeber," he observed.
"Anything new or interesting?" asked Malling.
"Just the usual manifestations, done in full light, though."
He laid aside his pen, while Malling sat down.
"A letter from Flammarion this morning," he said. "But all about Halley's comet, of course. What is it?"
Now the professor's "What is it?" was not general, but particular, and was at once understood to be so by Malling. It did not mean "Why have you come?" but "Why are you obsessed at this moment, and by what?"
"Let's have the mystery," he added, leaning his elbows on his just dried manuscript, and resting his sharp little chin on his doubled fists.