“Whom would you consider the most able of the lot?”
The old man set a finger on one of the clippings. “Preston Jax,” said he, “is the shrewdest of them all. Sometimes I have thought that he had dim flashes of real clairvoyance. Be that as it may, he has a surprising clientele of which he makes the most, for he is a master-hand at cozening women out of their money. More than once he has been in the courts.”
“Probably he is my man. Anyway, I shall visit him first, and, if I find that his office was closed on July fifth—”
“It was, and for a day or two thereafter as I chance to know, because one of the occult society’s secret agents was to have visited him, and could not get an appointment.”
“Good! I shall see you, then, to-morrow, sir.”
“Clarity of vision go with you, amid your riddles,” said his host with a smile, shuffling the cards which Kent had gathered up for him. “Here is my all-sufficient riddle. Watch me now, how I meet and vanquish the demon mischance.” He turned up a card. “Ah,” said he with profound satisfaction, “the seven of spades. My luck runs in sevens.”
[CHAPTER XVIII—THE MASTER OF STARS]
Ten o’clock of the following morning found the Harvard professor formally presenting his friend, Chester Kent, to Mrs. Wilfrid Blair, at the house of the cousin with whom she was staying.
“My dear,” said the old gentleman, “you may trust Professor Kent’s judgment and insight as implicitly as his honor. I can give no stronger recommendation, and will now take my leave.”
Kent resisted successfully a wild and fearful desire to set a restraining hold upon the disappearing coat tails, for embarrassment had again engulfed the scientist’s soul. He seized himself by the lobe of the ear with that grip which drowning men reserve for straws. And—to continue the comparison—the ear sank with him beneath the waves of confusion. Mrs. Blair’s first words did not greatly help him.