There was another surprise in store for Paul that day. Hardly had Grimes left the house when a tall young man with a black hat and thoughtful eyes presented himself at the front door and asked for Mr Pennyfeather. It was Potts.
'My dear fellow, said Paul, 'I am glad to see you.
'I saw your engagement in The Times, said Potts, 'and as I was in the neighbourhood, I wondered if you'd let me see the house.
Paul and Peter led him all over it and explained its intricacies. He admired the luminous ceiling in Mrs Beste‑Chetwynde's study and the indiarubber fungi in the recessed conservatory and the little drawing‑room, of which the floor was a large kaleidoscope, set in motion by an electric button. They took him up in the lift to the top of the great pyramidal tower, from which he could look down on the roofs and domes of glass and aluminium which glittered like Chanel diamonds in the afternoon sun. But it was not this that he had come to see. As soon as he and Paul were alone he said, as though casually: 'Who was that little man I met coming down the drive?
'I think he was something to do with the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings, said Paul. 'Why?
'Are you sure? asked Potts in evident disappointment 'How maddening! I've been on a false scent again.
'Are you doing Divorce Court shadowings, Potts?
'No, no, it's all to do with the League of Nations, said Potts vaguely, and he called attention to the tank of octopuses which was so prominent a feature of the room in which they were standing.
Margot invited Potts to stay to dinner. He tried hard to make a good impression on Professor Silenus, but in this he was not successful. In fact, it was probably Potts' visit which finally drove the Professor from the house. At any rate, he left early the next morning without troubling to pack or remove his luggage. Two days later, when they were all out, he arrived in a car and took away his mathematical instruments, and some time after that again appeared to fetch two clean handkerchiefs and a change of underclothes. That was the last time he was seen at King's Thursday. When Margot and Paul went up to London they had his luggage packed and left downstairs for him, in case he should come again, but there it stayed, none of the male servants finding anything in it that he would care to wear. Long afterwards Margot saw the head gardener's son going to church in a batik tie of Professor Silenus's period. It was the last relic of a great genius, for before that King's Thursday had been again rebuilt.