“Then you are satisfied?” I managed at last to stammer.
“To a certain degree, yes,” he replied, looking at me with a good deal of surprise, I saw. “But it does not explain why Antonio is absent abroad, or—”
“Gone to meet his master most probably,” I interrupted.
“Perhaps. But why has the laboratory been broken open; and, again, why has the furnace been lit? Who were the three persons who dined here this evening? The Professor is away!”
“Miss Ethelwynn might have entertained two friends before leaving for Broadstairs,” I suggested.
“They were men. Ethelwynn does not smoke cigarettes.”
“Did she say whether she is returning to London?” I inquired.
“She will let me know on the ’phone to-morrow.”
“She didn’t tell you her father’s whereabouts?”
“She doesn’t know. He’s somewhere in Germany, she believes. He has been in communication with a strong German syndicate, which it seems has been formed in Hamburg to work one of his discoveries. And in his absence somebody has undoubtedly been prying into his experiments.”