LITMIR.BIZ

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hat was there. The Inverness was gone.

      Was it gone? The Professor of Psychology was a learned man, and his sense of reality was not always exact. Had he come in that Inverness after all? … The more he thought about it the less certain he was. He remembered that the May night, though very cold, had been fine as he came. He had no precise memory of taking off that Inverness or of hanging it up. He walked slowly, ruminating upon the great problem, towards the door of the hall; he inwardly congratulated himself that there was no servant present, and that he could go through the dreadful ordeal of leaving the house without suffering the scrutiny of a human being. No carriage had yet drawn up. He opened the door, and was appalled to be met by a violent gust and a bitter, cold, driving rain.

      Now the Professor of Psychology was, like the domestic cat, of simple tastes, but he hated rain even more than does that animal. It bitterly disagreed with him, and worse still, the oddity of walking through the streets in evening clothes through a raging downpour, with a large expanse of white shirt all drenched, was more than his nerves could bear.

      He was turning round irresolutely to seek once again for that Inverness, which he was now more confident than ever was not there, when the Devil, who has great power in these affairs, presented to his eyes, cast negligently over a chair, a GREEN OVERCOAT of singular magnificence.

      The green of it was a subdued, a warm and a lovely green; its cloth was soft and thick, pliable and smooth; the rich fur at the collar and cuffs was a promise of luxury in the lining.

      Now the Devil during all Professor Higginson's life had had but trifling fun with him until that memorable moment. The opportunity, as the reader will soon discover, was (from the Devil's point of view) remarkable and rare. More, far more, than Professor Higginson's somewhat sterile soul was involved in the issue.

      The Green Overcoat appeared for a few seconds seductive, then violently alluring, next—and in a very few seconds—irresistible.

      Professor Higginson shot a sin-laden and frightened glance towards the light and the noise and the music within. No one was in sight. Through the open door of the rooms, whence the sound of the party came loud and fairly drunken, he saw no face turned his way. The hall itself was deserted. Then he heard a hurl of wind, a dash of rain on the hall window. With a rapidity worthy of a greater game, and to him most unusual, he whisked the garment from the chair, slipped into the shadow of the door, struggled into the Green Overcoat with a wriggle that seemed to him to last five weeks—it was, as a fact, a conjuror's trick for smartness—and it was on! The Devil saw to it that it fitted.

      It was all right. He would pretend some mistake, and send it back the very first thing next morning; nay, he would be an honest man, and send it back at once by a messenger the moment he found out his mistake on getting to his lodgings. So wealthy an overcoat could only belong to a great man—a man who would stay late, very late. Come, the Green Overcoat would be back again in that house before its owner had elected to move. He would be no wiser! There was no harm done, and he could not walk as he was through the rain.

      Alas! These plausible arguments proceeded, had the Professor but known it, from the Enemy of Souls! He, the fallen archangel, foresaw that coming ruin to which his lanky and introspective victim was unhappily blind. Dons are cheap meat for Devils.

      The door shut upon the learned man. He went striding out into the drenching storm, down the drive towards the public road. And as he went he carried a sense of wealth about him that was very pleasurable in spite of the weather. He had never known such raiment!

      His way down the road to his lodgings would be a matter of a mile or more. The rain was intolerable. He was wondering as he reached the gate whether there was any chance of a cab at such an hour, when he was overjoyed to hear the purring of a taxi coming slowly up behind him. He turned at once and hailed it. The taxi halted, and drew up a little in front of a street light, so that the driver's face was in shadow. He gave his address, opened the door and stooped to fold up his considerable stature into the vehicle.

      He had hardly shut the door, and as he was doing so, felt, or thought he felt, some obstacle before him, when the engine was let out at full speed. The cab whirled suddenly round in the opposite direction from that which he had ordered, and as Professor Higginson was jolted back by the jerk into his seat, his left arm clutched at what was certainly a human form; at the same moment his struggling right arm clutched another, crouched apparently in the corner of the cab.

      He had just time to begin, "I beg your——" when he felt each wrist held in a pair of strong hands and a shawl or cloth tightening about his mouth. All that he next attempted to say was lost to himself and to the world. He gave one vigorous kick with his long legs; before he could give a second his feet were held as firmly as his hands, and he felt what must have been a handkerchief being tied uncomfortably tightly round his ankles, while his wrists were still held in a grasp that suggested something professional.

      Professor Higginson's thoughts were drawn out of their daily groove. His brain raced and pulsed, then halted, and projected one clear decision—which was to sit quite quiet and do nothing.

      The driver's back showed a black square against the lamp-lit rain. He heard, or would hear, nothing. He paid no heed to the motions within, but steered furiously through the storm. For ten good minutes nothing changed.

      The beating rain outside blurred the window-panes, and the pace at which they drove forbade the Philosopher any but the vaguest guesses at the road and the whereabouts.

      The public lights of the town had long since been left behind; rapid turns had begun to suggest country lanes, when, after a sharper jolt than usual, the machine curved warily through a gate into a narrow way, the brakes were put on sharply, the clutch was thrown out, and the cab stopped dead. It was halted and its machine was panting down in some garden, the poverty and neglect of which glared under the acetylene lamps. The disordered, weedy gravel of the place and its ragged laurels stood out unnaturally, framed in the thick darkness. The edge of the light just caught the faded brick corner of an old house.

      Professor Higginson had barely a second in which to note a flight of four dirty stone steps leading to a door in the shadow, when his captors spoke for the first time.

      "Will you go quietly?" said the one crouching before him—he that had tied his ankles.

      The Professor assented through his gag with a voice like the distant lowing of a cow. The strong grip that held his wrists pulled his arms behind him, the taxi door was opened, and he was thrust out, still held by the hands. He poised himself upon his bound feet, and whoever it was that had spoken—he had a strong, young voice, and looked broad and powerful in the half-light behind the lamps—began unfastening the handkerchief at his ankles. Professor Higginson was not a soldier. He was of the Academies. He broke his parole.

      The moment his feet were free he launched a vigorous kick at his releaser (who hardly dodged it), emitted through his gag a dull sound full of fury, and at the same instant found himself bumped violently upon the ground with his legs threshing the air in all directions. It was the gentleman who held his wrists behind him that was the author of this manœuvre, and even as he achieved it he piped out in a curious high voice that contrasted strangely with the strength he had just proved—

      "Hit him, Jimmy! Hit him in the face!"

      "Not yet," said Jimmy ominously. "Jerk him up, Melba!"

      At some expense to the Professor's nerves Melba obeyed, and the learned Pragmatist found himself once more upon his feet. He kicked out vigorously behind, but only met the air. It was as he had dreaded! He had to deal with professionals!

      "All right, Jimmy?" came in a young, well-Englished and rather tired drawl from the driver.

      The engine was still panting slightly.

      "Yes, Charlie," said Jimmy cheerfully. "Off you go!"

      "Good night," said the young, well-Englished and rather tired drawl again.

      The clutch caught, the engine throbbed faster, the untidy gravel crunched under the motor as it turned a half circle to find the gate, and

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