It was a very large chamber, lined with innumerable volumes, which had overflowed from the shelves and lay in piles in the corners, or were stacked all round at the base of the cases.  The bed was in the centre of the room, and in it, propped up with pillows, was the owner of the house.  I have seldom seen a more remarkable-looking person.  It was a gaunt, aquiline face which was turned towards us, with piercing dark eyes, which lurked in deep hollows under overhung and tufted brows.  His hair and beard were white, save that the latter was curiously stained with yellow around his mouth.  A cigarette glowed amid the tangle of white hair, and the air of the room was fetid with stale tobacco smoke.  As he held out his hand to Holmes, I perceived that it was also stained with yellow nicotine.

“A smoker, Mr. Holmes?” said he, speaking in well-chosen English, with a curious little mincing accent.  “Pray take a cigarette.  And you, sir?  I can recommend them, for I have them especially prepared by Ionides, of Alexandria.  He sends me a thousand at a time, and I grieve to say that I have to arrange for a fresh supply every fortnight.  Bad, sir, very bad, but an old man has few pleasures.  Tobacco and my work—­that is all that is left to me.”

Holmes had lit a cigarette and was shooting little darting glances all over the room.

“Tobacco and my work, but now only tobacco,” the old man exclaimed.  “Alas! what a fatal interruption!  Who could have foreseen such a terrible catastrophe?  So estimable a young man!  I assure you that, after a few months’ training, he was an admirable assistant.  What do you think of the matter, Mr. Holmes?”

“I have not yet made up my mind.”

“I shall indeed be indebted to you if you can throw a light where all is so dark to us.  To a poor bookworm and invalid like myself such a blow is paralyzing.  I seem to have lost the faculty of thought.  But you are a man of action—­you are a man of affairs.  It is part of the everyday routine of your life.  You can preserve your balance in every emergency.  We are fortunate, indeed, in having you at our side.”

Holmes was pacing up and down one side of the room whilst the old professor was talking.  I observed that he was smoking with extraordinary rapidity.  It was evident that he shared our host’s liking for the fresh Alexandrian cigarettes.

“Yes, sir, it is a crushing blow,” said the old man.  “That is my magnum opus—­the pile of papers on the side table yonder.  It is my analysis of the documents found in the Coptic monasteries of Syria and Egypt, a work which will cut deep at the very foundation of revealed religion.  With my enfeebled health I do not know whether I shall ever be able to complete it, now that my assistant has been taken from me.  Dear me!  Mr. Holmes, why, you are even a quicker smoker than I am myself.”

Holmes smiled.

“I am a connoisseur,” said he, taking another cigarette from the box—­his fourth—­and lighting it from the stub of that which he had finished.  “I will not trouble you with any lengthy cross-examination, Professor Coram, since I gather that you were in bed at the time of the crime, and could know nothing about it.  I would only ask this:  What do you imagine that this poor fellow meant by his last words:  ’The professor—­it was she’?”