“Neither do I,” the other replied grimly.

The Professor sighed as he hailed a taxicab.

“You, my dear fellow,” he said gravely, “are naturally not in the frame of mind for the consideration of these great subjects.  Besides, you have no scientific tendencies.  But in Sanford Quest I am disappointed.  I expected his enthusiasm—­I may say that I counted upon it.”

“I don’t think that Quest has much of that quality to spare,” his brother remarked, “for anything outside his own criminal hunting.”

They entered the taxicab and were driven almost in silence to the Professor’s home—­a large, rambling old house, situated in somewhat extensive but ill-kept grounds on the outskirts of New York.  The Englishman glanced around him, as they passed up the drive, with an expression of disapproval.

“A more untidy-looking place than yours, Edgar, I never saw,” he declared.  “Your grounds have become a jungle.  Don’t you keep any gardeners?”

The Professor smiled.

“I keep other things,” he said serenely.  “There is something in my garden which would terrify your nice Scotch gardeners into fits, if they found their way here to do a little tidying up.  Come into the library and I’ll give you one of my choice cigars.  Here’s Craig waiting to let us in.  Any news, Craig?”

The man-servant in plain clothes who admitted them shook his head.

“Nothing has happened, sir,” he replied.  “The telephone is ringing in the study now, though.”

“I will answer it myself,” the Professor declared, bustling off.

He hurried across the bare landing and into an apartment which seemed to be half museum, half library.  There were skeletons leaning in unexpected corners, strange charts upon the walls, a wilderness of books and pamphlets in all manner of unexpected places, mingled with quaintly-carved curios, gods from West African temples, implements of savage warfare, butterfly nets.  It was a room which Lord Ashleigh was never able to enter without a shudder.

The Professor took up the receiver from the telephone.  His “Hello” was mild and enquiring.  He had no doubt that the call was from some admiring disciple.  The change in his face as he listened, however, was amazing.  His lips began to twitch.  An expression of horrified dismay overspread his features.  His first reply was almost incoherent.  He held the receiver away from him and turned towards his brother.

“George,” he gasped, “the greatest tragedy in the world has happened!  My ape is stolen!”

His brother looked at him blankly.

“Your ape is stolen?” he repeated.

“The skeleton of my anthropoid ape,” the Professor continued, his voice growing alike in sadness and firmness.  “It is the curator of the museum who is speaking.  They have just opened the box.  It has lain for two days in an anteroom.  It is empty!”

Lord Ashleigh muttered something a little vague.  The theft of a skeleton scarcely appeared to his unscientific mind to be a realisable thing.  The Professor turned back to the telephone.