And, with this terrible statement, the Prophet advanced with a sort of appalling deliberation and threw the front door wide open.

Upon the doorstep stood Lady Enid wrapped in a pink opera cloak and Sir Tiglath Butt shrouded in the Inverness.  The Prophet faced them with a marble demeanour.

“I thought you’d be here, Mr. Vivian,” began Lady Enid in a bright manner.

“I am here,” said the Prophet, speaking in a voice that might well have issued from a statue.

“Where is he?” roared Sir Tiglath.  “Where is he?  Oh-h-h-h!”

“Sir Tiglath means Malkiel,” explained Lady Enid.  “He is most anxious to meet him.”

“Why?” said the Prophet, still in the same inhuman voice.

“Well, we shall see when they do meet,” said Lady Enid, throwing a look of keen curiosity at the astronomer.  “I rather think—­” here she lowered her voice and whispered in the Prophet’s ear—­“I rather think Sir Tiglath wishes to try if he can murder Malkiel.  Do you believe he could bring it off?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” answered the Prophet, with stony indifference.  “Good-night to you!”

“But we want to come in,” cried Lady Enid.

“Young man,” roared Sir Tiglath, “the old astronomer will not leave this house till he has searched it from attic to cellar.”

“I am sorry,” replied the Prophet, “but I cannot permit my grandmother’s servants or wine to be disturbed at such an hour.  If you wish to murder Malkiel the Second, I shall not prevent you, but he is not here.”

“Then where is he?” cried Lady Enid.

“I don’t know.  And now—­”

The Prophet stepped back into the hall, and was about to close the door unceremoniously—­having, as he intended, ceased to be a gentleman—­when Lady Enid caught sight of the round and fixed eyes of Gustavus glaring out into the night from behind his master.  The appalling feminine instinct, which makes woman the mistress of creation, suddenly woke within her, and she cried out in a piercing voice,—­

“Malkiel’s in the house, and Gustavus knows it!”

She spoke these words with such conviction that the Prophet spun round, top-wise, and stared at the unfortunate flunkey, who instantly fell upon his knee-breeches and stammered out,—­

“Oh, sir, forgive me!  It’s Dr. Carter done it, sir, it is indeed.  It’s Dr. Carter done it!”

“Dr. Carter!” ejaculated the Prophet.

“The library, sir.  He offered me the library eight times over, sir!”

“Who offered you the library?”

“The gent, sir, in Mr. Ferdinand’s trouserings, what was at dinner, sir.  He only wanted to change ’em, sir, and he says to me, he says, ‘Let me,’ he says, ‘but remove these trouserings,’ he says, ’before I make off to Java,’ he says—­”

“To where?” roared Sir Tiglath.

“To Java, sir, where the jelly and the sparrows is manufactured, sir, that is born, sir.  ‘And,’ he says, ‘here is a hundred pounds,’ he says.”