“No, I dare say not,” said the Professor, with asperity. “However, that particular one can be answered very easily without your aid.”
He walked across the room to the bell. Our London friend, Mr. Bennett, answered the call.
“Come in, Mr. Bennett. These two gentlemen have come from London under the impression that they have been summoned. You handle all my correspondence. Have you a note of anything going to a person named Holmes?”
“No, sir,” Bennett answered, with a flush.
“That is conclusive,” said the Professor, glaring angrily at my companion. “Now, sir”—he leaned forward with his two hands upon the table—“it seems to me that your position is a very questionable one.”
Holmes shrugged his shoulders.
“I can only repeat that I am sorry that we have made a needless intrusion.”
“Hardly enough, Mr. Holmes!” the old man cried, in a high screaming voice, with extraordinary malignancy upon his face. He got between us and the door as he spoke, and he shook his two hands at us with furious passion. “You can hardly get out of it so easily as that.” His face was convulsed and he grinned and gibbered at us in his senseless rage. I am convinced that we should have had to fight our way out of the room if Mr. Bennett had not intervened.
“My dear Professor,” he cried, “consider your position! Consider the scandal at the University! Mr. Holmes is a well-known man. You cannot possibly treat him with such discourtesy.”
Sulkily our host—if I may call him so—cleared the
