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Updated: June 26, 2025
He felt that he must know something more of the matter between Marcus Harding and Henry Chichester. Stepton still kept silence. Malling had not approached him. But why should he not call upon Chichester, an acquaintance, almost a friend? It was true that he had resolved, having put the affair into Stepton's hands, to wait. It had come to this, then, to-night that he could be patient no longer?
"Shall I give you some strange facts, the strangest perhaps you have ever met with?" Stepton smiled dryly. "You'll forgive me, but some such remark has been the prelude to so many figments." "Figments?" "Of the imagination." An expression of anger almost like a noble anger it seemed transformed Chichester's face.
"Just so," rejoined Stepton, making no apology. "And I really think," continued Chichester, with a sort of pressure "I really think I am entitled to ask for some explanation of the matter." "Certainly you are." "Well?" He paused, then said again, "Well, Professor Stepton?" "I'm afraid I've nothing to tell you, I like to stick to facts." "I only ask you for facts."
By return of post, there came an urgent invitation to the professor to visit Chichester's rooms in Hornton Street, "to continue a discussion which has a special interest for me at this moment." "Discussion!" thought Stepton, sitting down to accept, "What my man wants is for me to goad him into revelation; and I'll do it."
When Evelyn Malling, notorious because of his sustained interest in Psychical Research and his work for Professor Stepton, first met the Rev. Marcus Harding, that well-known clergyman was still in the full flow of his many activities. He had been translated from his labors in Liverpool to a West End church in London. There he had proved hitherto an astonishing success.
The first time they met, Stepton looked at the curate casually, the second time more sharply, the third time with scrutiny. He knew how to make a crescendo. The curate noticed it, as of course the professor intended. He did not know who Stepton was, but he began to wonder about this birdlike, sharp-looking man, who evidently took an interest in him. And presently his wonder changed into suspicion.
He longed to see her with Henry Chichester. During the days that elapsed before "Hornton Street, Wednesday" he considered a certain matter with sedulous care. His interview with Stepton had not been fruitless. Stepton always made an effect on his mind.
Malling," he said, "perhaps I ought to apologize to you for treating you with the abruptness allowable in a friend, but surprising in an acquaintance, indeed in one who is almost a stranger. I do apologize. My only excuse is that I know you to be a man of exceptional trend of mind and unusual ability. I know this from Professor Stepton. But there's another thing.
He would involve Stepton in this affair. There was a mystery in it. Malling was now convinced of that. And his original supposition did not satisfy him. But perhaps Mr. Harding meant to help him. Perhaps Mr. Harding intended to be explicit. The difficulty there was that he also was walking in darkness, as Malling believed. His telegram had come like a cry out of this darkness. "Faversham!
Chichester looked down; without raising his eyes he presently said in a constrained voice: "If I were to give you one you might not accept it." "Probably not," said Stepton, briskly. "In my life I've been offered a great many explanations, and I'm bound to say I've accepted remarkably few." Chichester looked up quickly, and with the air of a man nettled.
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