“I must confess to feeling a little doubtful about them,” I said. “I can’t make the girl out at all; she is a most queer young woman, but of course Professor Seemarsh is a well-known man in England.”
“You are sure you have heard of him?” Szalay asked.
“Oh, yes. I know the name well. After all, it is quite likely that he would be grubbing about here for specimens. These scientific fellows know of every likely place in Europe for a find.”
A day or two passed, and I saw no more of my new acquaintances, for the reason that I did not walk that way. Miss Seemarsh, it is true, rather provoked my curiosity by her strangeness, but not sufficiently to induce me to run after her. We had noticed nothing suspicious since the episode of poor Fritz, and the strain of apprehending the enemy’s next move was rather trying. One afternoon I thought I would stroll down to the landslip and see if the Professor and his daughter were there. Action of some sort seemed absolutely necessary to keep one’s nerves in order; although we had determined to make a dash within the next few days.
I had gone but a very short way towards the village when I saw coming towards me the pair whom I was [Pg 87]going to seek. “Hullo!” said I, “this is suspicious. What are they doing up here?”
As they drew near I noticed that the Professor carried his arm in a sling.
“I am so glad we have met you,” Miss Seemarsh exclaimed as we greeted each other. “My father has met with an accident. Tumbled over one of his beloved rocks yesterday, cut his hand and sprained his wrist. So he cannot quarry in the landslip, poor dear. And as he absolutely refuses to lose a day and be idle, we were coming up to ask if we might see the ruins of the old castle.”
The request could hardly be refused, and we turned back together, in spite of a remonstrance on the Professor’s part that he was spoiling my walk, and that he could see all he wished without dragging me back. But it need hardly be said, I was not likely to fall in with that suggestion.
“My work,” the Professor said, in his quick jerky way, “is not by any means the easy-going business most people think it. I am sometimes hanging in a cradle for hours over a chasm perhaps a thousand feet deep. The best places for finds are often the sides of a perpendicular wall, which can only be reached by a rope above. The worst bit of this slip is comparatively child’s play, although not free from a degree of danger, as I have proved.”
We soon reached the house and had the Professor at work on the walls of the old castle.
“Very interesting remains, very interesting,” he commented. “Of course your friend has a history of the old place? Yes? I should like to see it.”
“These fragments do not tell you much?”
“Everything, up to a certain point. But scarcely the names and deeds of the early inhabitants.”
When the inspection was over, and there was not much to see, it seemed to me the height of inhospitality [Pg 88]not to show some little civility to my own country folk. They had walked all the way from Eisenhalm, and were going to walk back. One could hardly omit to ask them to come in and rest; as for the danger, my suspicions, vague enough, were fast evaporating. When I asked them to come indoors, the Professor rather demurred. “Your friend is ill, you say. We had better not disturb him. Some other day, perhaps.”
But I felt constrained to press the invitation, and the Professor yielded. The usual elaborate German tea was brought in, and I left the room to tell Von Lindheim of my visitors. He looked rather disquieted.
“They are all right,” I assured him. “He is a well-known English savant, as I told you. And after all, supposing he is not, what can these two do against us. Come in. It will amuse you.”
He came in. The Professor sympathetically inquired as to his health, and we sat for a good while chatting over our tea. Some of the Sch?nvalhof archives were produced to gratify our visitors’ interest in the place. Miss Seemarsh asked all sorts of questions; how we liked being buried in the country, if we did not have many visitors to keep us in touch with the outer world, and how long we proposed to stay before returning to Buyda. All these very natural questions were interspersed with na?ve comments and comparisons between such a life and that of a London savant of many engagements and an unquenchable thirst for investigation.
Suddenly something appeared to have gone wrong with the Professor’s injured hand. He made an expression of pain, saying his wound had been troubling him for some little time. His daughter was full of a somewhat rueful solicitude.
“Oh, I do wish it would get well quickly,” she [Pg 89]half murmured to me. “It is a trial when father can’t work. I would far rather it had been my own hand. Father, hadn’t you better let me dress it for you again? I have brought the ointment and the bandages in my pocket.” She pulled out a little parcel.
“If we might ask to have a little warm water taken into a dressing-room, Gertrude might make things more comfortable for me,” her father said, holding the arm as though in pain.
I jumped up and said I would see to it myself. So accustomed to suspicion was I that my watch over my friends had become almost automatic.
I led the way to a chamber, with a balcony commanding a lovely view across the valley.
I left them and waited in the hall till they should come down. After a while it struck me that it would, perhaps, be as well to warn Szalay that the strangers were near him. His room, where he spent most of his time, adjoined Von Lindheim’s. We had done all we could to prevent his presence in the house being known to any one outside it, and I thought it just as well that he should keep close and not be seen even by these English people, who might be questioned by Rallenstein’s spies.
So I ran quickly upstairs. When I reached the corridor leading to the principal bedrooms, I was rather surprised to see the door of the room in which I had left the Seemarshes standing half-open. I knocked. No answer, I looked in; the room was empty. I went out to the head of the stairs; they were not to be seen. As I hurried along the corridor in search of them they came quickly round a corner and met me.
“Oh, there you are,” cried the Professor. “You can guide us back. We mistook the turning to the stairs and lost our way. What a labyrinth this house is.”
It was not quite easy to see how the way downstairs could have been missed.
“I hope you are easier?” I said.
“Thank you, the fomentation and re-dressing have done wonders. It pains me very little now. I shall even hope to be at work on the slip again to-morrow. Will you come and learn the rudiments of a delightful science? It is all I have to offer in return for your kindness, but to me it is much, and I think I dare promise to interest you. No, thank you, we can stay no longer. We have already trespassed too much on your friend’s hospitality. Now, shall we see you on the rocks to-morrow?”
“Yes, do come,” the girl urged, and, more from curiosity than anything else, I promised.