ount of events,
admitted his great error, and answered all questions without any further
confusion of mind.

"I am not concerned to justify my permission in the matter of Mr. May,"
he concluded. "I deeply deplore it, and bitterly lament the result; but
my reasons for granting him leave to do what he desired I am prepared to
justify when the time comes. Others also heard him speak, and though he
did not convince my daughter, whose intellect is keener than my own, I
honestly believed him with all my heart. It seemed to me that only
so could any reasonable explanation be reached. Moreover, you have to
consider his own triumphant conviction and power of argument. Rightly or
wrongly, he made me feel that he was not mistaken--indeed, made me share
his resolute convictions. These things I am prepared to explain if need
be. But that will not matter to you. Personally I am now only too sure
that both Septimus May and I were mistaken. I realize that there must
exist some physical causes for these terrible things, that they are
of human origin, and I hope devoutly that you will be permitted by
Providence to discover them, and those responsible for them. But the
peril is evidently still acute. The danger remains, and I need not ask
you to recognize it."

Inspector Frith answered him, and proved more human than Sir Walter
expected. He was an educated man of high standing in his business.

"We'll waste no time," he said. "Perhaps it is as well you are
convinced, Sir Walter, that these things have happened inside natural
laws, and don't depend on beings in some unknown fourth dimension. That
is your affair, and I am very sure, as you say, that you can give good
reasons for what you did at a future inquiry, though the results are so
shocking. Poor Peter was taken back to London last night, you tell us,
according to directions. If he's in the same case as this unfortunate
gentleman, then there's not much doubt about his being dead. We
must begin at the beginning, though for us, naturally, Hardcastle's
operations and their failure are the most interesting facts to be dealt
with. You have told us everything that happened to him. But we have not
heard who found him."

"My nephew, Henry Lennox."

"He found Captain May, too?"

"He did. He was the last to see him alive, and the first to see him
afterwards."

"Is he here?"

"He will be here in the course of the day. He travelled to London last
night with the body of Mr. Hardcastle."