rvice, real service, and found himself in the
process. He was tall and well built, broad in the shoulders, but lean as
a greyhound, with grave eyes, rather stern, and a moustache turning
grey. I judged him to be about sixty years of age, but his movements
showed a suppleness of strength and agility that contradicted the years.
The face was full of character and resolution, the face of a man to be
depended upon, and the straight grey eyes, it seemed to me, wore a veil
of perplexed anxiety that he made no attempt to disguise. The whole
appearance of the man at once clothed the adventure with gravity and
importance. A matter that gave such a man cause for serious alarm, I
felt, must be something real and of genuine moment.

His speech and manner, as he welcomed us, were like his letter, simple
and sincere. He had a nature as direct and undeviating as a bullet.
Thus, he showed plainly his surprise that Dr. Silence had not come
alone.

"My confidential secretary, Mr. Hubbard," the doctor said, introducing
me, and the steady gaze and powerful shake of the hand I then received
were well calculated, I remember thinking, to drive home the impression
that here was a man who was not to be trifled with, and whose perplexity
must spring from some very real and tangible cause. And, quite
obviously, he was relieved that we had come. His welcome was
unmistakably genuine.

He led us at once into a room, half library, half smoking-room, that
opened out of the low-ceilinged hall. The Manor House gave the
impression of a rambling and glorified farmhouse, solid, ancient,
comfortable, and wholly unpretentious. And so it was. Only the heat of
the place struck me as unnatural. This room with the blazing fire may
have seemed uncomfortably warm after the long drive through the night
air; yet it seemed to me that the hall itself, and the whole atmosphere
of the house, breathed a warmth that hardly belonged to well-filled
grates or the pipes of hot air and water. It was not the heat of the
greenhouse; it was an oppressive heat that somehow got into the head and
mind. It stirred a curious sense of uneasiness in me, and I caught
myself thinking of the sensation of warmth that had emanated from the
letter in the train.

I heard him thanking Dr. Silence for having come; there was no preamble,
and the exchange of civilities was of the briefest description.
Evidently here was a man who, like my companion, loved action rather
than talk. His manner w