"What do you make of that?" he said, and flattened out the wire
in front of me.
It ran: "Please come at once. James' mental state dangerous.
Chadd."
"What does the woman mean?" I said after a pause, irritably.
"Those women have been saying that the poor old professor was mad
ever since he was born."
"You are mistaken," said Grant composedly. "It is true that all
sensible women think all studious men mad. It is true, for the
matter of that, all women of any kind think all men of any kind
mad. But they don't put it in telegrams, any more than they wire
to you that grass is green or God all-merciful. These things are
truisms, and often private ones at that. If Miss Chadd has written
down under the eye of a strange woman in a post-office that her
brother is off his head you may be perfectly certain that she did
it because it was a matter of life and death, and she can think of
no other way of forcing us to come promptly."
"It will force us of course," I said, smiling.
"Oh, yes," he replied; "there is a cab-rank near."
Basil scarcely said a word as we drove across Westminster Bridge,
through Trafalgar Square, along Piccadilly, and up the Uxbridge
Road. Only as he was opening the gate he spoke.
"I think you will take my word for it, my friend," he said; "this
is one of the most queer and complicated and astounding incidents
that ever happened in London or, for that matter, in any high
civilization.
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