the man of science and in a few minutes Chap was introducing his sister.
“I hope you didn’t mind my coming, sir,” said Chap. “Lensman told me he was calling.”
“You did well to come,” said Mr. Colson courteously. “And it is a pleasure to meet your sister.”
Elsie was observing him closely and her first impression was one of pleasant surprise. A thin, cleanshaven old man, with a mass of white hair that fell over his collar and bushy eyebrows, beneath which twinkled eyes of deepest blue. There was a hint of good humour in his delicately-moulded face. Girl-like, she first noted his extraordinary cleanliness. His linen was spotless, his neat black suit showed no speck of dust.
“You probably met a — er — relative of mine,” he said gently. “A crude fellow — a very crude fellow. The uncouth in life jars me terribly. Will you come in, Miss West?”
They passed into a wide hall and down a long, broad corridor which was lighted on one side by narrow windows through which the girl had a glimpse of a neatly flagged courtyard, also surrounded by gay flowerbeds.
On the other side of the corridor, doors were set at intervals and it was on the second of these that Tim, in passing, read an inscription. It was tidily painted in small, gold lettering:
PLANETOID 127.
The professor saw the young man’s puzzled glance and smiled. “A little conceit of mine,” he said.
“Is that the number of an asteroid?” asked Tim, a dabbler in astronomy.
“No — you may search the Berlin Year Book in vain for No. 127,” said the professor as he opened the door of a large and airy library and ushered them in. “There must be an asteroid — by which, young lady, is meant one of those tiny planets which abound in the zone between Mars and Jupiter, and of which, Witts D.Q. — Now named Eros — is a remarkable example. My Planetoid was discovered on a certain 12th of July — 127. And it was not even an asteroid!”
He chuckled and rubbed his long white hands together.
The library with its walnut bookshelves, its deep chairs and faint fragrance of Russian leather, was a pleasant place, thought Elsie. Huge china bowls laden with roses stood in every possible point where bowls could stand. Through the open windows came a gentle breeze laden with the perfume of flowers.
“Tea will be ready in a minute,” said Mr. Colson. “I ordered it when I saw you. Yes, I am interested in asteroids.”
His eyes went mechanically to the cornice of the room above the stone fireplace and Tim, looking up, saw that there was a square black cavity in the oaken panelling and wondered what was its significance.
“They are more real and tangible to me than the great planetary masses. Jupiter — a vapour mass; Saturn — a molten mass, yielding the secret of its rings to the spectroscope; Vulcan — no planet at all, but a myth and a dream of imaginative and romantic astronomers — there are no intra-mercurial planets, by which I mean” — he seemed to find it necessary to explain to Elsie, for which Chap was grateful— “that between Mercury, which is the nearest planet to the sun and the sun itself, there is no planetary body, though some foolish people think there is and have christened it Vulcan—”
An elderly footman had appeared in the doorway and the professor hurried across to him. There was a brief consultation (Elsie suspected a domestic problem, and was right) and with a word of apology, he went out.
“He’s a rum bird,” began Chap and stopped dead. From the black cavity above the fireplace came a thin whine of sound, and then a deafening splutter like exaggerated and intensified “atmospherics.”
“What is that?” whispered the girl.
Before Tim could answer, the spluttering ceased, and then a soft, sweet voice spoke:
“‘Lo…Col — son! Ja’ze ga shil? I speak you, Col — son…Planetoid 127…Big fire in my zehba…city…big fire…”
There was a click and the voice ceased abruptly, and at that moment Professor Colson came in.
He saw the amazed group staring at the square hole in the wall, and his lips twitched.
“You heard — ? I cut off the connection, though I’m afraid I may not get him again tonight.”
“Who is he, sir?” asked Tim frowning. “Was that a transmission from any great distance?”
The professor did not answer at once. He glanced keenly and suspiciously at the girl, as though it was her intelligence he feared. And then:
“The man who spoke was a man named Colson,” he said deliberately; “and he spoke from a distance of 186 million miles!”
Chapter II
They listened, dumbfounded.
Was the old professor mad? The voice that had spoken to them was the voice of Colson…?
“A hundred and eighty-six million miles?” said Tim incredulously “But, Mr. Colson, that was not your voice I heard?”
He smiled faintly and shook his head.
“That was literally my alter ego — my other self,” he said; and it seemed that he was going to say something else, but he changed the subject abruptly.
“Let us have tea,” he said, smiling at Elsie. “My butler brought the alarming news that the ice cream had not arrived, but it came whilst we were discussing that tragedy!”
Elsie was fascinated by the old man and a little scared, too. She alone of that party realised that the reference he had made to the voice that came one hundred and eighty-six millions of miles was no jest on his part.
It was Chap who, in his awkward way, brought the conversation back to the subject of mysterious voices.
“They’ve had signals from Mars on Vancouver, sir,” he said. “I saw it in this morning’s papers.”
Again the professor smiled.
“You think they were atmospherics?” suggested Elsie; and, to her surprise, Colson shook his head. “No; they were not atmospherics,” he said quietly, “but they were not from Mars. I doubt if there is any organic life on Mars, unless it be a lowly form of vegetation.”
“The canals—” began Chap.
“That may be an optical illusion,” said the science master. “Our own moon, seen at a distance of forty million miles, would appear to be intersected very much as Mars seems to be. The truth is, we can never get Mars to stand still long enough to get a definite photograph!”
“From Jupiter?” suggested Chap, now thoroughly interested.
Again Mr. Colson smiled.
“A semi-molten mass on which life could not possibly exist.
