lytic; and at the entrance of the court as it opened upon the Circus
he turned, stick in hand, to face his pursuer.

Professor de Worms came slowly round the corner of the irregular alley
behind him, his unnatural form outlined against a lonely gas-lamp,
irresistibly recalling that very imaginative figure in the nursery
rhymes, "the crooked man who went a crooked mile." He really looked as
if he had been twisted out of shape by the tortuous streets he had
been threading. He came nearer and nearer, the lamplight shining on his
lifted spectacles, his lifted, patient face. Syme waited for him as St.
George waited for the dragon, as a man waits for a final explanation
or for death. And the old Professor came right up to him and passed him
like a total stranger, without even a blink of his mournful eyelids.

There was something in this silent and unexpected innocence that left
Syme in a final fury. The man's colourless face and manner seemed
to assert that the whole following had been an accident. Syme was
galvanised with an energy that was something between bitterness and a
burst of boyish derision. He made a wild gesture as if to knock the old
man's hat off, called out something like "Catch me if you can," and went
racing away across the white, open Circus. Concealment was impossible
now; and looking back over his shoulder, he could see the black figure
of the old gentleman coming after him with long, swinging strides like a
man winning a mile race. But the head upon that bounding body was still
pale, grave and professional, like the head of a lecturer upon the body
of a harlequin.

This outrageous chase sped across Ludgate Circus, up Ludgate Hill,
round St. Paul's Cathedral, along Cheapside, Syme remembering all the
nightmares he had ever known. Then Syme broke away towards the river,
and ended almost down by the docks. He saw the yellow panes of a low,
lighted public-house, flung himself into it and ordered beer. It was a
foul tavern, sprinkled with foreign sailors, a place where opium might
be smoked or knives drawn.

A moment later Professor de Worms entered the place, sat down carefully,
and asked for a glass of milk.

CHAPTER VIII. THE PROFESSOR EXPLAINS

WHEN Gabriel Syme found himself finally established in a chair, and
opposite to him, fixed and final also, the lifted eyebrows and
leaden eyelids of the Professor, his fears fully returned. This
incomprehensible man from the fierce council, after all, had