A Christmas Mystery: The Story of Three Wise Men | Page 2

with your test tubes and electric batteries and finish them alone?"
"Man!" said McCurdie, bending across the carriage, and speaking with

a curious intensity of voice, "d'ye know I'd give a hundred pounds to be
able to answer that question?"
"What do you mean?" asked the Professor, startled.
"I should like to know why I'm sitting in this damned train and going to
visit a couple of addle-headed society people whom I'm scarcely
acquainted with, when I might be at home in my own good company
furthering the progress of science."
"I myself," said the Professor, "am not acquainted with them at all."
It was Sir Angus McCurdie's turn to look surprised.
"Then why are you spending Christmas with them?"
"I reviewed a ridiculous blank-verse tragedy written by Deverill on the
Death of Sennacherib. Historically it was puerile. I said so in no
measured terms. He wrote a letter claiming to be a poet and not an
archæologist. I replied that the day had passed when poets could with
impunity commit the abominable crime of distorting history. He
retorted with some futile argument, and we went on exchanging letters,
until his invitation and my acceptance concluded the correspondence."
McCurdie, still bending his black brows on him, asked him why he had
not declined. The Professor screwed up his face till it looked more like
a cuneiform than ever. He, too, found the question difficult to answer,
but he showed a bold front.
"I felt it my duty," said he, "to teach that preposterous ignoramus
something worth knowing about Sennacherib. Besides I am a bachelor
and would sooner spend Christmas, as to whose irritating and
meaningless annoyance I cordially agree with you, among strangers
than among my married sisters' numerous and nerve-racking families."
Sir Angus McCurdie, the hard, metallic apostle of radio-activity,
glanced for a moment out of the window at the grey, frost-bitten fields.
Then he said:

"I'm a widower. My wife died many years ago and, thank God, we had
no children. I generally spend Christmas alone."
He looked out of the window again. Professor Biggleswade suddenly
remembered the popular story of the great scientist's antecedents, and
reflected that as McCurdie had once run, a barefoot urchin, through the
Glasgow mud, he was likely to have little kith or kin. He himself
envied McCurdie. He was always praying to be delivered from his
sisters and nephews and nieces, whose embarrassing demands no
calculated coldness could repress.
"Children are the root of all evil," said he. "Happy the man who has his
quiver empty."
Sir Angus McCurdie did not reply at once; when he spoke again it was
with reference to their prospective host.
"I met Deverill," said he, "at the Royal Society's Soirée this year. One
of my assistants was demonstrating a peculiar property of thorium and
Deverill seemed interested. I asked him to come to my laboratory the
next day, and found he didn't know a damned thing about anything.
That's all the acquaintance I have with him."
Lord Doyne, the great administrator, who had been wearily turning
over the pages of an illustrated weekly chiefly filled with flamboyant
photographs of obscure actresses, took his gold glasses from his nose
and the black cigar from his lips, and addressed his companions.
"I've been considerably interested in your conversation," said he, "and
as you've been frank, I'll be frank too. I knew Mrs. Deverill's mother,
Lady Carstairs, very well years ago, and of course Mrs. Deverill when
she was a child. Deverill I came across once in Egypt--he had been sent
on a diplomatic mission to Teheran. As for our being invited on such
slight acquaintance, little Mrs. Deverill has the reputation of being the
only really successful celebrity hunter in England. She inherited the
faculty from her mother, who entertained the whole world. We're sure
to find archbishops, and eminent actors, and illustrious divorcées asked
to meet us. That's one thing. But why I, who loathe country house

parties and children and Christmas as much as Biggleswade, am going
down there to-day, I can no more explain than you can. It's a devilish
odd coincidence."
The three men looked at one another. Suddenly McCurdie shivered and
drew his fur coat around him.
"I'll thank you," said he, "to shut that window."
"It is shut," said Doyne.
"It's just uncanny," said McCurdie, looking from one to the other.
"What?" asked Doyne.
"Nothing, if you didn't feel it."
"There did seem to be a sudden draught," said Professor Biggleswade.
"But as both window and door are shut, it could only be imaginary."
"It wasn't imaginary," muttered McCurdie.
Then he laughed harshly. "My father and mother came from
Cromarty," he said with apparent irrelevance.
"That's the Highlands," said the Professor.
"Ay," said McCurdie.
Lord Doyne said nothing, but tugged at his moustache and looked