"That's a pretty nasty accusation, Harry," said Meldrum.
"You may think so," said Norton obstinately, "but I tell you I'm not simply guessing. Apart from his peculiar build, with his monstrous length of arm and leg, short body, and small head, and his perpetual and unnatural theories and experiments with apes and things, there is still further evidence that I saw with my own eyes when we went to New York together one weekend and visited the zoo. It was not my fancy, I can assure you, Meldrum, that made me imagine the very brutes were interested in my companion. I tell you, there was scarcely one of those creatures that did not show excitement of some kind, some of rage, others of fear, but generally of anger.
"One big chipanzee went simply wild for a time—so much so that an attendant came along to see what the trouble was. It capered furiously, thundered at the bars of its cage, and then executed a hideous kind of cluttering dance, beating its hands and feet on the floor with extraordinary rapidity. Yet all Needham had done was to make a peculiar kind of clucking noise in his throat and smile his sinister smile. I'll bet the brutes recognized him as one of their kind. Some of them looked as if they expected him to open the cage doors . . ."
"What is he doing here in Burlington now?" asked Meldrum.
"Something in connection with lumber, I believe," said Norton, as they entered North Avenue and turned in the direction of the park. "He has rented a small house out here on his street and lives there alone. He seems to prefer being alone always."
They walked on for some little distance, and then Norton said, "This is the place," and indicated a small two-story residence standing alone in a neat garden some twenty yards from the thoroughfare.
It was quite dark save for one lighted window upstairs. The pair went up the path to the front door and Norton, after a little fumbling, found and pressed an electric button, without, however, producing any effect as far as could be observed.
"The bell doesn't seem to ring," said Norton, pressing again and again. "Perhaps it's out of order."
He knocked at the door and listened. everything was quiet inside. Heavy drops of water splashed down from the roof, intensifying the silence. A trolley-car hummed past on the street, throwing a brilliant light on the trees and shrubs of the garden, and then, leaving them darker than ever. Again Norton knocked loudly, but without result.
"That's not his bedroom, I know," he said, nodding up at the lighted room, "for he told me he hated the noise of the cars passing under his window. He must have fallen asleep over a book or something. I might throw a stone at the window."
"No I wouldn't do that," said Meldrum, walking back a few paces and staring up. "Perhaps we had better just go away. I can meet him again."
"But I would like you to see him, now that you've come," said Norton. "Wait a minute."
He tried the door and found it unlocked. Entering the hall, he called:
"Needham, Ho. Needham!"
Again they listened, and again nothing happened. As he groped in the darkness, Norton's hand encountered the electric switch and he turned on the light. A narrow stairway was revealed, leading overhead.
"Just wait a minute," he said to Meldrum, "and I'll run upstairs. I'm sure he's there."
He disappeared swiftly, and, after an internal of a few moments, came quietly down again.
"Come up," he said, beckoning to his friend. "He is sound asleep in his chair. Come and look."
ii.
together they crept up. The room door was ajar, and they noiselessly entered what was evidently a sitting-room. Needham sat in a large armchair, with his back to the window, sleeping quietly. A reading lamp on
