The Three Impostors; or, The TransmutationsMachen, Arthur
Science
The Three Impostors; or, The Transmutations
Machen, Arthur
Fiction; Horror tales, English
He told me to leave the Museum at my usual hour, half past four, to walk
slowly along the northern pavement of Great Russell Street, and to wait
at the corner of the street till I was addressed, and then to obey in
all things the instructions of the person who came up to me. I carried
out these directions, and stood at the corner looking about me
anxiously, my heart beating fast, and my breath coming in gasps. I
waited there for some time, and had begun to fear I had been made the
object of a joke, when I suddenly became conscious of a gentleman who
was looking at me with evident amusement from the opposite pavement of
Tottenham Court Road. He came over, and raising his hat, politely begged
me to follow him, and I did so without a word, wondering where we were
going, and what was to happen. I was taken to a house of quiet and
respectable aspect in a street lying to the north of Oxford Street, and
my guide rang the bell, and a servant showed us into a large room,
quietly furnished, on the ground floor. We sat there in silence for some
time, and I noticed that the furniture, though unpretending, was
extremely valuable. There were large oak-presses, two book-cases of
extreme elegance, and in one corner a carved chest which must have been
mediæval. Presently Dr. Lipsius came in and welcomed me with his usual
manner, and after some desultory conversation, my guide left the room.
Then an elderly man dropped in and began talking to Lipsius; and from
their conversation I understood that my friend was a dealer in antiques;
they spoke of the Hittite seal, and of the prospects of further
discoveries, and later, when two or three more persons had joined us,
there was an argument as to the possibility of a systematic exploration
of the pre-celtic monuments in England. I was; in fact, present at an
archæological reception of an informal kind; and at nine o'clock, when
the antiquaries were gone, I stared at Lipsius in a manner that showed I
was puzzled, and sought an explanation.
"Now," he said, "we will go upstairs."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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