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“I wouldn’t do that, sir.”

“Why not?”

“Because he is not a fraud at all.”

“What!” roared McArdle. “You don’t mean to say you really believe this stuff of his about mammoths and mastodons and great sea sairpents?”

“Well, I don’t know about that. I don’t think he makes any claims of that kind. But I do believe he has got something new.”

“Then for Heaven’s sake, man, write it up!”

“I’m longing to, but all I know he gave me in confidence and on condition that I didn’t.” I condensed into a few sentences the Professor’s narrative. “That’s how it stands.”

McArdle looked deeply incredulous.

“Well, Mr Malone,” he said at last, “about this scientific meeting to-night; there can be no privacy about that, anyhow. I don’t suppose any paper will want to report it, for Waldron has been reported already a dozen times, and no one is aware that Challenger will speak. We may get a scoop, if we are lucky. You’ll be there in any case, so you’ll just give us a pretty full report. I’ll keep space up to midnight.”

My day was a busy one, and I had an early dinner at the Savage Club with Tarp Henry, to whom I gave some account of my adventures. He listened with a sceptical smile on his gaunt face, and roared with laughter on hearing that the Professor had convinced me.

“My dear chap, things don’t happen like that in real life. People don’t stumble upon enormous discoveries and then lose their evidence. Leave that to the novelists. The fellow is as full of tricks as the monkey-house at the Zoo. It’s all bosh.”

“But the American poet?”

“He never existed.”

“I saw his sketch-book.”

“Challenger’s sketch-book.”

“You think he drew that animal?”

“Of course he did. Who else?”

“Well, then, the photographs?”

“There was nothing in the photographs. By your own admission you only saw a bird.”

“A pterodactyl.”

“That’s what HE says. He put the pterodactyl into your head.”

“Well, then, the bones?”

“First one out of an Irish stew. Second one vamped up for the occasion. If you are clever and know your business you can fake a bone as easily as you can a photograph.”

I began to feel uneasy. Perhaps, after all, I had been premature in my acquiescence. Then I had a sudden happy thought.

“Will you come to the meeting?” I asked.

Tarp Henry looked thoughtful.

“He is not a popular person, the genial Challenger,” said he. “A lot of people have accounts to settle with him. I should say he is about the best-hated man in London. If the medical students turn out there will be no end of a rag. I don’t want to get into a bear-garden.”

“You might at least do him the justice to hear him state his own case.”