A Christmas Mystery: The Story of Three Wise Men

A Christmas Mystery: The Story
of Three Wise Men

The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Mystery, by William J.
Locke This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
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Title: A Christmas Mystery The Story of Three Wise Men
Author: William J. Locke
Release Date: January 13, 2004 [EBook #10707]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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CHRISTMAS MYSTERY ***

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"_I cannot tell how the truth may be: I say the tale as 'twas said to
me._"

BY THE SAME AUTHOR
IDOLS SEPTIMUS THE USURPER THE WHITE DOVE THE
BELOVED VAGABOND THE DEMAGOGUE AND LADY
PHAYRE THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE AT THE GATE
OF SAMARIA A STUDY IN SHADOWS SIMON THE JESTER
WHERE LOVE IS DERELICTS

[Illustration: "I HEARD IT. I FELT IT. It WAS LIKE THE BEATING
OF WINGS."]

A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY THE STORY OF THREE WISE MEN
BY WILLIAM J. LOCKE
ILLUSTRATED BY BLENDON CAMPBELL
1910

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"I heard it. I felt it. It was like the beating of wings." Frontispiece
"I told you the place was uncanny."
Instinctively they all knelt down.
Carried with them an inalienable joy and possession into the great
world.

A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY

Three men who had gained great fame and honour throughout the
world met unexpectedly in front of the bookstall at Paddington Station.
Like most of the great ones of the earth they were personally
acquainted, and they exchanged surprised greetings.
Sir Angus McCurdie, the eminent physicist, scowled at the two others
beneath his heavy black eyebrows.
"I'm going to a God-forsaken place in Cornwall called Trehenna," said
he.
"That's odd; so am I," croaked Professor Biggleswade. He was a little,
untidy man with round spectacles, a fringe of greyish beard and a weak,
rasping voice, and he knew more of Assyriology than any man, living
or dead. A flippant pupil once remarked that the Professor's face was
furnished with a Babylonic cuneiform in lieu of features.
"People called Deverill, at Foulis Castle?" asked Sir Angus.
"Yes," replied Professor Biggleswade.
"How curious! I am going to the Deverills, too," said the third man.
This man was the Right Honourable Viscount Doyne, the renowned
Empire Builder and Administrator, around whose solitary and remote
life popular imagination had woven many legends. He looked at the
world through tired grey eyes, and the heavy, drooping, blonde
moustache seemed tired, too, and had dragged down the tired face into
deep furrows. He was smoking a long black cigar.
"I suppose we may as well travel down together," said Sir Angus, not
very cordially.
Lord Doyne said courteously: "I have a reserved carriage. The railway
company is always good enough to place one at my disposal. It would
give me great pleasure if you would share it."
The invitation was accepted, and the three men crossed the busy,

crowded platform to take their seats in the great express train. A porter,
laden with an incredible load of paraphernalia, trying to make his way
through the press, happened to jostle Sir Angus McCurdie. He rubbed
his shoulder fretfully.
"Why the whole land should be turned into a bear garden on account of
this exploded superstition of Christmas is one of the anomalies of
modern civilization. Look at this insensate welter of fools travelling in
wild herds to disgusting places merely because it's Christmas!"
"You seem to be travelling yourself, McCurdie," said Lord Doyne.
"Yes--and why the devil I'm doing it, I've not the faintest notion,"
replied Sir Angus.
"It's going to be a beast of a journey," he remarked some moments later,
as the train carried them slowly out of the station. "The whole country
is under snow--and as far as I can understand we have to change twice
and wind up with a twenty-mile motor drive."
He was an iron-faced, beetle-browed, stern man, and this morning he
did not seem to be in the best of tempers. Finding his companions
inclined to be sympathetic, he continued his lamentation.
"And merely because it's Christmas I've had to shut up my laboratory
and give my young fools a holiday--just when I was in the midst of a
most important series of experiments."
Professor Biggleswade, who had heard vaguely of and rather looked
down upon such new-fangled toys as radium and thorium and helium
and argon--for the latest astonishing developments in the theory of
radio-activity had brought Sir Angus McCurdie his world-wide
fame--said somewhat ironically:
"If the experiments were so important, why didn't you lock yourself up