leaving shortly,” Holmes shouted to the woman’s back as she crossed the landing and started down the steps.
“Holmes, the way you are treating Mrs. Hudson is appalling..”
“Why, Watson? Because we have more pressing matters to which we must attend presently.?”
Watson shook his head.
Grabbing a muffler from a peg beside the door and wrapping it around his neck, Holmes said, “Stop reading this drivel, and come with me,” bending over the back of the sofa.
“Where are we going?” Watson asked, rising from his seat.
“To see for ourselves what this ‘Time Machine’ is all about, Watson. The papers have not reported all that I could see, to be sure. Come now; come., no time like thepresent!”
As both men were about to cross the landing and rush down the stairs, Holmes stopped, spun on his heels and returned inside the apartment, pushing past Watson. “I know him, Watson!” he exclaimed, marching in the direction of the bookcases along the far wall.
“Who? Who do you mean?” Watson queried, still surprised at this sudden about face.
“Professor Wells. He is not a professor at all., well., not exactly,” Holmes uttered, pulling a stack of folders and dropping it to the floor. He opened one folder after another and threw the sheets of paper carelessly around him until he came across a newspaper clipping. He brandished it in front of him and handed it to Watson. “I recognized his name. This is him.” He tapped on the piece of paper.
Watson read aloud, “The Chronic Argonauts by H.G. Wells.”
“Yes, Watson. Our Mister Wells is a school teacher, probably called ‘Professor’ by all who knows him, but has no professorial accreditation to his name. But, read on, read on, Watson.”
Watson did.
“As you can see, Mr. Wells wrote this rather convoluted story almost seven years ago, in which he described the adventures of a reverend, a man by the name of Cook, who experienced time travel. In this story he also makes mention of an eccentric scientist who had constructed such a time machine. It all fits, Watson, it all fits.”
Still dazed, Watson stood beside his friend, both waiting for a hansom cab to stop by the curb. As the horse halted his progress a few paces ahead of the two men, the coachman called from his seat, “Where would you like to go, sir?”
Opening the cab’s door, Holmes replied, “143 Maybury Road, in Woking, my good man.”
“Very well, sir,” the man replied as Watson followed Holmes into the hansom.
Once seated side by side and facing the horse’s back and the street beyond, Watson asked, “How did you know the man’s address, Holmes? I didn’t see it mentioned in the article you showed me, or in the paper for that matter.”
Holmes didn’t turn his head to reply, “No need. Didn’t I say The Times is much more accurate in relating the events that occur around us?”
Watson nodded almost imperceptibly, a smirk appearing beneath his mustache.
When the cab approached the house, Holmes muttered, “He must be a well-to-do professor, indeed,” looking out the window of the hansom and before opening its door.
Once he had alighted from the seat atop the back of the cab, the coachman held the door open for his passengers and accepted the coins Holmes handed him readily. “Thank you, my good sir,” he said, pocketing the coins inside his cloak.
Before he had returned to his seat, Holmes shouted, “Wait for us, we should need you to take us back to Baker Street.”
“Very well, sir,” the driver replied, urging his horse forward a few paces toward a copse of trees alongside the road.
Watson, distracted by the departing horse and hansom, stood beside the curb as if lost in thought for a moment.
“Come, Watson,” Holmes said, recalling his friend to the present, “we must meet this mysterious professor .” He shot a glance at the house; a two-storey affair, white washed with neatly trimmed windows and doors. He shrugged. Such a modern abode didn’t