After the physical beating I had taken during my first meeting with Professor Challenger, and the mental shock of everything he had told me afterward, I was in a thoroughly confused state when I finally left Enmore Park.
One thought kept pounding in my head.
Perhaps Challenger was telling the truth.
If he was, his discovery was enormously important. And if I could eventually get his permission to publish it, the story would make sensational material for the Gazette.
A taxi was waiting at the end of the street. I jumped in and headed straight for the newspaper office.
McArdle was at his desk as usual.
“Well?” he called as soon as he saw me. “How much have you got?”
He looked me over.
“Judging by your face, you’ve been in a fight. Don’t tell me the Professor attacked you.”
“We had a small disagreement at first.”
“A small disagreement?”
McArdle laughed.
“What did you do to him?”
“He eventually calmed down, and we talked.”
I rubbed my injured eye.
“But I got nothing I can publish.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
McArdle pointed at my eye.
“You’ve got a black eye. That’s publishable enough.”
He leaned back in his chair.
“We can’t allow this man’s reign of terror to continue, Malone. We need to put him in his place.”
“I’ll write a strong editorial about him tomorrow.”
“I’ll give him a reputation he’ll never escape.”
He grinned.
“How about ‘Professor Munchausen’ for a headline?”
“Or perhaps ‘Sir John Mandeville Reborn.’”
“I could compare him with Cagliostro and every other famous fraud and bully in history.”
“I’ll expose him completely.”
“I wouldn’t do that, sir.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t think he’s a fraud.”
McArdle stared at me.
“What?”
“You don’t seriously believe all this nonsense about giant prehistoric creatures, sea monsters, and other such rubbish?”
“I don’t know about sea monsters.”
“And I don’t think Challenger claims anything like that.”
“But I do believe he has discovered something.”
McArdle slapped the desk.
“Then for heaven’s sake, write it!”
“I’d love to.”
I shook my head.
“But everything he told me was confidential. He made me promise not to publish it.”
I gave McArdle a brief account of what Challenger had told me.
When I finished, McArdle looked deeply skeptical.
“All right,” he said at last. “But there’s a scientific meeting tonight.”
He tapped his fingers on the desk.
“There can’t be anything confidential about a public meeting.”
“I doubt any other paper will bother covering it. Waldron has been reported dozens of times, and nobody knows Challenger is going to speak.”
“We might get an exclusive.”
He pointed at me.
“You’re going anyway, so give us a full report.”
“I’ll keep space open for you until midnight.”
The rest of my day passed quickly.
That evening I had dinner at the Savage Club with Tarp Henry, and I told him about my strange adventure.
He listened with a skeptical smile.
When I told him that Challenger had convinced me, he burst out laughing.
“My dear Malone, that’s not how real life works.”
“People don’t wander into some remote part of the world and stumble upon gigantic scientific discoveries.”
“And then somehow lose all their evidence.”
“That’s the sort of thing novelists invent.”
He shook his head.
“That fellow is full of tricks. He’s got more tricks than the monkey house at the Zoo.”
“It’s all nonsense.”
“But what about the American artist?”
“He never existed.”
“I saw his sketchbook.”
“Challenger’s sketchbook, you mean.”
“You think Challenger drew those animals himself?”
“Who else could have done it?”
“And the photographs?”
“There was nothing convincing in those photographs.”
“You admitted yourself that all you could identify was a bird.”
“A pterodactyl.”
“That’s what Challenger told you it was.”
“He planted the idea in your head.”
“And what about the bones?”
“The first one probably came from some Irish stew.”
“The other was probably made for the occasion.”
“If you’re clever enough, you can fake a bone just as easily as you can fake a photograph.”
His arguments made me uncomfortable.
Perhaps I had been too quick to believe Challenger.
Then I had an idea.
“Will you come to the meeting tonight?”
Tarp Henry thought about it.
“Challenger isn’t exactly popular.”
“A lot of people have old scores to settle with him.”
“In fact, he may be the most hated man in London.”
“If the medical students turn up, there could be a tremendous disturbance.”
“I don’t particularly want to spend the evening in a madhouse.”
“You could at least hear him defend himself.”
Tarp Henry considered this.
“All right.”
“That’s fair enough.”
“I’ll come.”
When we reached the hall, I was surprised by the size of the crowd.
A line of elegant electric carriages was dropping off white-bearded professors and other distinguished scientists.
At the same time, ordinary people were pouring through the main entrance.
The audience was clearly going to be both respectable and lively.
As soon as we found our seats, I noticed the mischievous atmosphere in the back of the hall.
Rows of young medical students were packed into the gallery.
It seemed that nearly every major hospital had sent a group.
They were not openly hostile.
They were simply looking for fun.
Someone started singing part of a popular song.
Others joined in.
Soon the hall was filled with laughter, shouting, and jokes.
Then Dr. Meldrum appeared on the platform wearing his famous opera hat.
Someone immediately shouted:
“Where did you get that hat?”
The whole hall repeated the question.
Poor Dr. Meldrum quickly removed it and hid it beneath his chair.
When Professor Wadley came limping onto the platform, people began shouting questions about his gout.
“How’s the toe, Professor?”
“Is it better yet?”
“What did the doctor say?”
The poor man looked deeply embarrassed.
But the biggest reaction came when Professor Challenger arrived.
His black beard appeared around the corner of the platform.
The students exploded.
The roar was enormous.
For a moment I wondered whether Tarp Henry had been right.
Perhaps people had come specifically because they knew Challenger would be there.
Yet I did not feel that the crowd actually hated him.
Their shouting sounded more like the excited reception given to someone who entertained them.
Challenger seemed to think so too.
He smiled with tired amusement, as though he were listening to a group of noisy puppies.
He slowly sat down.
He puffed out his enormous chest, stroked his beard, and looked over the crowd with half-closed eyes.
The noise had barely settled when Professor Ronald Murray, the chairman, and Mr. Waldron, the lecturer, took their places.
The meeting began.
Professor Murray stood first.
Unfortunately, he had the usual English professor’s weakness.
Nobody could hear him.
Why intelligent men who had something worth saying so often failed to speak loudly enough was one of life’s great mysteries.
Professor Murray made several profound remarks to his white tie, the water jug, and the silver candlestick beside him.
Then he sat down.
Mr. Waldron rose to applause.
He was a tall, thin, stern-looking man with a harsh voice and an aggressive manner.
But he had one great talent.
He knew how to take complicated scientific ideas and explain them in a way ordinary people could understand.
He could even make difficult subjects funny.
Under his explanation, things like the movement of the stars or the development of animals became entertaining stories.
That evening he gave us a broad history of life on Earth.
He began with the planet itself.
He described the Earth as an enormous ball of burning gas moving through space.
Then it gradually cooled.
The surface hardened.
Mountains formed.
Steam became water.
The oceans appeared.
Little by little, the planet became suitable for life.
When he reached the question of how life itself began, Waldron became more cautious.
The earliest life could hardly have survived the Earth’s original heat.
So it must have appeared later.
Perhaps life somehow developed from the lifeless chemicals on the cooling planet.
Perhaps the first living organisms arrived from space on a meteor.
Nobody knew for certain.
And, he said, the wisest scientists were the ones who admitted what they did not know.
Scientists could not yet create life from dead matter in a laboratory.
There was still a great gap between non-living material and living organisms.
Nature, however, had enormous amounts of time and energy to work with.
Perhaps Nature could accomplish things that human chemistry could not.
That was where the question had to remain.
Waldron then described the development of animal life.
He began with simple sea creatures and gradually moved upward through different forms of life.
Eventually he reached the early ancestors of mammals.
One student in the back shouted:
“No!”
Waldron stopped.
He looked toward the young man.
“I assume the gentleman in the red tie believes he was not descended from such creatures.”
The audience laughed.
“If so, perhaps he would kindly remain after the lecture.”
“I should very much like to examine such a remarkable specimen.”
More laughter followed.
Waldron continued.
“It is certainly amusing to think that all of Nature’s work over millions of years eventually produced the gentleman in the red tie.”
“But perhaps that gentleman is not the final achievement of evolution.”
“Evolution is still happening.”
“Nature may have much greater things in store.”
The audience laughed again.
Waldron then returned to prehistoric times.
He described the ancient seas drying up and the land appearing.
He talked about shallow waters, muddy shores, and huge quantities of food.
Some creatures grew enormously under those conditions.
“And that,” he said, “gave us the terrifying reptiles whose remains we still find in ancient rocks.”
“Fortunately, those creatures disappeared long before human beings appeared on Earth.”
“Question!”
The voice came from the platform.
Waldron stopped.
The interruption was so unexpected that he looked almost confused.
He continued more slowly.
“I said that those creatures disappeared before human beings appeared.”
“Question!”
The same deep voice sounded again.
Waldron stared down the line of professors.
His eyes finally settled on Challenger.
The Professor was sitting with his eyes closed and a faint smile on his face.
“I see,” Waldron said dryly.
“It is my distinguished friend Professor Challenger.”
The audience laughed.
Waldron continued his lecture.
But the problem was only beginning.
Every time Waldron mentioned prehistoric animals, Challenger interrupted him.
“Question!”
His voice was so deep that it seemed to shake the hall.
Soon the audience began waiting for it.
Whenever Waldron made some statement about ancient life, hundreds of students would shout:
“Question!”
At the same time, another part of the audience would shout:
“Order!”
“Shame!”
The whole thing became a game.
Waldron tried to continue.
But Challenger kept interrupting.
Eventually even the experienced lecturer lost his patience.
He turned toward Challenger.
“This is becoming completely intolerable!”
“I must ask you, Professor Challenger, to stop making these ignorant and discourteous interruptions.”
The hall suddenly became quiet.
Everyone wanted to see what would happen.
Challenger slowly rose from his chair.
“I must ask you in return, Mr. Waldron, to stop making statements that are scientifically incorrect.”
The hall exploded.
“Shame!”
“Let him speak!”
“Throw him out!”
“Fair play!”
“Get him off the platform!”
The chairman jumped to his feet, waving both hands.
He tried to restore order, but nobody could understand what he was saying.
Challenger simply smiled.
He stroked his beard and calmly sat down again.
Waldron was red with anger.
He continued his lecture.
Every so often he threw an angry look toward Challenger.
But the Professor appeared to be asleep.
At last Waldron reached the end of his lecture.
I suspect he ended rather earlier than he had planned.
His conclusion was rushed and badly connected.
The audience was restless.
Everyone was waiting to hear Challenger.
Waldron sat down.
The chairman made a brief announcement.
Challenger rose and walked to the front of the platform.
As a reporter, I immediately began taking notes.
“Ladies and gentlemen—”
A wave of shouting came from the back.
Challenger raised his hand.
“I beg your pardon.”
He paused.
“Ladies, gentlemen, and children.”
The crowd laughed.
“I nearly forgot a considerable portion of my audience.”
He stood there with one hand raised while his enormous head nodded solemnly.
“I have been asked to propose a vote of thanks to Mr. Waldron for the interesting and imaginative lecture we have just heard.”
“There are several points on which I disagree with him.”
“I have already made my objections clear.”
“But Mr. Waldron certainly succeeded in his main purpose.”
“He gave us a simple and entertaining account of the history of our planet.”
Challenger glanced at Waldron.
“Of course, popular lectures have a serious weakness.”
“They must be simplified enough for an audience that knows very little about science.”
There was sarcastic applause.
“Popular lecturers are therefore dependent upon the real scientists who do the difficult work.”
Waldron looked furious.
“One new fact discovered in a laboratory is worth more to science than a hundred entertaining explanations of facts discovered by someone else.”
“I’m not saying this merely to attack Mr. Waldron.”
“I simply want you to understand the difference between the man who discovers something and the man who explains it afterward.”
Waldron leaned toward the chairman and whispered something.
The chairman half rose from his seat.
Challenger ignored them.
“But enough of that.”
The audience applauded.
“Let us move to something more important.”
“Why have I challenged Mr. Waldron?”
“It is because of his statement that certain ancient forms of animal life disappeared completely from the Earth.”
“I do not speak about this as an amateur.”
“Nor do I speak as a popular lecturer.”
“I speak as a scientist who is obligated to deal with facts.”
“And I tell you that Mr. Waldron is wrong.”
“He assumes that because he has never seen a prehistoric animal, such animals must no longer exist.”
“That conclusion is unjustified.”
“Yes, these creatures are ancient.”
“They may even be our ancestors.”
“But they are also, in a very real sense, our contemporaries.”
“If you know where to look, you can still find creatures with the same terrifying characteristics.”
“Animals believed to have disappeared millions of years ago are still alive.”
“Some of them would be capable of hunting and killing the largest animals alive today.”
The audience erupted.
“Bosh!”
“Prove it!”
“How do you know?”
“Question!”
Challenger waited.
“You ask how I know?”
He smiled.
“I know because I have been to the places where they live.”
“I know because I have seen them.”
There was applause.
Then someone shouted:
“Liar!”
Challenger stopped.
“Am I a liar?”
The crowd answered with laughter and shouting.
“Liar!”
“Did someone call me a liar?”
He looked around.
“The gentleman who called me a liar may stand up. I’d like to meet him.”
A voice shouted:
“There he is!”
A small, harmless-looking man with glasses was suddenly pushed upward by a group of students.
“Was it you who called me a liar?”
“No, sir! No!”
The little man disappeared back into the crowd.
Challenger smiled.
“If anyone in this hall doubts my honesty, I will be happy to discuss the matter with him after the lecture.”
“Liar!”
“Who said that?”
Once again the poor little man with the glasses was lifted into the air.
“If I come down there—”
The audience erupted.
“Come on down!”
“Come, love, come!”
The chairman stood waving both arms as though conducting an orchestra.
Challenger’s face had turned red.
His nostrils flared.
His beard seemed to stand on end.
He was now thoroughly furious.
“Every great scientific discovery has been met with disbelief.”
“The ignorant always attack what they cannot understand.”
“When someone brings you a great new fact, you lack the imagination to recognize its importance.”
“So instead you insult the people who risked their lives to discover it.”
“You persecute those who bring you new knowledge.”
“Galileo!”
“Darwin!”
“And I—”
The hall exploded.
Cheers and boos drowned out the rest of his sentence.
By this point my notes could barely keep up with what was happening.
The hall had descended into complete chaos.
Several ladies had already left.
Even elderly professors were shouting and shaking their fists.
Students were yelling from every corner.
The entire audience seemed to be boiling like a huge pot.
Challenger stepped forward and raised both hands.
Something about his size and presence was impossible to ignore.
Slowly, the shouting faded.
The audience quieted.
They sensed that he had something serious to say.
“I won’t keep you here much longer.”
“It isn’t necessary.”
“Truth remains truth.”
“The shouting of foolish young men—and, I’m afraid, some equally foolish older men—cannot change it.”
“I claim that I have opened an entirely new field of science.”
“You disagree.”
There was another wave of cheering.
“Very well.”
“Let us settle it properly.”
“Choose one or more representatives from this audience.”
“Send them with me.”
“Let them investigate my claims for themselves.”
An elderly professor rose from the audience.
It was Mr. Summerlee, a famous authority on comparative anatomy.
He was tall and thin, with a sharp face and an expression that suggested he was permanently dissatisfied with the world.
“I have a question for Professor Challenger,” he said.
Challenger nodded.
“Go ahead.”
“Are the discoveries you have mentioned the result of your journey to the upper Amazon two years ago?”
“Yes.”
“Then how do you explain discovering things in that region that escaped the attention of Wallace, Bates, and other respected explorers?”
Challenger smiled.
“Professor Summerlee seems to be confusing the Amazon with the Thames.”
There was laughter.
“The Amazon is somewhat larger.”
“In fact, the entire region connected with the Orinoco gives us something like fifty thousand square miles of territory.”
“In such an enormous area, it is hardly impossible for one explorer to find something another explorer missed.”
Summerlee smiled coldly.
“I understand the difference between the Thames and the Amazon perfectly well.”
“The difference is that claims about the Thames can easily be checked.”
“Claims about the Amazon are rather harder to test.”
He paused.
“So I ask you to give us the latitude and longitude of the place where these prehistoric creatures supposedly live.”
Challenger shook his head.
“I have good reasons for keeping the exact location private.”
“But I am willing to give the information to a properly chosen committee from this audience.”
He looked directly at Summerlee.
“Would you join that committee?”
“Would you personally go there and test my claims?”
“Yes, I will.”
The audience cheered loudly.
“Then I guarantee that I will give you enough information to find the place.”
“But there is one condition.”
“Since Professor Summerlee is going to investigate my story, I want someone to accompany him who can also investigate Professor Summerlee’s conclusions.”
“There will be difficulties.”
“There will be danger.”
“Professor Summerlee will need a younger companion.”
“Are there any volunteers?”
That was the moment when my life suddenly changed.
I had entered the hall expecting nothing more than a strange scientific argument.
Now I was being offered the chance to join an expedition into an unknown part of the world.
Could I really turn it down?
Then I thought of Gladys.
Wasn’t this exactly the sort of adventure she had once told me I needed?
If I refused, what would she think?
I stood up.
I hadn’t even decided what I was going to say.
Tarp Henry grabbed my coat.
“Sit down, Malone!”
“Don’t make a fool of yourself in front of everyone.”
But I was already standing.
At the same moment, another man several seats ahead of me also rose.
He was tall and thin, with dark reddish hair.
He turned and looked directly at me.
His eyes were hard and challenging.
I refused to sit down.
“I’ll go,” I said.
The chairman looked toward me.
“Your name?”
I repeated myself.
“I’ll go.”
The audience shouted:
“Name!”
“Name!”
“My name is Edward Dunn Malone.”
“I’m a reporter for the Daily Gazette.”
“And I can promise you that I will be an impartial witness.”
The chairman turned toward the other volunteer.
“And your name, sir?”
The tall man answered calmly.
“Lord John Roxton.”
“I’ve already traveled through the Amazon.”
“I know the country.”
“And I have particular experience that makes me suitable for this expedition.”
The chairman nodded.
“Lord John Roxton’s reputation as a traveler and sportsman is well known.”
“But I believe it would also be valuable to have a member of the Press on such an expedition.”
Challenger immediately spoke.
“Then I propose that both gentlemen be selected.”
“They can accompany Professor Summerlee as representatives of this meeting.”
“They will investigate my claims and report what they discover.”
The hall erupted in cheers.
And just like that, my fate was decided.
I was swept out of the hall with the rest of the crowd.
My mind was spinning.
Only a few hours earlier, I had been a newspaper reporter trying to get a story.
Now I had committed myself to an expedition into one of the least-known regions on Earth.
As I emerged onto the pavement, I caught a glimpse of a group of laughing students rushing down the street.
In the middle of them, someone was swinging a heavy umbrella.
The umbrella went up and down as the crowd shouted and laughed.
Behind me came a mixture of cheers and boos.
Then Challenger’s electric carriage moved away from the curb.
I stood beneath the lights of Regent Street.
For a moment, everything seemed unreal.
I thought about Gladys.
I wondered what the future held for me.
Then I felt someone touch my elbow.
I turned.
It was the tall, thin man who had volunteered alongside me.
His eyes were sharp but amused.
“Mr. Malone, I believe?”
“Yes.”
“We’re going to be companions.”
He smiled.
“My rooms are just across the street, in the Albany.”
“Would you do me the kindness of giving me half an hour?”
“There are one or two things I very much want to discuss with you.”