One end of the room was given up almost entirely to shelves and weighted down with books.

Philip was amazed at their number.

The other end was still partially hidden in glooms but he could make out that it was fitted up as a laboratory, and on shelves he caught the white gleam of scores of wild beast skulls.

Comfortably near to the fire was a large table scattered with books, papers, and piles of manuscript, and behind this was a small iron safe.

Here, Philip thought, was the adytum of no ordinary man; it was the study of a scholar and a scientist.