Sexton Blake had been at Hastings when the telegram summoned him to Professor Harkoff's house, half-way between Battle and the old fishing town. The Rookery, as the professor's house was called, was in the Hastings district, and Inspector Jarkins, of that, force, found, on his arrival on the scene, that Blake had already been there half an hour, had heard the story Miss Harkoff repeated to himself, and had gone, not ten minutes ago, to make his investigations in the fatal room.