mind so long as
I live."

"The facts, as you state them, are certainly most remarkable," said
Holmes. "I take it that you have no theory yourself which can in any
way account for them?"

"It's devilish, Mr. Holmes, devilish!" cried Mortimer Tregennis. "It is
not of this world. Something has come into that room which has dashed
the light of reason from their minds. What human contrivance could do
that?"

"I fear," said Holmes, "that if the matter is beyond humanity it is
certainly beyond me. Yet we must exhaust all natural explanations
before we fall back upon such a theory as this. As to yourself, Mr.
Tregennis, I take it you were divided in some way from your family,
since they lived together and you had rooms apart?"

"That is so, Mr. Holmes, though the matter is past and done with. We
were a family of tin-miners at Redruth, but we sold our venture to a
company, and so retired with enough to keep us. I won't deny that
there was some feeling about the division of the money and it stood
between us for a time, but it was all forgiven and forgotten, and we
were the best of friends together."

"Looking back at the evening which you spent together, does anything
stand out in your memory as throwing any possible light upon the
tragedy? Think carefully, Mr. Tregennis, for any clue which can help
me."

"There is nothing at all, sir."

"Your people were in their usual spirits?"

"Never better."

"Were they nervous people? Did they ever show any apprehension of
coming danger?"

"Nothing of the kind."

"You have nothing to add then, which could assist me?"

Mortimer Tregennis considered earnestly for a moment.

"There is one thing occurs to me," said he at last. "As we sat at the
table my back was to the window, and my brother George, he being my
partner at cards, was facing it. I saw him once look hard over my
shoulder, so I turned round and looked also. The blind was up and the
window shut, but I could just make out the bushes on the lawn, and it
seemed to me for a moment that I saw something moving among them. I
couldn't even say if it was man or animal, but I just thought there was
something there. When I asked him what he was looking at, he told me
that he had the same feeling. That is all that I can say."

"Did you not investigate?"

"No; the matter passed as unimportant."

"You left them, then, without any premonition of evil?"

"None at all."

"I am not clear how you came to hear t