ived at Waterloo with the feelings of a man who is about to embark on
some dangerous and peculiar mission in which the dangers he expects to
run will not be the ordinary dangers to life and limb, but of some
secret character difficult to name and still more difficult to cope
with.

"The Manor House has a high sound," he told me, as we sat with our feet
up and talked, "but I believe it is little more than an overgrown
farmhouse in the desolate heather country beyond D----, and its owner,
Colonel Wragge, a retired soldier with a taste for books, lives there
practically alone, I understand, with an elderly invalid sister. So you
need not look forward to a lively visit, unless the case provides some
excitement of its own."

"Which is likely?"

By way of reply he handed me a letter marked "Private." It was dated a
week ago, and signed "Yours faithfully, Horace Wragge."

"He heard of me, you see, through Captain Anderson," the doctor
explained modestly, as though his fame were not almost world-wide; "you
remember that Indian obsession case--"

I read the letter. Why it should have been marked private was difficult
to understand. It was very brief, direct, and to the point. It referred
by way of introduction to Captain Anderson, and then stated quite simply
that the writer needed help of a peculiar kind and asked for a personal
interview--a morning interview, since it was impossible for him to be
absent from the house at night. The letter was dignified even to the
point of abruptness, and it is difficult to explain how it managed to
convey to me the impression of a strong man, shaken and perplexed.
Perhaps the restraint of the wording, and the mystery of the affair had
something to do with it; and the reference to the Anderson case, the
horror of which lay still vivid in my memory, may have touched the sense
of something rather ominous and alarming. But, whatever the cause, there
was no doubt that an impression of serious peril rose somehow out of
that white paper with the few lines of firm writing, and the spirit of a
deep uneasiness ran between the words and reached the mind without any
visible form of expression.

"And when you saw him--?" I asked, returning the letter as the train
rushed clattering noisily through Clapham Junction.

"I have not seen him," was the reply. "The man's mind was charged to the
brim when he wrote that; full of vivid mental pictures. Notice the
restraint of it. For the main character of hi