the loose sheets on the writing
table, and glancing at me. He still hesitated a little, I thought. "The
fact is," he said apologetically, "I wondered if it was quite fair to
trouble you so soon. The daylight might suit you better to hear what I
have to tell. Your sleep, I mean, might be less disturbed, perhaps."

"I appreciate your thoughtfulness," John Silence replied with his gentle
smile, taking command as it were from that moment, "but really we are
both quite immune. There is nothing, I think, that could prevent either
of us sleeping, except--an outbreak of fire, or some such very physical
disturbance."

Colonel Wragge raised his eyes and looked fixedly at him. This reference
to an outbreak of fire I felt sure was made with a purpose. It certainly
had the desired effect of removing from our host's manner the last signs
of hesitancy.

"Forgive me," he said. "Of course, I know nothing of your methods in
matters of this kind--so, perhaps, you would like me to begin at once
and give you an outline of the situation?"

Dr. Silence bowed his agreement. "I can then take my precautions
accordingly," he added calmly.

The soldier looked up for a moment as though he did not quite gather the
meaning of these words; but he made no further comment and turned at
once to tackle a subject on which he evidently talked with diffidence
and unwillingness.

"It's all so utterly out of my line of things," he began, puffing out
clouds of cigar smoke between his words, "and there's so little to tell
with any real evidence behind it, that it's almost impossible to make a
consecutive story for you. It's the total cumulative effect that is
so--so disquieting." He chose his words with care, as though determined
not to travel one hair's breadth beyond the truth.

"I came into this place twenty years ago when my elder brother died," he
continued, "but could not afford to live here then. My sister, whom you
met at dinner, kept house for him till the end, and during all these
years, while I was seeing service abroad, she had an eye to the
place--for we never got a satisfactory tenant--and saw that it was not
allowed to go to ruin. I myself took possession, however, only a year
ago.

"My brother," he went on, after a perceptible pause, "spent much of his
time away, too. He was a great traveller, and filled the house with
stuff he brought home from all over the world. The laundry--a small
detached building beyond the servants' quarters--h