ndry building's a-caught!"

I remember his odd expression "a-caught," and wanting to laugh, but
finding my face rigid and inflexible.

"The devil's about again, s'help me Gawd!" he cried, in a voice thin
with terror, running about in circles.

And then the group on the stairs scattered as at the sound of a shot,
and the Colonel and Dr. Silence came down three steps at a time, leaving
the afflicted Miss Wragge to the care of her single attendant.

We were out across the front lawn in a moment and round the corner of
the house, the Colonel leading, Silence and I at his heels, and the
portly butler puffing some distance in the rear, getting more and more
mixed in his addresses to God and the devil; and the moment we passed
the stables and came into view of the laundry building, we saw a
wicked-looking volume of smoke pouring out of the narrow windows, and
the frightened women-servants and grooms running hither and thither,
calling aloud as they ran.

The arrival of the master restored order instantly, and this retired
soldier, poor thinker perhaps, but capable man of action, had the matter
in hand from the start. He issued orders like a martinet, and, almost
before I could realise it, there were streaming buckets on the scene and
a line of men and women formed between the building and the stable pump.

"Inside," I heard John Silence cry, and the Colonel followed him through
the door, while I was just quick enough at their heels to hear him add,
"the smoke's the worst part of it. There's no fire yet, I think."

And, true enough, there was no fire. The interior was thick with smoke,
but it speedily cleared and not a single bucket was used upon the floor
or walls. The air was stifling, the heat fearful.

"There's precious little to burn in here; it's all stone," the Colonel
exclaimed, coughing. But the doctor was pointing to the wooden covers of
the great cauldron in which the clothes were washed, and we saw that
these were smouldering and charred. And when we sprinkled half a bucket
of water on them the surrounding bricks hissed and fizzed and sent up
clouds of steam. Through the open door and windows this passed out with
the rest of the smoke, and we three stood there on the brick floor
staring at the spot and wondering, each in our own fashion, how in the
name of natural law the place could have caught fire or smoked at all.
And each was silent--myself from sheer incapacity and befuddlement, the
Colonel from the qu