untenance, and continued to roar, and stammer, and stare.

"And why," he began, savage with the desire to find something visible he
could fight--"why, in the name of all the blazes--?" and then stopped as
John Silence moved up and took his arm.

"There, my dear Colonel Wragge," he said gently, "you touch the heart of
the whole thing. You ask 'Why.' That is precisely our problem." He held
the soldier's eyes firmly with his own. "And that, too, I think, we
shall soon know. Come and let us talk over a plan of action--that room
with the double doors, perhaps."

The word "action" calmed him a little, and he led the way, without
further speech, back into the house, and down the long stone passage to
the room where we had heard his stories on the night of our arrival. I
understood from the doctor's glance that my presence would not make the
interview easier for our host, and I went upstairs to my own
room--shaking.

But in the solitude of my room the vivid memories of the last hour
revived so mercilessly that I began to feel I should never in my whole
life lose the dreadful picture of Miss Wragge running--that dreadful
human climax after all the non-human mystery in the wood--and I was not
sorry when a servant knocked at my door and said that Colonel Wragge
would be glad if I would join them in the little smoking-room.

"I think it is better you should be present," was all Colonel Wragge
said as I entered the room. I took the chair with my back to the window.
There was still an hour before lunch, though I imagine that the usual
divisions of the day hardly found a place in the thoughts of any one of
us.

The atmosphere of the room was what I might call electric. The Colonel
was positively bristling; he stood with his back to the fire, fingering
an unlit black cigar, his face flushed, his being obviously roused and
ready for action. He hated this mystery. It was poisonous to his nature,
and he longed to meet something face to face--something he could gauge
and fight. Dr. Silence, I noticed at once, was sitting before the map of
the estate which was spread upon a table. I knew by his expression the
state of his mind. He was in the thick of it all, knew it, delighted in
it, and was working at high pressure. He recognised my presence with a
lifted eyelid, and the flash of the eye, contrasted with his stillness
and composure, told me volumes.

"I was about to explain to our host briefly what seems to me afoot in
all this bus