time in the big chair, but eventually took the doctor at his word about a
book.

If it be ever true that a man may be known by his books, it was certainly
so to some extent in the case of Dr. Otto Baumgartner. His library was
singularly small for an intellectual man who wrote himself, and a majority
of the volumes were in languages which no public schoolboy could be
expected to read; but of the English books many were on military subjects,
some few anthropological; there were photographic year-books and Psychical
Research Reports by the foot or yard, and there was an odd assortment of
second-hand books which had probably been labelled "occult" in their last
bookseller's list. Boismont on "Hallucinations" was one of these; it was
the book for Pocket. He took the little red volume down, and read a long
chapter on somnambulism in the big chair. In a way it comforted him. It
was something to find that he was far from being the only harmless
creature who had committed a diabolical deed in his sleep; here among
several cases was one of another boy who had made an equally innocent and
yet determined attempt on his own father. But there was something
peculiar in poor Pocket's case, something that distinguished it from any
of those cited in the book, and he was still ferreting for its absolute
fellow when Phillida came in long before he expected her. Boismont had
made the time fly wonderfully, in spite of everything; the girl, too,
appeared to have been taken out of herself, and talked about her concert
as any other young girl might have done, both to Pocket and her uncle, who
glided in at once from the garden. The doctor, however, was himself in
mellower mood; and they were having tea, for all the world like any
ordinary trio, the girl still making talk about sundry songs, the man
quizzing them and her, and the boy standing up for one that his sister
sang at home, when a metallic tattoo put a dramatic stop to the
conversation.

The two young people, but not their elder, were startled quite out of
their almost inadvertent tranquillity; and the knocker was not still
before Pocket realised that it was the first time he had heard it. No
letters were delivered at that house; not a soul had he seen or heard at
the door before. Even in his excitement, however, with its stunning
recrudescence of every reality, its instantaneous visions of his people or
the police, there was room for a measure of disgust when the girl got up,