“Most distressing and annoying, I can well believe,” interposed the doctor.

“Then suddenly, the phenomena ceased as mysteriously as they had begun, and the interest flagged.  The tales stopped.  People got interested in something else.  It all seemed to die out.  This was last July.  I can tell you exactly, for I’ve kept a diary more or less of what happened.”

“Ah!”

“But now, quite recently, within the past three weeks, it has all revived again with a rush—­with a kind of furious attack, so to speak.  It has really become unbearable.  You may imagine what it means, and the general state of affairs, when I say that the possibility of leaving has occurred to me.”

“Incendiarism?” suggested Dr. Silence, half under his breath, but not so low that Colonel Wragge did not hear him.

“By Jove, sir, you take the very words out of my mouth!” exclaimed the astonished man, glancing from the doctor to me and from me to the doctor, and rattling the money in his pocket as though some explanation of my friend’s divining powers were to be found that way.

“It’s only that you are thinking very vividly,” the doctor said quietly, “and your thoughts form pictures in my mind before you utter them.  It’s merely a little elementary thought-reading.”

His intention, I saw, was not to perplex the good man, but to impress him with his powers so as to ensure obedience later.

“Good Lord!  I had no idea—­” He did not finish the sentence, and dived again abruptly into his narrative.

“I did not see anything myself, I must admit, but the stories of independent eye-witnesses were to the effect that lines of light, like streams of thin fire, moved through the wood and sometimes were seen to shoot out precisely as flames might shoot out—­in the direction of this house.  There,” he explained, in a louder voice that made me jump, pointing with a thick finger to the map, “where the westerly fringe of the plantation comes up to the end of the lower lawn at the back of the house—­where it links on to those dark patches, which are laurel shrubberies, running right up to the back premises—­that’s where these lights were seen.  They passed from the wood to the shrubberies, and in this way reached the house itself.  Like silent rockets, one man described them, rapid as lightning and exceedingly bright.”

“And this evidence you spoke of?”

“They actually reached the sides of the house.  They’ve left a mark of scorching on the walls—­the walls of the laundry building at the other end.  You shall see ’em tomorrow.”  He pointed to the map to indicate the spot, and then straightened himself and glared about the room as though he had said something no one could believe and expected contradiction.

“Scorched—­just as the faces were,” the doctor murmured, looking significantly at me.

“Scorched—­yes,” repeated the Colonel, failing to catch the rest of the sentence in his excitement.