’There are more things in Heaven and earth... 
     Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’

“Let us take the ‘Fact’ side first.  Here we have a man in his home; amidst his own household; plenty of servants of different classes in the house, which forbids the possibility of an organised attempt made from the servants” hall.  He is wealthy, learned, clever.  From his physiognomy there is no doubting that he is a man of iron will and determined purpose.  His daughter—­his only child, I take it, a young girl bright and clever—­is sleeping in the very next room to his.  There is seemingly no possible reason for expecting any attack or disturbance of any kind; and no reasonable opportunity for any outsider to effect it.  And yet we have an attack made; a brutal and remorseless attack, made in the middle of the night.  Discovery is made quickly; made with that rapidity which in criminal cases generally is found to be not accidental, but of premeditated intent.  The attacker, or attackers, are manifestly disturbed before the completion of their work, whatever their ultimate intent may have been.  And yet there is no possible sign of their escape; no clue, no disturbance of anything; no open door or window; no sound.  Nothing whatever to show who had done the deed, or even that a deed has been done; except the victim, and his surroundings incidental to the deed!

“The next night a similar attempt is made, though the house is full of wakeful people; and though there are on watch in the room and around it a detective officer, a trained nurse, an earnest friend, and the man’s own daughter.  The nurse is thrown into a catalepsy, and the watching friend—­though protected by a respirator—­into a deep sleep.  Even the detective is so far overcome with some phase of stupor that he fires off his pistol in the sick-room, and can’t even tell what he thought he was firing at.  That respirator of yours is the only thing that seems to have a bearing on the ‘fact’ side of the affair.  That you did not lose your head as the others did—­the effect in such case being in proportion to the amount of time each remained in the room—­points to the probability that the stupefying medium was not hypnotic, whatever else it may have been.  But again, there is a fact which is contradictory.  Miss Trelawny, who was in the room more than any of you—­for she was in and out all the time and did her share of permanent watching also—­did not seem to be affected at all.  This would show that the influence, whatever it is, does not affect generally—­unless, of course, it was that she was in some way inured to it.  If it should turn out that it be some strange exhalation from some of those Egyptian curios, that might account for it; only, we are then face to face with the fact that Mr. Trelawny, who was most of all in the room—­who, in fact, lived more than half his life in it—­was affected worst of all.  What kind of influence could it be which