him. Then the Detective went on: 

 “I think I had better tell you my impressions, sir, rather than recount my actions. That is, so far as I remember them.”  There was a mortified deference now in his manner, which probably arose from his consciousness of the awkward position in which he found himself.  “I went to sleep half-dressed—as I am now, with a revolver under my pillow. It was the last thing I remember thinking of. I do not know how long I slept. I had turned off the electric light, and it was quite dark. I thought I heard a scream; but I can’t be sure, for I felt thick-headed as a man does when he is called too soon after an extra long stretch of work. Not that such was the case this time. Anyhow my thoughts flew to the pistol. I took it out, and ran on to the landing. Then I heard a sort of scream, or rather a call for help, and ran into this room. The room was dark, for the lamp beside the Nurse was out, and the only light was that from the landing, coming through the open door. Miss Trelawny was kneeling on the floor beside her father, and was screaming. I thought I saw something move between me and the window; so, without thinking, and being half dazed and only half awake, I shot at it. It moved a little more to the right between the windows, and I shot again. Then you came up out of the big chair with all that muffling on your face. It seemed to me, being as I say half dazed and half awake—I know, sir, you will take this into account—as if it had been you, being in the same direction as the thing I had fired at. And so I was about to fire again when you pulled off the wrap.”  Here I asked him—I was cross-examining now and felt at home: 

 “You say you thought I was the thing you fired at. What thing?”  The man scratched his head, but made no reply. 

 “Come, sir,” I said, “what thing; what was it like?”  The answer came in a low voice: 

 “I don’t know, sir. I thought there was something; but what it was, or what it was like, I haven’t the faintest notion. I suppose it was because I had been thinking of the pistol before I went to sleep, and because when I came in here I was half dazed and only half awake—which I hope you will in future, sir, always remember.”  He clung to that formula of excuse as though it were his sheet-anchor. I did not want to antagonise the man; on the contrary I wanted to have him with us. Besides, I had on me at that time myself the shadow of my own default; so I said as kindly as I knew how: 

 “Quite right! Sergeant. Your impulse was correct; though of course 

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