what has happened!”

He answered me at once, my dear brother, standing at the door of his dressing-room, just, as it seemed to me, as unconcerned as though he had been called up at daybreak to go out with his dogs and gun. Quick as he was, however, I had peeped into the room behind him, and then I saw something which even his cleverness could not hide from me. A man lay full length upon the floor, apparently dead. By his side there knelt the Japanese, Okyada, who chafed the limbs of the sufferer and tried to restore him to consciousness. This sight, I say, Ean could not conceal from me. But he shut the door at once, and, leading me away, he tried to tell me what it was.

“My dear Harriet, you see what comes of touching scientific implements. Here’s a man who wanted to look inside my safe. He quite forgot that the door of it is connected up to a very powerful electric current. Don’t be alarmed, but go back to your bed. Did I not tell you that there would be strange men about?”

“Ean,” I said, “for pity’s sake let me know the truth. There were three men altogether. I saw them in the garden; they passed me on the stairs. They were robbers, Ean; you cannot hide it from me.”

“You poor little Harriet,” he said, kissing me. “Of course they were robbers. I have been expecting them for a week or more. Did I tell you I should be in the observatory? That was foolish of me.”

“But there was a light there, dear.”

“Ah, yes; I wished my guests to think me star-gazing. Two of them are now returning to London as fast as their motor-car can carry them. The other will remain with us to recuperate. Go back to bed, Harriet, and tell yourself that all is as well as it could be.”

“Ean,” I said, “you are hiding something from me.”

“My dear sister,” he replied, “does a man in the dark hide anything from anybody? When I know, you shall be the first to hear. Believe me, this is no common burglary, or I would have acted very differently. There are deep secrets; I may have to leave you to search for them.”

His words astonished me very much. My own agitation could not measure his recollection or the unconcern which the strange episodes of the night had left to him. For my part, I could but pass long hours of meditation, in which I tried to gather up the tangled skein of this surpassing mystery. When morning came, my brother had left the house and Okyada with him. I have never 

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