Not content with a casual inspection, he particularly examined those
papers which, in his dream adventure, he had believed to have been
submitted to mysterious inspection. They showed no signs of having
been touched. The casement curtains were drawn across the recess
formed by the French windows, and sunlight streamed in where,
silhouetted against the pallid illumination of the moon, he had seen
the man in the cowl. Drawing back the curtains, he examined the window
fastenings. They were secure. If the window had really been open in
the night, he must have left it so himself.

"Well," muttered Stuart--"of all the amazing nightmares!"

He determined, immediately he had bathed and completed his toilet, to
write an account of the dream for the Psychical Research Society, in
whose work he was interested. Half an hour later, as the movements of
an awakened household began to proclaim themselves, he sat down at
his writing-table and commenced to write.

Keppel Stuart was a dark, good-looking man of about thirty-two, an
easy-going bachelor who, whilst not over ambitious, was nevertheless
a brilliant physician. He had worked for the Liverpool School of
Tropical Medicine and had spent several years in India studying snake
poisons. His purchase of this humdrum suburban practice had been
dictated by a desire to make a home for a girl who at the eleventh
hour had declined to share it. Two years had elapsed since then, but
the shadow still lay upon Stuart's life, its influence being revealed
in a certain apathy, almost indifference, which characterised his
professional conduct.