"Are you aware lights have frequently been reflected from that room,
when no light has actually been in it?"

I could only admit this had occasionally proved a ground of what we
considered unreasonable complaint.

"One evening," went on the Colonel, "I determined to test the matter for
myself. Long before dusk I entered the room and examined it
thoroughly--saw to the fastenings of the windows, drew up the blinds,
locked the door, and put the key in my pocket. After dinner I took a
cigar and walked up and down the grass path beside the river, until
dark. There was no light--not a sign of light of any kind, as I turned
once more and walked up the path again; but as I was retracing my steps
I saw that the room was brilliantly illuminated. I rushed to the nearest
window and looked in. The gas was all ablaze, the door of the strong
room open, the table strewed with papers, while in an office-chair drawn
close up to the largest drawer, a man was seated counting over
bank-notes. He had a pile of them before him, and I distinctly saw that
he wetted his fingers in order to separate them."

"Most extraordinary!" I exclaimed. I could not decently have said
anything less; but I confess that I had in my recollection the fact of
Colonel Morris having dined.

"The most extraordinary part of the story is still to come," he
remarked. "I hurried at once into the house, unlocked the door, found
the library in pitch darkness, and when I lit the gas the strong room
was closed; there was no office-chair in the room, no papers were on the
table--everything, in fact, was precisely in the same condition as I had