fire in the room. He had admitted the Colonel himself, and almost dragged
him inside the door.

"Did you meet any one outside--upon the stairs?" he asked feverishly.

"No one upon the stairs," the Colonel answered. "There was a man lighting
his pipe in the doorway."

Wrayson shivered as he turned away.

"Watching me!" he declared. "There are two of them! They are watching me
all the time."

The Colonel took off his coat. The room seemed to him like a furnace.
Then he stretched out his hands and laid them upon Wrayson's shoulders.

"What if they are?" he declared cheerfully. "They won't eat you. Besides,
it is very likely the dead man's rooms they are watching."

"They followed me home from the inquest," Wrayson muttered.

The Colonel laughed.

"And if I'd been living here," he remarked, "they'd have followed me
home just the same. Now, Herbert, my young friend," he continued,
"sit down and tell me all about it like a man. You're in a bit of
trouble, of course, underneath all this. Let's hear it, and we'll
find the best way out."

The Colonel's figure was dominant; his presence alone seemed to dispel