The drone of an approaching car reached his ears. Pencil in hand, he sat listening. The sound grew louder, then ceased. Either the car had passed or had stopped somewhere near the house. Came a rap on the door. "Yes," called Stuart and stood up, conscious of excitement. Mrs. M'Gregor came in. "There is nothing further you'll be wanting to-night?" she asked. "No," said Stuart, strangely disappointed, but smiling at the old lady cheerfully. "I shall turn in very shortly." "A keen east wind has arisen," she continued, severely eyeing the opened windows, "and even for a medical man you are strangely imprudent. Shall I shut the windows?" "No, don't trouble, Mrs. M'Gregor. The room gets very stuffy with tobacco smoke, and really it is quite a warm night. I shall close them before I retire, of course." "Ah well," sighed Mrs. M'Gregor, preparing to depart. "Good-night, Mr. Keppel." "Good-night, Mrs. M'Gregor." She retired, and Stuart sat staring out into the darkness. He was not prone to superstition, but it seemed like tempting providence to remain there with the windows open any longer. Yet paradoxically, he lacked the moral courage to close them--to admit to himself that he was afraid! The telephone bell rang, and he started back in his chair as though to avoid a blow. By doing so he avoided destruction. At the very instant that the bell rang out sharply in the silence--so exact is the time-table of Kismet--a needle-like ray of blue light shot across the lawn from beyond and above the hedge and--but for that nervous start--must have struck fully upon the back of Stuart's skull. Instead, it shone past his head, which it missed only by inches, and he experienced a sensation as though some one had buffeted him upon the cheek furiously. He pitched out of his chair and on to the carpet. The first object which the ray touched was the telephone; and next, beyond it, a medical dictionary; beyond that again, the grate, in which a fire was laid. "My God!" groaned Stuart--"what is it!" An intense crackling sound deafened him, and the air of the room seemed to have become hot as that of an oven. There came a series of dull reports--an uncanny wailing ... and the needle-ray vanished. A monstrous shadow, moon-cast, which had lain across the carpet of the lawn--the shadow of a cowled man--vanished also. Clutching the side of his head, which throbbed and tingled as though from the blow of an open hand, Stuart struggled to his feet. There was smoke in the room, a smell of burning and of fusing metal. He glared at the table madly. The mouthpiece of the telephone had vanished! "My God!" he groaned again, and clutched at the back of the chair. His dictionary was smouldering slowly. It had a neat round hole some three inches in diameter, bored completely through, cover to cover! The fire in the grate was flaring up the chimney!