So, with one of Dr. Mason's cameras under the seat, we started back through the sweet-smelling lanes; and, at about twenty minutes past one, swung past the gate lodge and up the long avenue, the wheels grinding crisply upon the newly wetted gravel. There was but little moon, now, and the house stood up, an irregular black mass, before us. Then, from three of the windows, there suddenly leapt out a dazzling white light! Lorian pulled up the grey with a jerk. "Good God!" he said. "What's that! An explosion!" But no sound reached us. Only, for some seconds, the hard, white glare streamed out upon the steps and down on to the drive. Suddenly as it had come--it was gone, and the whole of Ragstaff was in darkness as before! The horse started nervously, but my friend held him with a firm hand, turning and looking at me queerly. "That's what shone under your door last night!" he said. "That light was in the hall!" V Peters was awakened, the horse stabled and ourselves admitted without arousing another soul. As we came around from the back of the house (we had not entered by the main door), and, candles in hand, passed through the hall, nothing showed as having been disturbed. "Don't breathe a word of our suspicions to anyone," counselled Lorian. "What _are_ our suspicions?" said I. "At present," he replied, "indefinable." To-night the distant murmur of the sea proved very soothing, and I slept soundly. I was early afoot, however, but not so early as Lorian. As I passed around the gallery above the hall, on my way to the bathroom, I saw him folding up the tripod of the camera which he had borrowed from Dr. Mason. The morning sun was streaming through the windows. "Hullo!" Lorian called to me. "I've got a splendid negative, I think. Peters is rigging up a dark-room in the wine-cellar--delightful site for the purpose! Will you join me in developing?" Although I was unable to conjecture what my friend hoped to gain by his photographic experiments, I agreed, prompted as much by curiosity as anything else. So, after my tub, I descended to the cellar and splashed about in Hypo., until Lorian declared himself satisfied. "The second is the best," he pronounced critically, holding the negative up to the red lamp. "I made three exposures in all; but the reflection from the polished wood has rather spoiled the first and also the third." "Whatever do you want with this photograph, anyway," I said, "when the original is available?" "My dear chap," he replied, "one cannot squat in the hall fixedly regarding a section of panel like some fakir staring at a palm leaf!" "Then you intend to study it?" "Closely!" As a matter of fact, he did not join us during the whole of the day; but since he spent the greater part of the time in his own room, I did not proffer my aid. From a remark dropped by the Colonel, I gathered that Sybil had volunteered to assist, during the afternoon, in preparing prints.