Colonel Wragge spoke with such deliberation and with so many pauses that this beginning took him a long time. But at this point he came to a full stop altogether. Evidently there was something he wished to say that cost him considerable effort. At length he looked up steadily into my companion’s face.
“May I ask you—that is, if you won’t think it strange,” he said, and a sort of hush came over his voice and manner, “whether you have noticed anything at all unusual—anything queer, since you came into the house?”
Dr. Silence answered without a moment’s hesitation.
“I have,” he said. “There is a curious sensation of heat in the place.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the other, with a slight start. “You have noticed it. This unaccountable heat—”
“But its cause, I gather, is not in the house itself—but outside,” I was astonished to hear the doctor add.
Colonel Wragge rose from his chair and turned to unhook a framed map that hung upon the wall. I got the impression that the movement was made with the deliberate purpose of concealing his face.
“Your diagnosis, I believe, is amazingly accurate,” he said after a moment, turning round with the map in his hands. “Though, of course, I can have no idea how you should guess—”
John Silence shrugged his shoulders expressively. “Merely my impression,” he said. “If you pay attention to impressions, and do not allow them to be confused by deductions of the intellect, you will often find them surprisingly, uncannily, accurate.”
Colonel Wragge resumed his seat and laid the map upon his knees. His face was very thoughtful as he plunged abruptly again into his story.