"There is doubtless some mistake," said the doctor. "But to return: All you tell me will be under the seal of my profession."
"You mean that I speak to one who is necessarily as silent as the grave," said Harry. "You will pardon my insistence on this."
"I give you my word on it," said the doctor.
"Well, it is a strange, dark story," said Harry, "and if I speak a little incoherently, you will know by the end what perplexities I am in. Now there are two kiosks—sort of places near the house; one is a summerhouse, one an ice house. I got the keys one morning, and asked my uncle which was which. He told me quite distinctly that the left-hand one was the summerhouse. He made a mistake, and I went whistling into the ice house—they were both shuttered and quite dark inside—and came within an ace of falling into the big tank. I am quite sure I went to the one he told me was the summerhouse."
"Number one," said the doctor.
"Next morning he went up to London," continued Harry, "and I and Geoffrey Langham, this friend of mine who left to-day, were going out for a day's shooting. My gun was standing in the rack, and as I took it up it went off, narrowly missing me. The last person who had used that gun and who had left the cartridge in it was my uncle."
"Number two," said the doctor.
"To-day he and I went out together and looked at the flooded lake. I tried to raise an extra sluice that we have, and finding that I could not make it move, we went up toward the farm to get men to help. But, again at his suggestion, he went on to the farm, and I went back to have another try at it. As I was standing on the main sluice, pulling, the whole thing gave way, and I went down with the flood-water, as near to being drowned as any one can wish to be. My uncle had thought the sluice not very safe, but he had not thought it worth mentioning."
The doctor was silent awhile.
"You bear a charmed life, Lord Vail," he said at length. "But I think you have more to tell me."