“If you have no objection,” replied Dr. Silence, with decision, and speaking almost for the first time, “we will make our examination alone⁠— Mr. Hubbard and myself. It will be best so.”

His tone was absolutely final, and the Colonel acquiesced so politely that even a less intuitive man than myself must have seen that he was genuinely relieved.

“You doubtless have good reasons,” he said.

“Merely that I wish to obtain my impressions uncoloured. This delicate clue I am working on might be so easily blurred by the thought-currents of another mind with strongly preconceived ideas.”

“Perfectly. I understand,” rejoined the soldier, though with an expression of countenance that plainly contradicted his words. “Then I will wait here with the dogs; and we’ll have a look at the laundry on our way home.”