Death under mysterious circumstances is not unusual, but the case of J. Temple Thurston differs somewhat from the regular pattern. Although years have elapsed since the night of his passing, no one yet knows how or why he died. It is presumed that the Thurston's quarreled in the winter of that year, 1919, and decided to go their separate ways. For by April the family had scattered, the servant had been dismissed, and the house stood empty. And so, had an alert neighbour not noticed the flicker of flame behind one of the second-story windows, Holley Manor probably would have burned to the ground. But the alarm was promptly turned in, and within a very short time, fire engines were ruffling the early morning calm of the highly respectable suburban street. The flames had made but little headway, and before another quarter of an hour had passed, they were extinguished. But in the water-soaked and acrid-smelling room upstairs, where the fire had occurred, two members of the company, who had remained behind to investigate the causes of the fire, were looking at each other with considerable perplexity. It's a quirk when all right, Hind-Hit Captain. Nobody in the house, no dirty rags across wires or nothing like that. No fireplace, no smell of paraffin, seems like it must have flared up right here in the middle of the room. It was heading toward that door there, but it never got that far. Where to where the door leads? Bedroom, I suppose. Let's take a look. It was a bedroom, and the two firemen standing on the threshold surveying it saw that it had not been touched by the fire. Even the smell of smoke was scarcely perceptible. Everything's ship-shaped here, Captain. You wouldn't even know that the... Go, try me, Captain, look. In that chair there, aren't that the top of a man's head? No. The chair was facing the windows. It's back to the door. It's J. Temple Thurston, Captain. I've seen him often. You mean it was J. Temple Thurston? Aye. He's a dead one, all right. Captain, what was he doing sitting here, fully dressed at three o'clock in the morning? He wasn't drinking. He wasn't reading a book. He was just sitting. And why did he go on sitting after the fire started? Must have been dead already. But what did he do, you? Oh, trouble traps. He didn't burn to death, we know that. His clothes ain't even scorched. Aye, but... but... Captain... Look, his ankle. The captain glanced down. He saw the flesh of Thurston's ankle showing from beneath the bottom of his trousers. And then both men began ripping the clothes from the lifeless body. In another moment, the figure in the chair was nude, and the firemen were staring at it, their eyes opened wide in amazement and disbelief. Blower me! Not a mark on his head or his clothes, but his body has burned to a crisp. J. Temple Thurston had died of heart failure. The coroner's jury ascertained that. That his death preceded the fire seemed probable, since he apparently had made no effort to summon help or to extinguish it. But how a dead man's body, sitting in a room where the flames did not enter, garbed in clothes that were completely unscorched, could be burned to a crisp, is a mystery that remains unsolved. A mystery... incredible, but true.