Under the date of the day previous, a Saranac despatch ran: 

Lewis Langley, well known as sporting man and club member in New York, and eldest son of the late Lewis Langley, the banker, was discovered dead under the most mysterious circumstances this morning at Camp Hangout, twelve miles from this town.

The Death of “Old Krook” in Dickens’s “Bleak House” or of the victim in one of Marryat’s most thrilling tales was not more gruesome than this actual fact.  It is without doubt a case of spontaneous human combustion, such as is recorded beyond dispute in medical and medico-legal text-books of the past two centuries.  Scientists in this city consulted for the Record agree that, while rare, spontaneous human combustion is an established fact and that everything in this curious case goes to show that another has been added to the already well-authenticated list of cases recorded in America and Europe.  The family refuse to be interviewed, which seems to indicate that the rumours in medical circles in Saranac have a solid basis of fact.

Then followed a circumstantial account of the life of Langley and the events leading up to the discovery of the body—­fairly accurate in itself, but highly coloured.

“The Record man must have made good use of his time here,” I commented, as I finished reading the despatch.  “And—­well, they must have done some hard work in New York to get this story up so completely—­see, after the despatch follow a lot of interviews, and here is a short article on spontaneous combustion itself.”

Harrington and the rest of the family had just come in.

“What’s this we hear about the Record having an article?” Harrington asked.  “Read it aloud, Professor, so we can all hear it.”

“‘Spontaneous human combustion, or catacausis ebriosus,’” began Craig, “’is one of the baffling human scientific mysteries.  Indeed, there can be no doubt but that individuals have in some strange and inexplicable manner caught fire and been partially or almost wholly consumed.

“’Some have attributed it to gases in the body, such as carbureted hydrogen.  Once it was noted at the Hotel Dieu in Paris that a body on being dissected gave forth a gas which was inflammable and burned with a bluish flame.  Others have attributed the combustion to alcohol.  A toper several years ago in Brooklyn and New York used to make money by blowing his breath through a wire gauze and lighting it.  Whatever the cause, medical literature records seventy-six cases of catacausis in two hundred years.

“’The combustion seems to be sudden and is apparently confined to the cavities, the abdomen, chest, and head.  Victims of ordinary fire accidents rush hither and thither frantically, succumb from exhaustion, their limbs are burned, and their clothing is all destroyed.  But in catacausis they are stricken down without warning, the limbs are rarely burned, and only the clothing in contact with the