 Death under mysterious circumstances is not unusual, but the case of J.Tample 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. More by April the family had scattered, the servants had been dismissed, and the house stood empty. And so, had an alert neighbor not noticed the flicker of flame behind one of the second-story windows, Hawley 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 streets. 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 accurate-smelling room upstairs, where the fire had occurred, two members of the company would remain behind to investigate the causes of the fire, were looking at each other with considerable perplexity. It's a quill when all right-handed, 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 edding toward that door there, but it never got that far. Wonder where the door leads. Bedroom, or 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 ship-shaped here, Captain. You wouldn't even know that the... God, why me, Captain, look. In that chair there, ain't that the top of a man's head? The chair was facing windows, it's back to the door. It's Jay Temple Thurston, Captain. I've seen him often. You mean it was Jay 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 die of? Ah, trouble traps. He didn't burn to death, we know that. His clothes ain't even scorched. Aye, but... but... Captain, look. His anchor. 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. Brawny. Not a mark on his head or his clothes. But his body has burned to a crisp. Jade 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.