When he reached the hall where the whole party was gathered together, he went up to Blanche Farrow.  “May I speak to you a moment?” he whispered.

“What is it?” she asked anxiously.  “Isn’t Bubbles so well?”

“Oh, yes; Miss Bubbles is going on all right.  But, Miss Farrow?  I want to tell you something that, if possible, I should like to keep from Varick.”

“Yes—­what is it?”

“Someone who has a grudge against him, a tiresome old woman who was companion to Mrs. Varick for many years, has somehow got into this house.  She spoke to me just as I came out of my room.  I didn’t see her, but I heard her voice quite distinctly.  And when Varick and I went into Miss Bubbles’ room for a moment, on our way downstairs, she followed us in—­Miss Bubbles described her exactly.  Then suddenly she disappeared.  I am sure she’s hiding in one of the bedrooms.”

“What a horrid idea!” exclaimed Blanche.

“Now comes the question—­can we manage to hunt her out, and get her away from the house, without Varick knowing?”

“But why shouldn’t he know?” asked Blanche hesitatingly.

“Look at him,” said the doctor impressively.  And Blanche, glancing quickly across the room, was struck by Varick’s look of illness.

“There’s no reason for telling him anything about it,” she admitted.  “But hadn’t we better wait till after dinner before doing anything?”

“Perhaps we had.”

Dinner was a curious, uncomfortable meal; even Sir Lyon and Helen Brabazon felt the atmosphere charged with anxiety and depression.

Miss Burnaby alone was her usual placid, quietly greedy self.  She had expressed suitable regret at all that had happened, but most of the party realized that she had not really cared at all.

When the ladies passed through into the white parlour, Blanche slipped away.  She got hold of her firm ally, the butler, and explained in a very few words what she thought had better be done.  Accompanied by Pegler, they went into every room, and into every nook and cranny of the house, upstairs and down—­but they found no trace of any alien presence.

Miss Pigchalke, so much was clear, had vanished as quietly and silently as she had come.

CHAPTER XVIII

One—­two—­three—­four—­five—­six—­Bubbles heard the clock in the dark corridor outside her room ring out the harmonious chimes, and she turned restlessly round in her warm, comfortable bed.

It was very annoying to think she would have to wait two hours for a cup of tea, but there it was!  She had herself told Pegler she didn’t want to be disturbed till eight o’clock.  She still felt too “done,” too weak, to get up and try to find her way to the kitchen to make herself some tea.

She lay, with her eyes wide open, longing for the daylight, and looking back with shrinking fear to a night full of a misty horror.