Varick ran over the list of his guests, only leaving out one, and, after a scarcely perceptible pause, he remedied the omission.

“Then there’s Miss Farrow’s niece; she was called after her aunt, so her real name is Blanche—­”

“‘Known to her friends as Bubbles,’” quoted Dr. Panton, with a cynical inflection in his voice.

“How do you know that?” exclaimed Varick.

“Because there was a portrait of the young lady in the Sketch last week.  She seems to be a kind of feminine edition of the Admirable Crichton.  She can act, dance, cook—­and she’s famed as a medium in the psychic world—­whatever that may mean!”

“I see you know all about her,” observed Varick, smiling.

But though he was smiling at his friend, his inner thoughts were grim thoughts.  He was secretly repeating to himself:  “Chichester, Chichester?  How can she have got hold of Chichester?”

Dr. Panton went on:  “I’m glad I’m going to meet this Miss Bubbles—­I’ve never met that particular type of young lady before.  Though, of course, it’s not, as some people believe, a new type.  There have always been girls of that sort in the civilized world.”

“It’s quite true that the most curious thing about Bubbles,” said Varick thoughtfully, “is a kind of thought-reading gift.  I fancy she must have inherited it from an Indian ancestress, for her great-great-grandfather rescued a begum on her way to be burnt on her husband’s funeral pyre.  He ultimately married her, and though she never came to England.  Bubbles’ father, a fool called Hugh Dunster, who’s lost what little money he ever had, is one of her descendants.  There’s something just a little Oriental and strange in Bubbles’ appearance.”

“This is ‘curiouser and curiouser,’ as Alice in Wonderland used to say!” exclaimed Panton.  “Do you think I could persuade Miss Bubbles to give an exhibition of her psychic gifts?”

The speaker uttered the word “psychic” with a very satiric inflection in his pleasant voice.

Varick smiled rather wryly.  “You’re quite likely to have an exhibition of them without asking for it!  The first evening that my guests were here she held what I believe they call a seance, and as a result Miss Brabazon’s uncle, old Burnaby, not only bolted from the room, but left Wyndfell Hall the next morning.”

“What an extraordinary thing!”

“Yes,” said Varick, “it was an extraordinary thing.  I confess I can’t explain Bubbles’ gift at all.  At this seance of hers she described quite accurately long dead men and women—­”

“Are you sure of that, Varick?”

“Of course I am, for she described my own mother.”

There was a pause.

“Being a very intelligent, quick girl, she naturally helps herself out as best she can,” went on Varick reflectively.

“Then you’re inclined to think her thought-reading is more or less a fraud?” cried Panton triumphantly.