It took a long time to search through the big commons of the ancient dwelling.  There were innumerable little rooms now converted into store cupboards, larders, and so on.  But everything was in perfect order—­the kitchen alone being in that, as yet, inexplicable condition of wreckage.

But at last their barren quest was ended, and they came up the narrow staircase on much more cordial and kindly terms with one another than either would have thought possible some hours before.  Then the doctor, with an “Allow me,” pushed in front of Miss Farrow in order to open wide the heavy padded door.  “I wonder that you heard anything through this!” he exclaimed.

She answered, “I was awakened by Mr. Tapster talking to you.  Then, of course, I heard those appalling noises—­for he had left the padded door open.  I got up and, opening my own door, listened, after you had both gone through.  When there came that final awful crash I felt I must go and see what had happened!”

CHAPTER XV

“Spirits?  What absolute bosh!  Miss Bubbles has been pulling your leg, Varick.  And yet one would like to know who has been at the bottom of it all—­whether, as you say the butler evidently believes, it is the chef himself, or, as the chef told you, one of the under-servants.  In any case, I hope no one will suppose that that sort of thing can be owing to a supernatural agency.”

“Yet John Wesley did so suppose when that sort of thing happened in the Wesley household,” came in the quiet voice of Sir Lyon.

The three men—­Dr. Panton, Sir Lyon, and Lionel Varick—­were taking a walk along the high road.  It was only eleven o’clock, but it seemed much later than that to two of them, for all the morning they had been busy.  An hour of it had been taken up with a very close examination of the servants, especially of the respectable butler and of the French chef.  They had both professed themselves, together and separately, as entirely unable to account for what had happened in the night.  But still, it had been clear to the three who had taken part in the examination—­Blanche Farrow, Varick, and the doctor—­that the butler believed the chef to be responsible.  “It’s that Frenchman; they’re tricky kind of fellows, ma’am,” the man had said in a confidential aside.  And, though the chef was less willing to speak, it was equally clear that he, on his side, put it down to one of the under-servants.

Then, quite at the end of the interrogation, they had all been startled by not only the chef, but the butler also, suddenly admitting that something very like what happened last night had happened twice before!  But on the former occasions, though everything in the kitchen had been moved, including the heavy centre table, nothing had been broken.  Still, it had taken the chef and his kitchen-maids two hours to put everything right.  That had happened, so was now revealed, on the very morning after the party had just been gathered together.  And then, again, four days ago.