He was thoroughly awake now, and struggled to a sitting position.  The doctor’s face twisted wryly.

“I—­wish I had, Nigel,” he said bitterly.  “Even ghosts would be better than—­nothing at all.  We’ve been out searching for Wynne, and I—­”

“Been out?”

“Yes, across the Fens.  We were anxious.  Wynne didn’t come back, you know, and so after we’d got you to bed we thought we’d make up a search party among ourselves and look into the thing.  But we haven’t found him, Nigel.  He’s vanished—­completely!”

“Impossible!”

Merriton was out of bed now, still staring sleepily at them.  Something in the boyishness of him struck a chord of sympathy in the doctor’s heart.  He alone of all of them had guessed at the genuineness of Nigel’s fear for Wynne, he alone had seen into the man’s heart, and discovered the half-belief that lurked there.

“I’m afraid it’s perfectly true,” he said quietly, as Merriton came to him and caught him by the arm, his face white.  “We followed his tracks across the Fens—­it had been raining and it was extremely easy to do—­until they suddenly ended in a patch of half-charred grass.  It was uncanny!  We made a further search to make sure, but nothing rewarded our efforts.  Dacre Wynne’s gone somewhere, and those devilish flames of yours will be counting another victim to their lengthening list to-night.”

“Good God!”

Merriton’s lips trembled, and his fingers dropped from the doctor’s arm.

“But I tell you it’s impossible, man!” he broke out suddenly.  “The thing’s beyond human credulity, Doctor.”

“Well, be that as it may, the fact remains—­Wynne’s gone,” returned the doctor gloomily.  “Of course we must communicate with the police.  That’s the next thing to do.  We’ll send over to make sure Wynne isn’t at the Brellier’s but I think there isn’t a chance of it myself.  Where he did go beats me completely!”

“And it fair beats me, too!” said Merriton, in a shocked voice, beginning mechanically to struggle into his clothes.  “One of you might ’phone the police—­though what they’ll be able to do for us I don’t know.  It’s a one-horse show in the village, and the chap who’s chief constable was the fellow who told me of the other man that disappeared, and seemed quite willing to accept a supernatural explanation.  Still, of course, it’s the thing to be done....  And I actually saw, with my own eyes, that new flame flash out!”

He said the last words in a sort of undertone, but the doctor heard them, and twitched up an enquiring eyebrow.

“You saw the new flame?  Oh—­of course.  And you—­never mind.  Our next move is to telephone the police.”

But what the police could do for them was so pitifully small as to be absurd.  Constable Haggers was a man whose superstitious fear of the flames got the better of his constabulary training in every way.  He said he would do what he could, but he would certainly attempt nothing until broad daylight.  He believed the story in every particular and said that it was well-nigh impossible to trace the vanished man.  “There had been others,” was all he would say, “and never a trace of ’em ’ave we ever seen!”