And by way of emphasising his annoyance at the prospect he sent Waldo’s pillows flying to the top of the wardrobe.

“But why no tails?” asked Waldo, whose teeth were chattering with fear and rage and lowered temperature.

“My dear boy, have you never heard the ballad of Little Bo-Peep?” said Bertie with a chuckle.  “It’s my character in the Game, you know.  If I didn’t go hunting about for my lost sheep no one would be able to guess who I was; and now go to sleepy weeps like a good child or I shall be cross with you.”

“I leave you to imagine,” wrote Waldo in the course of a long letter to his mother, “how much sleep I was able to recover that night, and you know how essential nine uninterrupted hours of slumber are to my health.”

On the other hand he was able to devote some wakeful hours to exercises in breathing wrath and fury against Bertie van Tahn.

Breakfast at Blonzecourt was a scattered meal, on the “come when you please” principle, but the house-party was supposed to gather in full strength at lunch.  On the day after the “Game” had been started there were, however, some notable absentees.  Waldo Plubley, for instance, was reported to be nursing a headache.  A large breakfast and an “A.B.C.” had been taken up to his room, but he had made no appearance in the flesh.

“I expect he’s playing up to some character,” said Vera Durmot; “isn’t there a thing of Moliere’s, ‘Le Malade Imaginaire’?  I expect he’s that.”

Eight or nine lists came out, and were duly pencilled with the suggestion.

“And where are the Klammersteins?” asked Lady Blonze; “they’re usually so punctual.”

“Another character pose, perhaps,” said Bertie van Tahn; “’the Lost Ten Tribes.’”

“But there are only three of them.  Besides, they’ll want their lunch.  Hasn’t anyone seen anything of them?”

“Didn’t you take them out in your car?” asked Blanche Boveal, addressing herself to Cyril Skatterly.

“Yes, took them out to Slogberry Moor immediately after breakfast.  Miss Durmot came too.”

“I saw you and Vera come back,” said Lady Blonze, “but I didn’t see the Klammersteins.  Did you put them down in the village?”

“No,” said Skatterly shortly.

“But where are they?  Where did you leave them?”

“We left them on Slogberry Moor,” said Vera calmly.

“On Slogberry Moor?  Why, it’s more than thirty miles away!  How are they going to get back?”

“We didn’t stop to consider that,” said Skatterly; “we asked them to get out for a moment, on the pretence that the car had stuck, and then we dashed off full speed and left them there.”

“But how dare you do such a thing?  It’s most inhuman!  Why, it’s been snowing for the last hour.”

“I expect there’ll be a cottage or farmhouse somewhere if they walk a mile or two.”

“But why on earth have you done it?”