’A pretty perfume, on my word!  Let’s shed a little more light on the subject, and see what causes it.  Marjorie, stop where you are until I tell you.’

I had noticed nothing, from without, peculiar about the appearance of the blind which screened the window, but it must have been made of some unusually thick material, for, within, the room was strangely dark.  Sydney entered, with the intention of drawing up the blind, but he had scarcely taken a couple of steps when he stopped.

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s it,’ said Mr Holt, in a voice which was so unlike his own that it was scarcely recognisable.

‘It?—­What do you mean by it?’

‘The Beetle!’

Judging from the sound of his voice Sydney was all at once in a state of odd excitement.

’Oh, is it!—­Then, if this time I don’t find out the how and the why and the wherefore of that charming conjuring trick, I’ll give you leave to write me down an ass,—­with a great, big A.’

He rushed farther into the room,—­apparently his efforts to lighten it did not meet with the immediate success which he desired.

’What’s the matter with this confounded blind?  There’s no cord!  How do you pull it up?—­What the—­’

In the middle of his sentence Sydney ceased speaking.  Suddenly Mr Holt, who was standing by my side on the threshold of the door, was seized with such a fit of trembling, that, fearing he was going to fall, I caught him by the arm.  A most extraordinary look was on his face.  His eyes were distended to their fullest width, as if with horror at what they saw in front of them.  Great beads of perspiration were on his forehead.

‘It’s coming!’ he screamed.

Exactly what happened I do not know.  But, as he spoke, I heard, proceeding from the room, the sound of the buzzing of wings.  Instantly it recalled my experiences of the night before,—­as it did so I was conscious of a most unpleasant qualm.  Sydney swore a great oath, as if he were beside himself with rage.

‘If you won’t go up, you shall come down.’

I suppose, failing to find a cord, he seized the blind from below, and dragged it down,—­it came, roller and all, clattering to the floor.  The room was all in light.  I hurried in.  Sydney was standing by the window, with a look of perplexity upon his face which, under any other circumstances, would have been comical.  He was holding papa’s revolver in his hand, and was glaring round and round the room, as if wholly at a loss to understand how it was he did not see what he was looking for.

‘Marjorie!’ he exclaimed.  ‘Did you hear anything?’

’Of course I did.  It was that which I heard last night,—­which so frightened me.’

‘Oh, was it?  Then, by—­’ in his excitement he must have been completely oblivious of my presence, for he used the most terrible language, ’when I find it there’ll be a small discussion.  It can’t have got out of the room,—­I know the creature’s here; I not only heard it, I felt it brush against my face.—­Holt, come inside and shut that door.’