bushes had grown up and degenerated, only to be succeeded by a ranker and more dense form of undergrowth.  Many of the trees, although they were still plentiful, had been blown down and left to rot on the ground.  The place was silent except for the slow drip of falling snow from the drooping leaves.  He took one more cautious step forward and found himself slowly sinking.  Black mud was oozing up through the snow where he had set his feet.  He was just able to scramble back.  Picking his way with great caution, he commenced a leisurely perambulation of the whole of the outside of the wood.

Heggs, the junior keeper, an hour or so later, went over the gun rack once more, tapped the empty cases, and turned towards Middleton, who was sitting in a chair before the fire, smoking his pipe.

“I can’t find master’s number two gun, Mr. Middleton,” he announced.  “That’s missing.”

“Look again, lad,” the old keeper directed, removing the pipe from his mouth.  “The master was shooting with it yesterday.  Look amongst those loose ’uns at the far end of the rack.  It must be somewhere there.”

“Well, that isn’t,” the young man replied obstinately.

The door of the room was suddenly opened, and Dominey entered with the missing gun under his arm.  Middleton rose to his feet at once and laid down his pipe.  Surprise kept him temporarily silent.

“I want you to come this way with me for a moment,” his master ordered.

The keeper took up his hat and stick and followed.  Dominey led him to where the tracks had halted on the gravel outside Rosamund’s window and pointed across to the Black Wood.

“What do you make of those?” he enquired.

Middleton did not hesitate.  He shook his head gravely.

“Was anything heard last night, sir?”

“There was an infernal yell underneath this window.”

“That was the spirit of Roger Unthank, for sure,” Middleton pronounced, with a little shudder.  “When he do come out of that wood, he do call.”

“Spirits,” his master pointed out, “do not leave tracks like that behind.”

Middleton considered the matter.

“They do say hereabout,” he confided, “that the spirit of Roger Unthank have been taken possession of by some sort of great animal, and that it do come here now and then to be fed.”

“By whom?” Dominey enquired patiently.

“Why, by Mrs. Unthank.”

“Mrs. Unthank has not been in this house for many months.  From the day she left until last night, so far as I can gather, nothing has been heard of this ghost, or beast, or whatever it is.”

“That do seem queer, surely,” Middleton admitted.

Dominey followed the tracks with his eyes to the wood and back again.

“Middleton,” he said, “I am learning something about spirits.  It seems that they not only make tracks, but they require feeding.  Perhaps if that is so they can feel a charge of shot inside them.”