The bridge-players were getting up. Sally Winslow was announcing that she had lost all but honour. Mrs. Faulks wore a ruthless smile. Sally went off to bed. “Oh, Mrs. Faulks,” her sister cried, “do come! Mr. Fortune is lecturing on crime.” “Really. How very interesting,” said Mrs. Faulks, and transfixed Reggie with an icy stare. “The perfect criminal in one lesson,” Alice Beach laughed. “I feel a frightful character already. All you want is luck, you know. Or else Mr. Fortune catches you every time.” “I say, you know, Alice,” her husband protested. A scream rang out. Alice stopped laughing. The little company looked at each other. “Where was that?” Tom Beach muttered. “Not in the house, Colonel,” Faulks said. “Certainly not in the house.” Tom Beach was making for the window when all the lights went out. Alice gave a cry. The shrill voice of Mrs. Faulks arose to say, “Really!” Colonel Beach could be heard swearing. “Don’t let us get excited,” said Faulks. Reggie Fortune struck a match. “Excited be damned,” said Tom Beach, and rang the bell. Reggie Fortune, holding his match aloft, made for the door and opened it. The hall was dark, too. “Oh, Lord, it’s the main fuse blown out!” Tom Beach groaned. “Or something has happened in your little power station,” said Reggie Fortune cheerfully, and his host snorted. For the electricity at Cranston Regis comes from turbines on the stream which used to fill the Tudor fish-ponds, and Colonel Beach loves his machinery like a mother. He shouted to the butler to bring candles, and out of the dark the voice of the butler was heard apologizing. He roared to the chauffeur, who was his engineer, to put in a new fuse. “It’s not the fuse, Colonel,” came a startled voice, “there’s no juice.” Colonel Beach swore the more. “Run down to the powerhouse, confound you. Where the devil are those candles?” The butler was very sorry, sir, the butler was coming, sir. “Really!” said Mrs. Faulks in the dark, for Reggie had grown tired of striking matches. “Most inconvenient.” So in the dark they waited. . . And again they heard a scream. It was certainly in the house this time, it came from upstairs, it was in the voice of Sally Winslow. Reggie Fortune felt some one bump against him, and knew by the weight it was Faulks. Reggie struck another match, and saw him vanish into the darkness above as he called, “Miss Winslow, Miss Winslow!” There was the sound of a scuffle and a thud. Colonel Beach stormed upstairs. A placid voice spoke out of the dark at Reggie’s ear, “I say, what’s up with the jolly old house?” The butler arrived quivering with a candle in each hand and a bodyguard of candle-bearing satellites, and showed him the smiling face of Captain Cosdon. From above Colonel Beach roared for lights. “The C.O. sounds peeved,” said Captain Cosdon. “Someone’s for it, what?”