“Oh, you can’t take _me_ in!” “No.... Well, I was wondering about this ghost of yours, Bill. It seems to me—” “Oh, _that!_” Bill was profoundly disappointed. “What on earth has the ghost got to do with it?” “I don’t know,” said Antony apologetically. “I don’t know what anything has got to do with it. I was just wondering. You shouldn’t have brought me here if you hadn’t wanted me to think about the ghost. This is where she appeared, isn’t it?” “Yes.” Bill was distinctly short about it. “How?” “What?” “I said, ‘How?’” “How? How _do_ ghosts appear? I don’t know. They just appear.” “Over four or five hundred yards of open park?” “Well, but she had to appear here, because this is where the original one—Lady Anne, you know—was supposed to walk.” “Oh, never mind Lady Anne! A real ghost can do anything. But how did Miss Norris appear suddenly—over five hundred yards of bare park?” Bill looked at Antony with open mouth. “I—I don’t know,” he stammered. “We never thought of that.” “You would have seen her long before, wouldn’t you, if she had come the way we came?” “Of course we should.” “And that would have spoilt it rather. You would have had time to recognize her walk.” Bill was interested now. “That’s rather funny, you know, Tony. We none of us thought of that.” “You’re sure she didn’t come across the park when none of you were looking?” “Quite. Because, you see, Betty and I were expecting her, and we kept looking round in case we saw her, so that we should all be playing with our backs to her.” “You and Miss Calladine were playing together?” “I say, however do you know that?” “Brilliant deductive reasoning. Well, then you suddenly saw her?” “Yes, she walked across that side of the lawn.” He indicated the opposite side, nearer to the house. “She couldn’t have been hiding in the ditch? Do you call it the moat, by the way?” “Mark does. We don’t among ourselves. No, she couldn’t. Betty and I were here before the others, and walked round a bit. We should have seen her.” “Then she must have been hiding in the shed. Or do you call it the summer-house?” “We had to go there for the bowls, of course. She couldn’t have been there.” “Oh!” “It’s dashed funny,” said Bill, after an interval for thought. “But it doesn’t matter, does it? It has nothing to do with Robert.” “Hasn’t it?” “I say, _has_ it?” said Bill, getting excited again. “I don’t know. We don’t know what has, or what hasn’t. But it _has_ got something to do with Miss Norris. And Miss Norris—” He broke off suddenly. “What about her?” “Well, you’re all in it in a kind of way. And if something unaccountable happens to one of you a day or two before something unaccountable happens to the whole house, one is—well, interested.” It was a good enough reason, but it wasn’t the reason he had been on the point of giving. “I see. Well?” Antony knocked out his pipe and got up slowly. “Well then, let’s find the way from the house by which Miss Norris came.”