“Well, not a man of them will go there after dark. Also the lodge-keeper gave notice a week or two after the accident. He said he was always hearing a motor stop and hoot outside the lodge, and he was kept running out at all hours of the night to see what it was.” “And what was it?” “It wasn’t anything. Simply nothing there. He thought it rather uncanny, anyhow, and threw up a good post. Besides, his wife was always hearing a child scream, and while her man toddled out to the gate she would go and see whether the kids were all right. And the kids themselves----” “Ah, what of them?” I asked. “They kept coming to their mother, asking who the little girl was who walked up and down the road and would not speak to them or play with them.” “It’s a many-sided story,” I said. “All the witnesses seem to have heard and seen different things.” “Yes, that is just what to my mind makes the yarn so good,” he said. “Personally I don’t take much stock in spooks at all. But given that there are such things as spooks, and given that the death of the child and the death of Guy have caused spooks to play about there, it seems to me a very good point that different people should be aware of different phenomena. One hears the car, another sees it, one hears the child scream, another sees the child. How does that strike you?” This, I am bound to say, was a new view to me, and the more I thought of it the more reasonable it appeared. For the vast majority of mankind have all those occult senses by which is perceived the spiritual world (which, I hold, is thick and populous around us), sealed up, as it were; in other words, the majority of mankind never hear or see a ghost at all. Is it not, then, very probable that of the remainder--those, in fact, to whom occult experiences have happened or can happen--few should have every sense unsealed, but that some should have the unsealed ear, others the unsealed eye--that some should be clairaudient, others clairvoyant? “Yes, it strikes me as reasonable,” I said. “Can’t you take me over there?” “Certainly! If you will stop till Friday I’ll take you over on Thursday. The others all go that day, so that we can get there after dark.” I shook my head. “I can’t stop till Friday, I’m afraid,” I said. “I must leave on Thursday. But how about to-morrow? Can’t we take it on the way to or from Hunstanton?” “No; it’s thirty miles out of our way. Besides, to be at Bircham after dark means that we shouldn’t get back here till midnight. And as host to my guests----” “Ah! things are only heard and seen after dark, are they?” I asked. “That makes it so much less interesting. It is like a séance where all lights are put out.” “Well, the accident happened at night,” he said. “I don’t know the rules, but that may have some bearing on it, I should think.” I had one question more in the back of my mind, but I did not like to ask it. At least, I wanted information on this subject without appearing to ask for it.