Fellow Passenger Read Free Page B

their thermocouple by the light of a small pencil torch, and went downstairs.
     
    I must admit that after being mistaken for something that went bump in the night I was not as relieved at being left alone as I might have been. I put myself in better heart by the thought that if the other creator of disturbances was also a Howard-Wolferstan we had at least so much in common. After extracting myself from the chairs with the least possible noise, I examined the instrument left on the floor. The thermocouple at once recorded the heat of my torch on its revolving cylinder, so I made some little pattering noises to prove to the listeners below that poltergeists sent the temperature up, not down. It was the least I could do for the second law of thermodynamics.
     
    I made a last thorough examination of the chimney just to ensure that I had not overlooked an envelope, a key or anything tiny but promising, and then, no longer buoyed up by the hope of capital gains free of income tax, set imagination to the duller task of removing myself to London. I did not dare tackle the creaking stairs again while two ghost-hunting scientists were on the floor below, wide awake and timing every sound. At my third attempt I found an attic window which would open quietly, and went through it on to the leads.
     
    The manor was an oblong, late Georgian house without wings or additions, and as simple as if it had been built out of a child’s box of bricks. While running up the main staircase I had clearly seen both ends of the landing on the first floor; and on the second floor, where I had more time to explore, I confirmed that the ground plan was as I thought. Now the house, seen from the roof, appeared larger outside than inside, but I put that down to the vague profusion of attic dormers, low gables and chimney stacks. In any case I was in no mood for cool measurements. My whole enterprise had gone wrong. Instead of wandering freely about the house as an amiable stranger in a dressing-gown, I was in the most unwelcome position of a cat burglar on the roof.
     
    A handy drain-pipe at the extreme west end of the house would have offered a route from the parapet to the ground if only it had not struck off at an angle half-way down. I can tackle a perpendicular pipe as well as my neighbour, but not a sloping one. However, the perpendicular stretch passed close to a balcony on the floor below There were french windows on to the balcony, and they were open. I listened. The room was dark, and a sound sleeper gave an occasional heavy snort. I scrambled down the pipe, losing a slipper on the way, gained the balcony and peered into the bedroom. It was occupied by a tousled, an immense, a very major scientist. I averted my eyes - for one should never allow one’s illusion of woman to be destroyed by a mere accident - and fled through her door into the passage beyond.
     
    It was lit by the usual ministerial naked bulb, and horribly empty of cover. The position was becoming plain. There were female scientists - dozens of them perhaps - and this west end of the manor was their nunnery. The ends of the landings had been blocked up, precisely to keep out gentlemen in pyjamas and dressing-gowns. The Lord only knew what might happen to me if I were caught, or how many psychiatrists might be turned loose upon me with indecent questions.
     
    At that moment a door opened, and an extremely intellectual female - I judge her only from her hair, her vertebrae and a far too transparent nightdress of revolting green - began to say soft and interminable good nights to someone within. I panicked. I turned very quietly the nearest door handle, popped inside and closed it behind me. The room was pitch dark. The curtains were drawn in spite of the heat. A most attractive voice, with a shade of merriment in it, said:
     
    ‘Horace, you have been long.’
     
    What on earth was I to do? One answer was obvious. But I have never been able to believe those delightful