The meal was in sad contrast to the dinner the previous night. Demoralized by the tragedy, they produced little conversation. Pollard declared his intention of attempting on the morrow to get to the wrecked bridge and cross the ravine. They discussed the significance of the bottle found under the floorboard upstairs. Normally it would have been the object of intense speculative interest, in a real sense a triumphant achievement of the regression technique. Now it seemed like Dead Sea fruits, obtained at far too heavy a price. For in everyone’s mind was the knowledge that as they ate down here, upstairs in the icy dark bedroom directly above them lay the bodies of two of their number.

After the meal Pollard and Smith went down to the cellars to decide where best to place the explosives for demolition. Hunt and Meredith assisted the women to wash up. Bourne and Paul made up fires, checked oil-lamps and filled hot-water bottles. There had been little argument, even from Bourne, when Mere­dith proposed a duty roster of people to keep watch throughout the night from eleven to eight a.m.

It was agreed that two people would be stationed in both lounge and dining-room. A pair would patrol the house every half-hour, staggering their patrols so that the house would be inspected every quarter-hour. The watches would run from eleven to two, two to five and five to eight. Bourne was odd man out as usual. He insisted on watching alone, reiterating his belief that it was almost certainly a waste of time.

There had been some argument about Ann and Joyce watching together and patrolling the house. Pollard suggested that he should watch with Ann while Hunt teamed with Joyce. Neither girl would hear of it since it would have meant that one of them would be sleeping alone. While they obviously loathed the thought of patrolling the house, it seemed less unbearable than being left alone in their bedroom. Paul caught Carol nodding slowly in understanding, her face taut with recollection. It was finally agreed that Paul would patrol every fifteen minutes with either Carol, Ann or Joyce during their spell of duty.

At this point in the discussion, with their plans laid out with military-style precision, they hesitated, their eyes searching each other’s faces. Paul wondered if they were all thinking much the same thing. In this last quarter of the twentieth century, in a supposedly post-superstitious, post-religious, materialistic age, a group of people had largely convinced themselves of the necessity of watching out for ‘things that went bump in the night’.

It was absurd. It was utterly ludicrous. And yet . . . He remembered the man upstairs, the noises, the weeping, the physical phenomena, Carol’s story, the Mary Rolfe entity. And Fletcher and Swanson’s enigmatic deaths. And he saw Meredith’s haunted face. What was he really afraid of?

Pollard grinned briefly.