Julian held out his hand in astonishment for the glasses. The others stared in surprise. What could Dick have seen? Julian put the glasses to his eyes and focused them on the window Dick had been looking at. He stared hard.

“Yes. Yes, I can. What an extraordinary thing. It must be an effect of the light, I think.”

By this time the others were in such a state of curiosity that they couldn’t bear it. George snatched the glasses from Julian. “Let me see!” she said, quite fiercely. She trained them on to the window. She gazed and gazed and gazed.

Then she lowered the glasses and stared at Julian and Dick. “Are you being funny?” she said. “There’s nothing there — nothing but an empty window!”

Anne snatched the glasses from her just before Dick tried to take them again. She too trained them on the window. But there was absolutely nothing there to see.

“There’s nothing,” said Anne, disgusted, and Dick took the glasses from her at once, focusing them once more on the window. He lowered them.

“It’s gone,” he said to Julian. “Nothing there now.”

“DICK! If you don’t tell us what you saw we’ll roll you down the hill,” said George, crossly. “Are you making something up? What did you see?”

“Well,” said Dick, looking at Julian, “I saw a face. A face not far from the window, staring out. What did you see, Ju?”

“The same,” said Julian. “It made me feel pretty queer, too.”

“A face!” said George, Anne and Jo all together. “What do you mean?”

“Well — just what we said,” replied Dick. “A face — with eyes and nose and mouth.”

“But nobody lives in the castle. It’s a ruin,” said George. “Was it someone exploring, do you think?”

Julian looked at his watch. “No, it couldn’t have been a visitor, I’m sure — the castle shuts at half past five and it’s gone six. And anyway — it looked a — a — sort of desperate face!”

“Yes. I thought so too,” said Dick. “It’s — well, it’s very peculiar, isn’t it, Julian? There may be some kind of ordinary explanation for it, but I can’t help feeling there’s something queer about it.”

“Was it a man’s face?” asked George. “Or a woman’s?”

“A man’s, I think,” said Dick. “I couldn’t see any hair against the darkness inside the window. Or clothes. But it looked a man’s face. Did you notice the eyebrows, Ju?”

“Yes, I did,” said Julian. “They were very pronounced, weren’t they?”

This rang a bell with George! “Eyebrows!” she said at once. “Don’t you remember — the picture of that scientist, Terry-Kane, showed that he had thick black eyebrows — you said he’d shave them off and use them upside down for moustaches, don’t you remember, Dick?”

“Yes. I do remember,” said Dick, and looked at Julian. Julian shook his head. “I didn’t recognize the likeness,” he said, “but after all it’s a very long way away. It is only because George’s glasses are so extraordinarily good that we managed to spot a face looking out of a window so very far away. Actually I think there will be an ordinary explanation — it’s just that we were so startled — and that made us think it was very queer.”