I was some time dropping off to sleep, but at length I fell into an uneasy slumber from which I awoke with a sense of shock. I heard a scratching sputtering noise as of something being violently ripped or torn. I sprang out of bed and rushed out into the passage. At the same moment Settle burst out of his room opposite. The sound came from our left.

‘You hear it, Carstairs?’ he cried. ‘You hear it?’

We came swiftly up to Lady Carmichael’s door. Nothing had passed us, but the noise had ceased. Our candles glittered blankly on the shiny panels of Lady Carmichael’s door. We stared at one another.

‘You know what it was?’ he half whispered.

I nodded. ‘A cat’s claws ripping and tearing something.’ I shivered a little. Suddenly I gave an exclamation and lowered the candle I held.

‘Look here, Settle.’

‘Here’ was a chair that rested against the wall—and the seat of it was ripped and torn in long strips . . .

We examined it closely. He looked at me and I nodded.

‘Cat’s claws,’ he said, drawing in his breath sharply. ‘Unmistakable.’ His eyes went from the chair to the closed door. ‘That’s the person who is menaced. Lady Carmichael!’

I slept no more that night. Things had come to a pass where something must be done. As far as I knew there was only one person who had the key to the situation. I suspected Lady Carmichael of knowing more than she chose to tell.

She was deathly pale when she came down the next morning, and only toyed with the food on her plate. I was sure that only an iron determination kept her from breaking down. After breakfast I requested a few words with her. I went straight to the point.

‘Lady Carmichael,’ I said. ‘I have reason to believe that you are in very grave danger.’

‘Indeed?’ She braved it out with wonderful unconcern.

‘There is in this house,’ I continued, ‘A Thing—a Presence—that is obviously hostile to you.’

‘What nonsense,’ she murmured scornfully. ‘As if I believed in any rubbish of that kind.’

‘The chair outside your door,’ I remarked drily, ‘was ripped to ribbons last night.’

‘Indeed?’ With raised eyebrows she pretended surprise, but I saw that I had told her nothing she did not know. ‘Some stupid practical joke, I suppose.’

‘It was not that,’ I replied with some feeling. ‘And I want you to tell me—for your own sake—’ I paused.

‘Tell you what?’ she queried.

‘Anything that can throw light on the matter,’ I said gravely.

She laughed.

‘I know nothing,’ she said. ‘Absolutely nothing.’

And no warnings of danger could induce her to relax the statement. Yet I was convinced that she did know a great deal more than any of us, and held some clue to the affair of which we were absolutely ignorant. But I saw that it was quite impossible to make her speak.

I determined, however, to take every precaution that I could, convinced as I was that she was menaced by a very real and immediate danger. Before she went to her room the following night Settle and I made a thorough examination of it. We had agreed that we would take it in turns to watch in the passage.