“Thank you,” said George. “You know, it’s dashed queer to find something going on about his room down here too, because—. Well, I mean, you haven’t noticed anything, have you?”

“Noticed anything?” she repeated, at sea.

“Yes, anything—unusual, about the room, I mean.”

“Well, I can’t keep Sabrina out of it,” Aunt Effie admitted cautiously. “It’s as though she was bewitched by the place. I’ve never known her to deliberately defy my wishes before. And for no reason, except that she likes to sit up there and read!”

“Well, then,” said George, looking relieved, “I suppose there’s nothing in it really, or she wouldn’t want to—. I mean, she’d have noticed something herself, what?”

“Noticed something?” asked Aunt Effie, with a vague uneasiness. “What would she notice?”

“Well, it’s hard to say, exactly. Only—there’s a full-fledged ghost story going round about his room at the Club, and I naturally wondered—. But a kid like that would be scared off sooner than anybody, I should think.”

Aunt Effie was staring at him in consternation.

“You mean the room might be haunted?” she whispered.

“Well, no, it’s not the sort of thing one can easily swallow, especially about one’s own brother,” said George reasonably. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned it at all, but just for a moment, when I heard his room was giving trouble here at home as well, I did wonder—. But if as you say the kid likes to sit there alone, there certainly can’t be anything of that sort going on.”

“No, I suppose not,” agreed Aunt Effie doubtfully.

“Er—about that kitchen flue,” said George, with a business-like clearing of his throat. “All right now?”

“Yes, thank you, the man came and cleaned it out. You should have seen what came down! And we’re quite certain that one of the gas-pipes is leaking somewhere, and of course that’s very dangerous, isn’t it? I was going to write your mother, but now that you’re here—”

“Oh. Well, I suppose we’d better have a man down from the company to look round a bit. I wouldn’t be alarmed, though, if I were you. I mean, it won’t blow up or anything. I’ll stop at the office in Wells on my way back to Town. Anything else?”

“Well, if you remember, I did write about that tree at the end of the drive.”

“Oh, yes, er—I was coming to that.”

“It’s dreadfully in the way, if you want to turn left going out of the gate. You see, I’m the chauffeur in this family, and—”

George set down an empty cup.