‘I wonder if he’d do one of me?’ asked Fairclough, with instinctive egotism. ‘I should make rather a good statue, I think.’ Half-undressed, he surveyed himself in the mirror. Long and willowy, fair complexioned as his name, he had a bulging knobby forehead under a thin thatch of hair. ‘Did you say yes?’ he asked.

‘I said I couldn’t stand, but if he would make it a recumbent effigy, I would lie to him.’

We both laughed.

‘Where’s his studio?’ asked Fairclough, almost humbly.

‘Underground. He says he prefers to work by artificial light.’

We both thought about this, and some association of ideas made me ask:

‘Is the house haunted?’

‘Not that I ever heard of,’ Fairclough said. ‘But there’s a legend about a bath.’

‘A bath?’

‘Yes, it’s said to be on the site of an old lift-shaft, and to go up and down. Funny how such stories get about. And talking of baths,’ Fairclough went on, ‘I must be getting into mine. You may not know it, but he doesn’t like one to be a minute late.’

‘Just let me look at it,’ I said. ‘Mine’s down a passage. You have one of your own, you lucky dog.’

We inspected the appointments, which were marble and luxurious, and very up to date, except for the bath itself, which was an immense, old-fashioned mahogany contraption with a lid.

‘A lid!’ I exclaimed. ‘Don’t you know the story of the Mistletoe Bough?’ Fairclough clearly didn’t, and with this parting shot I left him.

In spite of Fairclough’s warning, I was a few minutes late for dinner. How that came about occupied my thoughts throughout the marvellous meal, though I could not bring myself to speak of it and would much rather not have thought about it. I’m afraid I was a dull guest, and Vayne himself was less animated than he had been before dinner. After dinner, however, he cheered up, and when he was giving us our orders for the evening, editing them somewhat for Fairclough’s benefit, he had recovered all his old assurance. We were to divide, he said; I was to take the left-hand range of yew compartments, or temene, as he liked to call them, Fairclough the right. From the top of the terrace steps, a long steep flight, he indicated to us our spheres of action. ‘And home will be here, where I’m standing,’ he wound up. ‘I’ll call “coo-ee” when I’m ready.’

He strolled off in the direction of the house. Fairclough and I walked cautiously down the steps on to the great circle of grass from which the two blocks of temene diverged. Here we bowed ceremoniously and parted. Fairclough disappeared into the black wall of yew.

At last I was alone with my thoughts. Of course it was only another of Vayne’s practical jokes; I realized that now. But at the moment when it happened, I was scared stiff. And I still couldn’t help wondering what would have become of me if—well, if I had got into the bath. I just put my foot in, as I often do, to test the water. I didn’t pull it out at once, for the water was rather cool. In fact I put my whole weight on it.

‘Coo-ee!’

Now the hunt was up. Fairclough would be peering in the shadows. But mine was merely a spectator’s rôle; I was Vayne’s stooge. His stooge. . . .

Directly I felt something give, I pulled my foot out, and the lid came down and the bath sank through the floor like a coffin at a cremation service. Goodness, how frightened I was! I heard the click as the bath touched bottom; but I couldn’t see it down the shaft. Then I heard rumbling again, and saw the bath-lid coming up. But I did not risk getting in, not I.

‘Coo-ee!’

I jumped. It sounded close beside me. I moved into another temenos, trying to pretend that I was looking for Vayne. Really it would serve him right if I gave him away to Fairclough. He had no business to frighten people like that.

‘Coo-ee!’

Right over on Fairclough’s side, now. But it sounded somehow different; was it an owl? It might not be very easy to find Fairclough; there must be half a hundred of these blasted temene, and the moon was hidden by clouds. He might go out through one opening just as I was entering by another, and so we might go on all night. Thank goodness the night was warm. But what a silly farce it was.

I could just see to read my watch. Another quarter of an hour to go. Fairclough must be getting jumpy. I’ll go and find him, I thought, and put him wise about the figure. Vayne would never know. Or would he? One couldn’t tell where he was, he might be in the next temenos, watching me through a hole.

A light mist was descending, which obscured the heads of such statues as I could see projecting above the high walls of the temene. If it grew thicker, I might not see Fairclough even if he were close to me, and we might wander about till Doomsday—at least, for another ten minutes, which seemed just as long to wait.

I looked down, and saw that my feet had left tracks, dark patches in the wet grass. They seemed to lead in all directions. But were they all mine? Had I really walked about as much as that? I tried to identify the footprints and see if they tallied.

‘Coo-ee!’

That almost certainly was an owl; the sound seemed to come from above. But perhaps Vayne added ventriloquism to his other accomplishments. He was capable of anything. Not a man one could trust. Postgate hadn’t trusted him—not, at least, as the chairman of the company.

It was my duty, I now felt, to warn Fairclough. And I should be quite glad to see him myself, quite glad. But where was he?

I found myself running from one temenos to another and getting back to the one I started from. I could tell by the figure: at least that didn’t move. I started off again. Steady, steady. Here was a temenos with no footprints on it—a virgin temenos. I crossed it and found myself in the central circle. I crossed that too.

Now I was in Fairclough’s preserves. Poor Fairclough! To judge by the footprints, he had been running round even more than I had. But were they all his? Here was the figure of Pan—the god of panic. Very appropriate.

‘Fairclough! Fairclough!’ I began to call as loudly as I dared having nearly but not quite lost my head.

‘Fairclough! Fairclough!’ I couldn’t bring myself to hug the walls; the shadows were too thick; I stuck to the middle of each space.

I suppose I was expecting to find him, and yet when I heard him answer ‘Here!’ I nearly jumped out of my skin. He was crouching against a hedge. He evidently had the opposite idea from mine; he felt the hedge was a protection; and I had some difficulty in persuading him to come out into the open.

‘Listen!’ I whispered. “What you’ve got to do is——’

‘But I’ve seen him,’ Fairclough said. ‘There’s his footmark.’

I looked: the footmark was long and slurred, quite unlike his or mine.

‘If you were sure it was him,’ I said, ‘why didn’t you speak to him?’

‘I did,’ said Fairclough, ‘but he didn’t answer. He didn’t even turn round.’

‘Someone may have got into the garden,’ I said, ‘some third person. But we’ll find out. I’ll take you to the statue.’

‘The statue?’

‘I’ll explain afterwards.’

I had regained my confidence, but could not remember in which direction Vayne’s statue lay.

Suddenly I had an idea.

‘We’ll follow the footprints.’

‘Which?’ asked Fairclough.

‘Well, the other person’s.’

Easy to say; easy to distinguish them from ours; but which way were they pointing? That was the question.

‘He walks on his heels,’ I said. ‘It’s this way.’

‘We followed and reached the temenos where the statue had stood. No possibility of mistake. We saw the patches of dead grass where its feet had been; we saw the footprints leading away from them. But the statue was not there.

‘Vayne!’ I shouted. ‘Vayne!’

‘Coo-ee!’ came a distant call.

‘To the steps,’ I cried. ‘To the steps! Let’s go together!’