suddenly ended in a patch of half-charred grass. It was
uncanny! We made a further search to make sure, but nothing rewarded our
efforts. Dacre Wynne's gone somewhere, and those devilish flames of yours
will be counting another victim to their lengthening list to-night."

"Good God!"

Merriton's lips trembled, and his fingers dropped from the doctor's arm.

"But I tell you it's impossible, man!" he broke out suddenly. "The
thing's beyond human credulity, Doctor."

"Well, be that as it may, the fact remains--Wynne's gone," returned the
doctor gloomily. "Of course we must communicate with the police. That's
the next thing to do. We'll send over to make sure Wynne isn't at the
Brellier's but I think there isn't a chance of it myself. Where he did
go beats me completely!"

"And it fair beats me, too!" said Merriton, in a shocked voice, beginning
mechanically to struggle into his clothes. "One of you might 'phone the
police--though what they'll be able to do for us I don't know. It's a
one-horse show in the village, and the chap who's chief constable was the
fellow who told me of the other man that disappeared, and seemed quite
willing to accept a supernatural explanation. Still, of course, it's the
thing to be done.... And I actually saw, with my own eyes, that new flame
flash out!"

He said the last words in a sort of undertone, but the doctor heard them,
and twitched up an enquiring eyebrow.

"You saw the new flame? Oh--of course. And you--never mind. Our next move
is to telephone the police."

But what the police could do for them was so pitifully small as to be
absurd. Constable Haggers was a man whose superstitious fear of the
flames got the better of his constabulary training in every way. He said
he would do what he could, but he would certainly attempt nothing until
broad daylight. He believed the story in every particular and said that
it was well-nigh impossible to trace the vanished man. "There had been
others," was all he would say, "and never a trace of 'em 'ave we ever
seen!"

Telephoning the Brelliers was a mere matter of minutes, and by that means
Merriton made perfectly sure that Wynne had not put in an appearance at
Withersby Hall. Brellier himself answered the phone, and said that he was
just thinking that as Wynne hadn't turned up yet, they must indeed have
been making a night of it at the Towers.

"However," he continued, "if you say you all retired around about one
o'clock, and Wynne left y