is place?' I shouted.

He raised a grubby hand to his forelock. ''Ockott Saint Anny, sir,' he
said. 'Beg pardon, sir, but you ain't whurt, sir?'

Ten minutes later I was having tea in the mess of an M.T. workshop
while Archie had gone to the nearest Signals to telephone for a car and
give instructions about his precious bus. It was almost dark, but I
gulped my tea and hastened out into the thick dusk. For I wanted to
have a look at the Chateau.

I found a big entrance with high stone pillars, but the iron gates were
locked and looked as if they had not been opened in the memory of man.
Knowing the way of such places, I hunted for the side entrance and
found a muddy road which led to the back of the house. The front was
evidently towards a kind of park; at the back was a nest of
outbuildings and a section of moat which looked very deep and black in
the winter twilight. This was crossed by a stone bridge with a door at
the end of it.

Clearly the Chateau was not being used for billets. There was no sign
of the British soldier; there was no sign of anything human. I crept
through the fog as noiselessly as if I trod on velvet, and I hadn't
even the company of my own footsteps. I remembered the Canadian's ghost
story, and concluded I would be imagining the same sort of thing if I
lived in such a place.

The door was bolted and padlocked. I turned along the side of the moat,
hoping to reach the house front, which was probably modern and boasted
a civilized entrance. There must be somebody in the place, for one
chimney was smoking. Presently the moat petered out, and gave place to
a cobbled causeway, but a wall, running at right angles with the house,
blocked my way. I had half a mind to go back and hammer at the door,
but I reflected that major-generals don't pay visits to deserted
chateaux at night without a reasonable errand. I should look a fool in
the eyes of some old concierge. The daylight was almost gone, and I
didn't wish to go groping about the house with a candle.

But I wanted to see what was beyond the wall--one of those whims that
beset the soberest men. I rolled a dissolute water-butt to the foot of
it, and gingerly balanced myself on its rotten staves. This gave me a
grip on the flat brick top, and I pulled myself up.

I looked down on a little courtyard with another wall beyond it, which
shut off any view of the park. On the right was the Chateau, on the
left more outbuildings; the whole place was not