‘I’ve only got your word for it,’ said Bertie, whisking most of the bedclothes on to the floor; ‘if you weren’t concealing something you wouldn’t be so agitated.’

Waldo was by this time convinced that Van Tahn was raving mad, and made an anxious effort to humour him.

‘Go back to bed like a dear fellow,’ he pleaded, ‘and your sheep will turn up all right in the morning.’

‘I dare say,’ said Bertie gloomily, ‘without their tails. Nice fool I shall look with a lot of Manx sheep.’

And by way of emphasizing his annoyance at the prospect he sent Waldo’s pillows flying to the top of the wardrobe.

‘But why no tails?’ asked Waldo, whose teeth were chattering with fear and rage and lowered temperature.

‘My dear boy, have you never heard the ballad of Little Bo Peep?’ said Bertie with a chuckle. ‘It’s my character in the Game, you know. If I didn’t go hunting about for my lost sheep no one would be able to guess who I was; and now go to sleepy weeps like a good child or I shall be cross with you.’

‘I leave you to imagine,’ wrote Waldo in the course of a long letter to his mother, ‘how much sleep I was able to recover that night, and you know how essential nine uninterrupted hours of slumber are to my health.’

On the other hand he was able to devote some wakeful hours to exercises in breathing wrath and fury against Bertie van Tahn.

Breakfast at Blonzecourt was a scattered meal, on the ‘come when you please’ principle, but the house- party was supposed to gather in full strength at lunch. On the day after the ‘Game’ had been started there were, however, some notable absentees. Waldo Plubley, for instance, was reported to be nursing a headache. A large breakfast and an ‘A.B.C.’ had been taken up to his room, but he had made no appearance in the flesh.

‘I expect he’s playing up to some character,’ said Vera Durmot; ‘isn’t there a thing of Molière’s, “Le Malade Imaginaire”? I expect he’s that.’

Eight or nine lists came out, and were duly pencilled with the suggestion.

‘And where are the Klammersteins?’ asked Lady Blonze; ‘ they’re usually so punctual.’

‘Another character pose, perhaps,’ said Bertie van Tahn; ‘ “the Lost Ten Tribes.” ’

‘But there are only three of them. Besides, they’ll want their lunch. Hasn’t any one seen anything of them?’

‘Didn’t you take them out in your car?’ asked Blanche Boveal, addressing herself to Cyril Skatterly.

‘Yes, took them out to Slogberry Moor immediately after breakfast. Miss Durmot came too.’

‘I saw you and Vera come back,’ said Lady Blonze, ‘but I didn’t see the Klammersteins. Did you put them down in the village?’

‘No,’ said Skatterly shortly.

‘But where are they? Where did you leave them?’

‘We left them on Slogberry Moor,’ said Vera calmly.