ot lying, Julian. I tell you so, and I mean it."

Valentine's eyes met Julian's, and Julian believed him.

"Put your hands on the table again," Julian said.

Valentine obeyed, and Julian laid his beside them, linking one of his
little fingers tightly in one of Valentine's, and at the same time
shutting his eyes. After a long pause he grew visibly whiter, and hastily
unlinked his finger.

"No, damn it, Val, I hadn't hold of your hand. The hand I touched was
much harder, and the finger was bigger, thicker. I say, this is ghastly."

Again he shook himself, and cast a searching glance upon the little room.

"Somebody has been in here with us, sitting between us in the dark," he
repeated. "Good God, who is it?"

Valentine looked doubtful, but uneasy too.

"Let us go through the rooms," he said.

They took a candle, and, as on the previous night, searched, but in
vain. They found no trace of any alien presence in the flat. No book,
no ornament, had been moved. No door stood open. There was no sound of
any footsteps except their own. When they came to Valentine's bedroom,
Rip leaped to greet them, and seemed in excellent spirits. He showed
no excitement until he had followed them back into the tentroom. But,
arrived there, he suddenly stood still, raised one white paw from the
ground, and emitted a long and dreary howl. The young men stared at him,
and then at each other.

"Rip knows somebody has been here," Julian said.

Valentine was much more uncomfortably impressed by the demeanour of
the dog than by Julian's declaration and subsequent agitation. He had
been inclined to attribute the whole affair to a trick of his friend's
nerves. But the nervous system of a fox-terrier was surely, under such
circumstances as these, more truth-telling than that of a man.

"But the thing is absolutely impossible," he repeated, with some
disturbance of manner.

"Is anything that we can't investigate straight away absolutely
impossible?"

Valentine did not reply directly.

"Here is a cigarette," he said. "Let us sit down, soothe our nerves,
and talk things over calmly and openly. We have not been quite frank
with each other about these sittings yet."

Julian accepted Valentine's offer with his usual readiness. The fire was
relit with some difficulty. Rip was coaxed into silence.

Presently, as the smoke curled upward with its lazy demeanour, the
horror that had hung like a thin vapour in the atmosphere seemed to
be dissip