you went away, sir. He's always at it."

"Exactly. Well, and what did you think of it?"

"Beg pardon, sir?"

"What do you think about his talking in this voice?"

"Oh, that it's only his play, sir."

"I see. That's all, Pitting."

The butler disappeared and closed the door noiselessly behind him.

Guildea turned his eyes on his friend.

"There, you see!" he ejaculated.

"It's certainly very odd," said the Father. "Very odd indeed. You are
certain you have no maid who talks at all like that?"

"My dear Murchison! Would you keep a servant with such a voice about you
for two days?"

"No."

"My housemaid has been with me for five years, my cook for seven. You've
heard Pitting speak. The three of them make up my entire household. A
parrot never speaks in a voice it has not heard. Where has it heard that
voice?"

"But we hear nothing?"

"No. Nor do we see anything. But it does. It feels something too. Didn't
you observe it presenting its head to be scratched?"

"Certainly it seemed to be doing so."

"It was doing so."

Father Murchison said nothing. He was full of increasing discomfort that
almost amounted to apprehension.

"Are you convinced?" said Guildea, rather irritably.

"No. The whole matter is very strange. But till I hear, see, or feel--as
you do--the presence of something, I cannot believe."

"You mean that you will not?"

"Perhaps. Well, it is time I went."

Guildea did not try to detain him, but said, as he let him out,

"Do me a favour, come again to-morrow night."

The Father had an engagement. He hesitated, looked into the Professor's
face and said,

"I will. At nine I'll be with you. Good-night."

When he was on the pavement he felt relieved. He turned round, saw
Guildea stepping into his passage, and shivered.

V.

Father Murchison walked all the way home to Bird Street that night. He
required exercise after the strange and disagreeable evening he had
spent, an evening upon which he looked back already as a man looks back
upon a nightmare. In his ears, as he walked, sounded the gentle and
intolerable voice. Even the memory of it caused him physical discomfort.
He tried to put it from him, and to consider the whole matter calmly.
The Professor had offered his proof that there was some strange
presence in his house. Could any reasonable man accept such proof?
Father Murchison told himself that no reasonable man could accept it.
The parrot's proceedings were, no doubt, ext