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done up in dark green oiled silk. The package was upstairs inside Sarah’s bag, in Sarah’s middle drawer under a pile of pyjamas. Emily Case hadn’t got it. Why should anyone murder Emily Case for something she hadn’t got?
    The telephone bell rang. She got up and went into the study to answer it. Wilson Cattermole called after her.
    â€œOne moment, Miss Marlowe—if it is a man called Smith, I will speak to him myself. A really interesting case of haunting in Essex. I wrote to him whilst you were away, and I am rather expecting him to ring me up.”
    She went on across the hall to the back room where she wrote letters and listened to monologues and earned her four guineas a week. Sometimes when the monologues were very long she didn’t feel she was earning it any too easily.
    The telephone bell rang again as she came in. She put the receiver to her ear and wondered what Mr. Smith’s voice was going to be like. And then it wasn’t Mr. Smith at all. It was Henry Templar saying,
    â€œHullo! That you, Sarah?”
    She said, “It will be in a minute,” and went over to shut the door.
    When she came back Henry sounded indignant.
    â€œWhy did you go away? Don’t you know that people who drop telephones in the middle of conversations are the off-scourings of the human race?”
    â€œAll right—I’m an off-scouring. Next time I shall leave the door open and the Cattermoles can listen in. Anyhow it wasn’t the middle of a conversation, because we hadn’t begun. I suppose you didn’t just ring me up in order to tell me that you mustn’t be interrupted?”
    â€œIt would have been quite a good idea. Actually, I rang up to ask you to lunch.”
    â€œI thought you went on doing Economic Warfare all day long.”
    â€œNot as unremitting as that—an hour for lunch isn’t frowned upon. The economic army also marches on its stomach. Well then—the Green Tree at one?”
    â€œI don’t know about one—”
    â€œI shall hope,” said Henry, and rang off.
    All through the morning Sarah was wondering about Henry. She had known him since she was fifteen, but she wasn’t sure whether she was going to tell him about Emily Case. They were very good friends, and every now and then the friendship strayed in the direction of something a little warmer, a little more romantic. Since Henry had acquired his new job with its really substantial rise in salary there had been moments when she suspected him of serious intentions. That was Tinkler’s expression, “But, my dearest child, has he any serious intentions?” Until a month ago she had always been able to laugh and say, “Not an intention, darling—and nor have I.” There was something frightfully stuffy about linking your romantic feelings to a rise of salary.
    Sarah said, “Yes, Mr. Cattermole,” and went on taking down a long, dull, pompous letter to a man in Australia about the ghost of a donkey.
    She hadn’t made up her mind when she set out at a quarter to one. The brown bag was under her arm, but the oiled-silk packet still reposed beneath the pyjamas. Because if she took it out to lunch with Henry, he was perfectly capable of marching her round to Scotland Yard, and she wasn’t at all sure about getting mixed up with the police. The thing she was quite sure about was that she mustn’t get mixed up with the murder of Emily Case. If it came to inquests, and snapshots, and paragraphs in the paper, and a murder trial, she was going to lose her job with Wilson Cattermole.
    The right sort of publicity—yes. “Mr. Cattermole, president of the New Psychical Society”—“Mr. Wilson Cattermole, speaking to our correspondent, maintained yesterday …”—“‘Ghosts I have known’, by J. Wilson Cattermole.” This sort of publicity by all means, and as much and as often as you please—an