Celia was regarding her in fascinated horror. "Are you really proposing to sit with a planchette in this house?" she asked faintly.
"Not only I, my dear, but all of us. We sit round in a circle, laying the tips of our fingers on the board, and wait for some message to be transcribed."
"Nothing," said Celia vehemently, "would induce me to take part in any such proceeding! The whole thing's bad enough as it is without us trying to invoke the Monk."
"Very well," said Mrs. Bosanquet, not in the least ruffled, "if that is how you feel about it it would be no good your attempting to sit with us. But I for one shall certainly make the attempt."
"This means you won't go back to town!" Celia said unhappily. "I knew what it would be! No, don't tell me I can go without you, Charles. I may be a bad wife, and wake you up to look in the wardrobe in the small hours, but I am not such a bad wife that I'd go away and leave you with a ghost and a planchette."
"I wish you would go back to town, old lady," Charles said. "I don't mean that I don't appreciate this selfimmolating heroism, but it's no use scaring yourself, and nothing dire is at all likely to happen to me. If I thought there was any danger," he added handsomely, "you should stay and share it with me."
"Thanks," said Celia. "I might have known you'd joke about it. I don't know whether there's what you call danger, but if you're going to ask for trouble by putting your hands on Aunt's horrible planchette I shan't leave your side for one moment."
"Cheer up!" Charles said. "I don't mind giving the board a shove to please Aunt Lilian, but last night has completely convinced me that the Monk is as real as you are. In fact, if Margaret is going to town on Thursday she can rout out my service revolver, and the cartridges she'll find with it, and bring them back with her."
"If you think that I should be pleased by you deliberately pushing the board, you are sadly mistaken," said Mrs. Bosanquet severely. "Moreover, I have the greatest objection to fire-arms, and if you propose to let off guns at all hours of the day I shall be obliged to go back to London."
She was with difficulty appeased, and only a promise extracted from Charles not to fire any lethal weapon without due warning soothed her indignation. Breakfast came to an end, and after Celia had had a heart-to-heart talk with her husband, and Margaret hadd begged Peter not to do anything rash, such as shooting at vague figures seen in the dark, the two men left the house, ostensibly to fish.