"Spirits?
What absolute bosh! Miss Bubbles has been pulling your leg, Varick.

And yet one would like to know who has been at the bottom of it all--whether, as you say the butler evidently believes, it is the _chef_ himself, or, as the _chef_ told you, one of the under-servants.

In any case, I hope no one will suppose that that sort of thing can be owing to a supernatural agency." "Yet John Wesley did so suppose when that sort of thing happened in the Wesley household," came in the quiet voice of Sir Lyon.
The three men--Dr.Panton, Sir Lyon, and Lionel Varick--were taking a walk along the high road.

It was only eleven o'clock, but it seemed much later than that to two of them, for all the morning they had been busy.
An hour of it had been taken up with a very close examination of the servants, especially of the respectable butler and of the French _chef_.
They had both professed themselves, together and separately, as entirely unable to account for what had happened in the night.

But still, it had been clear to the three who had taken part in the examination--Blanche Farrow, Varick, and the doctor--that the butler believed the _chef_ to be responsible.