that it possessed a nearly circular outline about two feet across,
I couldn't tell much about it.

Then I stooped and examined it closely. At once I became conscious
of a smell which, somehow, I had hitherto not noticed. Small
wonder; it was as indescribable a smell as one could imagine. It
seemed to be a combination of several that are not generally
combined.

Next instant it flashed upon me that the predominating odour was a
familiar one. I had been smelling it, in fact, all the morning.

But this did not prevent me from feeling very queer, indeed, as I
realised what lay before me. A curious chill passed around my
shoulders, and I scarcely breathed.

At my feet lay a pool, composed of all the various liquids that
had been poured, upstairs, into that baffling spot in the wood.




XXI

OUT OF THIN AIR


Except for the incident just related, when several pints of very
real fluids were somehow "materialised" at a spot ten feet below
where they had vanished, nothing worth recording occurred during