Before Percy replied, Mr. West found himself awake, lying in the billowy comfort of the four-poster bed. The séance was over. He began to sit up, and saw Percy standing over him.

“This is for Ypres.” His bloody hand pushed Mr. West back, and he slammed down the lid of the bed. It thumped heavily like a grand piano lid, and all was darkness.

Mr. West screamed and shoved against the underside. Then he really woke up. Bleak gray light filled the room. Outside his window, the skeletal branches of the cherry tree bore a new gilding of clumpy, wet snow.

He played back the Vitaphone disk. There was the clack-clack of the metronome. A sleep-drugged voice said, “You are an invader of this house. You must be gone.” Finally, a gargling scream.

Mr. West found the Tors lingering at the breakfast table, though the Captain was gone. He struggled with his grapefruit silently, uninterested in fighting with them. The cook had neglected to section it. Belatedly, he thought; beds don’t have lids.