Thirteen people in the game, but how?......

"It was about ten years ago, before we came here. There was a party, and they were playing hide and seek. This girl was looking for somewhere to hide. She hear somebody coming, and ran along passage to get away. She opened the door, thinking it led to a bedroom. She planned to hide in there until the seeker had gone. Unfortunately it was the door that led to the back stairs. She fell straight down to the bottom of the stairs. She was dead when they picked her up."

We all promised to be careful. Mrs Gorman even made a little joke about living to be ninety. You see, none of us had known the poor girl, and we did not want to feel sad on Christmas Eve.

Well, we all started the game immediately after dinner. Young Reggie Sangston went round making sure all the lights were off, except the ones in the servants' rooms and in the sitting room where we were. We then prepared twelve sheets of paper. Eleven of them were blank, one of them had 'smee 'written on it. Reggie mixed them all up, then we each took one. The person who got the paper with 'Smee' on it had to hide. I looked at mine and saw it was blank. A moment later, all the electric lights went out. In the darkness I heard someone moving quietly to the door.

After a minute somebody blew a whistle, and we all rushed the door. I had no idea who was Smee. For five or ten minutes we all rushing up and down passages and in and out of rooms, challenging each other and answering, "Smee? - Smee!".

^^^After a while, the noise died down, and I guessed that someone had found "Smee". After a time I found group of people all sitting on some narrow stairs. I challenged, and received no answer. So "Smee" was there. I hurriedly joined the group. Presently two more players arrived. Each one was hurrying to avoid being last. Jack Sangston was last, and given a forfeit.^^^

"I think we're all here now, aren't we?" he remarked. He lit a match, looked up the staircase and began to count.

"..... Nine, ten,eleven, twelve, thirteen," he said, and then laughed." That's silly - there's one too many! "

The match went out, and he lit another and began to count. He got as gar as twelve, then he looked puzzled.

"There are thirteen people here! " He said." I haven't counted myself yet."

"Oh, nonsense!" I laughed. "You probably began with yourself, and now you want to count yourself twice."

His son took out his electric torch. It gave a better light than the matches, and we all began to count. Of course there were twelve of us. Jack laughed. "Well" he said, "I was sure I counted thirteen twice."

From half way up the stairs Violet Sangston spoke nervously. "I thought there was somebody sitting two steps above me. Have you moved, Captain Ransome?"

The captain said that he hadn't. "But I thought there was somebody sitting between Mrs Sangston and me."

...Just for a moment there was uncomfortable something in the air. A cold finger seemed to touch us all. For that moment we all felt that something odd and unpleasant had just happened - and was likely to happen again. Then we laughed at ourselves, and at each other, and we felt normal again. There were only twelve of us, and that was that. Still laughing, we marched back to the sitting - room to begin again....

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^^^This time I was "Smee"....^^^

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