Strange Conflict by Dennis Wheatley

means in the black-out, since he could not ask any policeman or air-raid warden who might be about. However, the matter presented no great difficulty, as by focusing his spiritual retina he could see perfectly clearly in the darkness, and he soon discovered No. 22.
    Passing through a curtained window on the ground-floor, he found himself in an unlit dining-room where a number of naval prints decorated the walls. The hall was dimly lit and, adjusting his sight again, he saw that on the hall-stand were a few letters addressed to the Admiral, which satisfied him that he was definitely in the right house. He then drifted, silent and invisible, up the stairs.
    The drawing-room was in darkness, so he travelled upanother flight to the best bedroom, which was above it, and there he found an elderly lady, whom he assumed to be the Admiral’s wife, sitting up in bed reading. Apparently the Admiral had not yet got home, and after verifying this by a swift inspection of the other rooms, the Duke returned to the bedroom.
    He did not sit down in a chair, as he would have done had he been in the flesh, because there was no necessity whatever to rest his limbs, and he remained effortlessly poised near the ceiling, perfectly content to await the Admiral’s return. The grey-haired lady was, of course, entirely unaware that a strange presence had entered her bedroom and she continued quietly reading.
    For three-quarters of an hour they both remained almost unmoving. Only once, when some bombs crumped in the near distance, the Admiral’s wife gave a little wriggle of her shoulders. She was evidently a woman of that fine breed which refuses to admit fear and had decided that if she was to be killed in an air-raid she much preferred that it should be in her own bed rather than in the cold discomfort of the basement.
    At the end of this lengthy wait there was a sound of feet upon the stairs. The door opened and the Admiral came in, carrying a satchel of papers. He flung the satchel on to a nearby chair and greeted his wife cheerfully, but he looked tired and harassed.
    A tray with drinks and some sandwiches wrapped in a napkin had been left ready on a side-table for him, and for a little time, while he ate the sandwiches and drank a stiff whisky-and-soda, he walked about the room talking and unburdening himself of his anxieties. It was clear that he could not get his intense worry about Britain’s shipping losses out of his mind, and his elderly wife listened with most sympathetic interest; but de Richleau noted that although he spoke of the gravity of the situation generally he did not disclose details or particulars of the most recent sinkings even to his wife, so evidently he was a man of real discretion.
    In due course he undressed, got into bed, kissed his wife affectionately and put out the light. Ten minutes later he was in the process of drifting off to sleep.
    The Duke, having adjusted his retin a again, watched thelarger of the two forms under the bedclothes most intently as he speculated upon what form the Admiral’s astral would take.
    With the uninitiated the astral body is simply a replica of the mortal body, and until a spirit has reached a certain degree of advancement it often lacks the power to provide its astral form with clothes, or forgets to do so; which results in those dreams where, to their embarrassment, people find themselves quite naked in a mixed assembly. But once it has learnt the trick the spirit can clothe itself at will and, as its powers increase, alter its age, sex and form as desired; all of which things de Richleau could do.
    Any other astral who had been present at that moment would have seen the Duke as a handsome fellow of about thirty-five, clad in a comfortable white flowing garment with a gold key-pattern hem. He had always considered it an interesting fact that astrals who had achieved power to alter their appearance rarely gave themselves back their first youth as young men and girls