There are telephone wires to the farmhouse. The group goes a couple of miles to the nearest actual village, Langley Heath, where there’s a pub that turns out to have rooms for them; they go into the church, St Mary’s, where a fellow who turns out to be the vicar is doing some cleaning. He’s happy to talk about the history of the parish (the church is mostly of sadly recent construction); he knows about Kingswood, and indeed about Coldbridge House. The farm lands were sold about ten years ago, and the house is now a sanitarium; he is occasionally called on to visit the unfortunates there. They don’t have a doctor on the staff, though they can call one from Maidstone when he’s needed. (Lin Tan realises that the “unfortunates” are probably inconveniently dotty, or independent-minded, relatives of the well-heeled.)

At sunset three thick strands come out of the funnel cloud and stretch away to the north-west. Lin Tan sneaks up to the house, and looks through windows; many of them are shuttered, but on the ground floor there’s a dining room being cleared up. On the first floor at the front she sees an indistinct form in what seems to be a feathery cloak, lying on a bed; the other window is misted over, but she sees what seems to be a six-foot insect there. Round to the back, there’s a shivering form covered in lots of blankets. A dog starts barking and is waiting on the ground; she climbs back to the front of the house, then makes a run for it, while Gertrude and Milly distract the dog with the last ammonia bomb.

They write and post a letter to Miss Allen, then decide what to do next.