“Someone’s been here the entire time.”

“They might have sneaked in and out the back way,” she said. “While we were talking.”

She went back to squatting, and I went back to my rock cake, which was even harder than the rock cake I’d had at the Prayers for the RAF Service and Baked Goods Sale, and thought about the bishop’s bird stump.

Had someone sneaked it out the back way when nobody was looking? I had said no one would want it, but look at the things people bought at jumble sales. Perhaps a looter had taken it out of the rubble, after all. Or perhaps Verity was right, and it had been taken out of the cathedral sometime before the raid. Either it had been in the cathedral during the raid, or it hadn’t, I thought, looking at the squares of sand. Those were the only two possibilities. And either way it had to be somewhere. But where? In Number Eighteen? Number Twenty-five?

At half-past one the curate came to spell me so I could “have a proper luncheon” and “have a look at the fête.” The “proper luncheon” consisted of a fish paste sandwich (which I gave half of to Cyril) and another cup of tea, after which I made the rounds of the stalls. I won a red glass ring at the fishing pond, bought a quilted tea cozy, a pomander made from an orange stuck full of cloves, a china crocodile, and a jar of calves’ foot jelly, told Verity I hadn’t got the date or Mr. C’s name, and went back to the Treasure Hunt. When Eglantine wasn’t looking, I buried the crocodile in Number Nine.

The afternoon wore on. People chose Four, Sixteen, Twenty-one, and Twenty-Nine, and actually found two of the shillings. Eglantine spent the rest of her fivepence to no avail and stomped off in a huff. At one point, Baine came up with Princess Arjumand and dumped her in my arms.

“Could you possibly watch her for a bit, Mr. Henry?” he said. “Mrs. Mering wishes me to run the coconut shy, and I fear Princess Arjumand cannot be left alone even for a moment,” he said, looking hard at her.

“The globe-eyed nacreous ryunkin again?” I said.

“Yes, sir.”

A large box full of sand didn’t seem like a terribly good place for her either. “Why can’t you spend the entire day sleeping on the fancy goods display like that calico cat at the Nativity of the Virgin Mary jumble sale?” I said.

“More,” she said, and rubbed her nose against my hand.

I petted her, thinking what a pity it was that she hadn’t drowned and achieved nonsignificance, so that the net would have slammed shut when I tried to return her, and I could have kept her.

Of course, I couldn’t really have kept her. Some billionaire would have snapped her up, and one cat couldn’t replace an entire extinct species, even with cloning. But still, I thought, scratching her behind the ears, she was a very nice cat. Except, of course, for the nacreous ryunkin. And Professor Peddick’s double-gilled blue chub.

Finch came hurrying up. He looked hastily round and then leaned forward and said, “I have a message for you from Mr. Dunworthy. He said to tell you he spoke to the forensics expert, and she’s deciphered the date of the trip to Coventry. He said—”

“Mama says you’re to let me have three more tries,” Eglantine said, appearing out of nowhere, “and she will give you fivepence when the fête closes.”

Finch looked nervously at Eglantine. “Is there somewhere we could speak privately, sir?” he said.

“Eglantine,” I said. “How would you like to run the Treasure Hunt for a few minutes?”

She shook her head virtuously. “I wish to dig. The person in charge isn’t allowed to win prizes. I wish Number Two.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “This gentleman was ahead of you. Mr. Finch, what square would you like?”

“Square?” Finch said.

“A square to dig in,” I said, indicating the sandbox. “As there are thirty squares, most people choose a date. If it’s one of those listed here,” I added, remembering the date might be the thirty-first. “Did you have a specific date in mind, Mr. Finch?”

“Oh,” Finch said, the light dawning. “The date. I would like square Number—”

“He hasn’t paid,” Eglantine said. “You must pay tuppence first to dig.” Finch fished in his pockets. “I’m afraid I haven’t any—”

“Butlers get a free try,” I said. “What number—?”

“That isn’t fair,” Eglantine wailed. “Why should butlers get a free try?”

“It’s a church fête rule,” I said.

“You didn’t give Mrs. Mering’s butler a free try,” she said.

“He took his on the coconut shy,” I said, handing Finch the shovel. “The date, Mr. Finch?”

“Fifteen, please, Mr. Henry,” he said quickly.

“Fifteen?” I said. “Are you certain?”

“You can’t choose Fifteen,” Eglantine said. “It’s already been chosen. And so have Sixteen and Seventeen. You can’t choose a number which has already been chosen. It’s against the rules.”

“Fifteen,” Finch said firmly.

“But that’s impossible,” I said. “The fifteenth is tomorrow.”

“And you can’t buy Six or Twenty-two,” Eglantine said, “because I’m going to buy them.”

“Was she absolutely certain?” I said.

“Yes, sir,” Finch said.

“What about the month? Could it have been July? Or August?” even though I knew it wasn’t. Verity had told me that day at Iffley the trip to Coventry had been in June.

“I would pick one of the corners,” Eglantine said. “Thirty or One.”

“And you’re certain it’s the fifteenth? Tomorrow?”

“Yes, sir,” Finch said. “Mr. Dunworthy sent me through immediately to tell you.”

“I’ve got to tell Verity,” I said. “Finch, shut up shop.”

“You can’t,” Eglantine wailed. “I get three more chances.”

“Let her dig in three more squares and then close down,” I said and took off for the jumble sale stall before either of them could protest, skirting round the back way so I wouldn’t be waylaid by Mrs. Mering or the Chattisbourne girls.

Verity was selling the stringless banjo to a young man in a derby and a handlebar mustache. I picked up an unidentifiable utensil with a large serrated wheel and two sets of curved blades and pretended to know what it was till the young man left.

“A Mr. Kilbreth,” Verity said. “Spelled with a ‘K.’ ”

“The forensics expert’s deciphered the date of the trip to Coventry,” I said before anyone could come up and interrupt us. “It’s the fifteenth of June.”

She looked shocked. “But that’s impossible. The fifteenth is tomorrow.”

“My sentiments exactly.”

“How did you find out? Did you go through again?”

“No. Finch came and told me.”

“And he’s certain?”

“Yes. So what do we do?” I said. “I don’t suppose I could simply suggest an outing to Coventry tomorrow morning? To see the sights?”

Verity shook her head. “The day after an activity like this is spent rehashing it with the Chattisbournes and the curate and the Widow Wallace. They’d never be willing to go off and miss that. It’s the best part of the fête.”

“What about fish?” I said.

“Fish?”

“We could tell the Colonel and Professor Peddick there are excellent shallows or deeps or gravel bottoms for bream or something. Isn’t Coventry on a river? The Colonel and Professor Peddick can’t resist anything with fish involved.”

“I don’t know,” Verity said thoughtfully, “but you’ve given me an idea. I don’t suppose you can crack your toes, can you?”

“What?”

“That’s how the Fox sisters did it. Never mind, we can do it with—” She began rummaging through the jumble sale items, looking for something. “Oh, good, it’s still here,” she said, and picked up the metal sugared-violets box.

“Here, buy this,” she said, thrusting it at me. “I haven’t any money.”

“What for?”

“I’ve got an idea,” she said. “Buy it. It’s fivepence.”

I obligingly handed her a shilling.

“I was going to buy that,” Eglantine said, appearing out of nowhere.

“I thought you were over at the Treasure Hunt digging,” I said.

“I was,” she said. “Squares Ten, Eleven, and Twenty-seven. The treasure wasn’t in any of them. I don’t believe it’s in any of them. I don’t believe you ever put the treasure in it.” She turned to Verity. “I told you this morning I wanted to buy the sugared-violets box.”

“You can’t,” Verity said. “Mr. Henry's already bought it. Be a good girl and go find Mrs. Mering for me. I need to speak with her.”

“It is just the right size to keep buttons in,” Eglantine said. “And I told you this morning I wanted to buy it.”

“Wouldn’t you rather have a nice book?” Verity said, offering her An Old-Fashioned Girl.

“Here’s tuppence,” I said. “If you’ll go fetch Mrs. Mering, I’ll tell you where the treasure is.”

“That’s against the rules,” she said.

“Giving a clue isn’t,” I said. I leaned down and whispered in her ear, “The battle of Waterloo.”

“The day or the year?”

“That’s for you to figure out.”

“Will you give me clues to the squares the shilling is in?”

“No,” I said. “And fetch Mrs. Mering before you start digging.”

She ran off.

“Quick, before she comes back,” I said, “what’s your idea?”

She took the sugared-violets box from me, removed the lid, and held the box and lid apart, like a pair of cymbals, and then brought them together with a tinny rap.

“A séance,” she said.

“A séance?” I said. “That’s your idea? I’m sorry I didn’t let Eglantine buy the box.”

“You said the Colonel and Professor Peddick couldn’t resist anything having to do with fish,” she said. “Well, Mrs. Mering can’t resist anything to do with the spirits or séances—”

“Séance?” Mrs. Mering said, swooping up in her Coat of Many Colors. “Are you proposing a séance, Verity?”

“Yes, Aunt Malvinia,” Verity said, hastily wrapping the box and lid in tissue paper, putting it in the wicker swan, and handing them both to me.

“I’m certain you’ll enjoy your purchases, Mr. Henry,” she said, and turned back to Mrs. Mering. “Mr. Henry was just telling me he has never sat in on a séance.”

“Is that true, Mr. Henry?” Mrs. Mering said. “O, then we must certainly have one tonight just for you. I must ask the Reverend Mr. Arbitage if he can attend. Mr. Arbitage!” she called, and hurried off.

“Give me the violets box,” Verity whispered.

I turned slightly so no one could see our hands and passed her the tissue-wrapped box. “What are you going to use it for?”

“Table-rapping,” she whispered, sticking it in her reticule. “Tonight we are going to receive a spirit message telling us to go to Coventry.”

“You’re certain this will work?” I said.

“It worked for Madame Iritosky,” she said. “And D. D. Home and the Fox sisters and Florence Cook. It fooled the scientist William Crookes and Arthur Conan Doyle. Mrs. Mering thought you were a spirit. It will work for us. What could possibly go wrong?”

Mrs. Mering bustled up, robes fluttering. “The Reverend Mr. Arbitage is conducting the cake raffle. I shall have to remember to ask him later. O, Mr. Henry,” she said, taking my arm. “I know we shall have a good séance. I can feel the presence of the spirits hovering near already.”

Actually it was Baine, who had come up behind her and was waiting for an opening to speak.

“Perhaps it is the same spirit you heard the night before last, Mr. Hen—what is it, Baine?” Mrs. Mering said impatiently.

“Madame Iritosky, madam,” he said.

“Yes, yes, what about her?”

“She’s here.”

“Into the Valley of Death. . . .”

“The Charge of the Light Brigade”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

C H A P T E R  S E V E N T E E N

In the Foyer—A Summons—Baine Unpacks and Makes an Interesting Discovery—In the Kitchen—Astounding Anecdotes of Jane’s Second Sight—Preparations for the Séance—I Sympathize with Napoleon—Jewels—Dueling Mediums—A Ghostly Manifestation

Madame Iritosky was waiting in the foyer with nine pieces of luggage, a large black enameled cabinet, and Count de Vecchio.

“Madame Iritosky!” Mrs. Mering gushed. “What a delightful surprise! And Count! Baine, go and fetch the Colonel and tell him we have guests! He will be so pleased! You know Miss Brown,” she said, indicating Verity, “and this is Mr. Henry.”

We had followed her up to the house, Verity muttering, “What’s she doing here? I thought she never left her house.”

“Eet eez a pleasure, Signor Henree,” Count de Vecchio said, bowing to me.

“Why did you not let us know you were coming?” Mrs. Mering said. “Baine could have met you at the station.”

“I did not know myself until last night,” Madame Iritosky said, “when I received a message from the Other Side. One cannot ignore a summons from the spirits.”

She didn’t look like I’d expected. She was a short dumpling of a woman with a button nose, untidy gray hair, and a rather threadbare brown dress. Her hat was shabby, too, and the feathers on it looked like they had been appropriated from a rooster. The sort of person I would have expected Mrs. Mering to have turned up her nose at, but instead she was practically fawning over her.

“A message from the spirits!” Mrs. Mering said, clasping her hands. “How thrilling! What did they say?”

“ ‘Go!’ ” Madame Iritosky said dramatically.

“Avanti!” Count de Vecchio said. “They rapped eet out on the table. ‘Go.’ ”

“ ‘Go where?’ I asked them,” Madame Iritosky said, “and waited for them to rap an answer. But there was only silence.”

“Silencio,” the Count said helpfully.

“ ‘Go where?’ I asked again,” Madame Iritosky said, “and suddenly, there on the table before me was a white light that grew and grew until it became . . .”  She paused dramatically. “. . . your letter.”

“My letter!” Mrs. Mering breathed, and I moved toward her, afraid we were going to have another swooning on our hands, but she recovered herself after swaying a moment. “I wrote to her, telling her of the spirits I had seen,” she said to me. “And now they have sent for her!”

“They are trying to tell you something,” Madame Iritosky said, gazing at the ceiling. “I feel their presence. They are here among us now.”

So were Tossie and Terence and Baine. And Colonel Mering, looking extremely irritated. He was wearing waders and carrying a fishing net. “What’s this all about?” he grumbled. “Better be important. Discussing the Battle of Monmouth with Peddick.”

“Miss Mering, amor mia,” the Count said, going immediately over to Tossie. “I am delighted to meet with you again.” He bowed over Tossie’s hand like he was going to kiss it.

“How do you do?” Terence said, stepping in front of her and extending his hand stiffly. “Terence St. Trewes, Miss Mering’s fiancé.”

The Count and Madame Iritosky exchanged glances.

“Mesiel, you will never guess who’s come!” Mrs. Mering said. “Madame Iritosky, allow me to introduce my husband, Colonel Mering!”

“Colonel Mering, thank you for welcoming us into your home,” Madame Iritosky said, bobbing her head and her rooster feathers at him.

“Hrrumm,” the Colonel muttered through his mustache.

“I told you I had seen a spirit, Mesiel,” Mrs. Mering said. “Madame Iritosky has come to contact it for us. She says the spirits are among us even now.”

“Don’t see how,” Colonel Mering grumbled. “No room for them in this damned foyer. Have a house. Don’t see why we have to all stand out here with the bags.”

“O, of course,” Mrs. Mering said, seeming to notice for the first time how crowded the foyer had got. “Come, Madame Iritosky, Count, let us go into the library. Baine, have Jane bring tea, and take Madame Iritosky’s and Count de Vecchio’s things up to their rooms.”

“Including the cabinet, madam?” Baine said.

“The—” Mrs. Mering said and looked, surprised, at the pile of luggage. “My, what a lot of luggage! Are you going on a journey, Madame Iritosky?”

She and the Count exchanged glances again. “Who can say?” Madame Iritosky said. “Whither the spirits command, I obey.”

“O, of course,” Mrs. Mering said. “No, Baine, Madame Iritosky will need her cabinet for our séance. Put it in the parlor.”

I wondered where on earth it would fit, in among all the ottomans and firescreens and aspidistras.

“And take the rest of their things upstairs,” Mrs. Mering went on, “and unpack them.”

“No!” Madame Iritosky said sharply. “I prefer to unpack my own things. The psychic lines of force, you know.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Mering, who probably hadn’t any more idea of what psychic lines of force were than the rest of us, said. “After tea, I want to take you out to the grounds and show you the place where I first saw the spirit.”

“No!” Madame Iritosky said. “My powers are quite diminished by the long journey. Trains!” She shuddered. “After tea, I must rest. Tomorrow you may show me the entire house and grounds.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Mering said, sounding disappointed.

“We will examine Muchings End for spiritual habitation,” Madame Iritosky said. “There is definitely a spirit presence here. We shall establish communications.”

“Oh, what fun!” Tossie said. “Will there be manifestations?”

“Possibly,” Madame Iritosky said, putting her hand to her forehead again.

“You are tired, Madame Iritosky,” Mrs. Mering said. “You must sit down and have some tea.” She led Madame Iritosky and the Count into the library.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Count de Vermicelli?” Terence said earnestly to Tossie as they followed them.

“De Vecchio,” Tossie said. “He’s terribly handsome, isn’t he? Iris Chattisbourne says all Italians are handsome. Do you think that’s so?”

“Spirits!” the Colonel said, slapping his fishing net against his thigh. “Humbug! Lot of silly nonsense!” and stomped back out to the Battle of Monmouth.

Baine, who had been looking disapprovingly at the luggage, bowed and went down the corridor toward the kitchen.

“Well?” I said, when they had all gone. “What do we do now?”

“We get ready for tonight,” Verity said. “Did that covered basket you had Princess Arjumand in survive the shipwreck?”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s in my wardrobe.”

“Good,” she said. “Go fetch it and put it in the parlor. I need to sew the sugared-violets box to my garters.” She started up the stairs.

“You still plan to have the séance with Madame Iritosky here?”

“Tomorrow’s the fifteenth. Do you have a better idea?”

“Couldn’t we just suggest an excursion to Coventry to Tossie—like the one to see the church at Iffley?”

“She didn’t go to see the church at Iffley, she went to see Terence, and you heard her. She’s all agog to examine the grounds and see manifestations. She’d never be willing to miss that.”

“What about Count de Vecchio?” I said. “Could he be Mr. C? He’s certainly shown up at the right time, and if anyone ever looked like they’d have an alias, it’s him.”

“It can’t be,” she said. “Tossie was happily married to Mr. C for sixty years, remember? Count de Vecchio would spend all her money and leave her stranded in Milan in three months.”

I had to agree. “What do you think they’re doing here?”

Verity frowned. “I don’t know. I assumed the reason Madame Iritosky never did séances away from home was that she had her house all set up with trapdoors and secret passages.” She opened the door of the cabinet. “But some of her effects are portable.” She shut the door. “Or perhaps she’s here to do research. You know, snoop in drawers, read letters, look at family pictures.”

She picked up a tintype of a couple standing next to a wooden sign that read “Loch Lomond.” “ ‘I see a man in a top hat,’ ” she said, touching her fingertips to her forehead. “ ‘He’s standing by . . . a body of water . . . a lake, I think. Yes, definitely a lake,’ and then Mrs. Mering screams, ‘It’s Uncle George!’ That’s what they do, collect information to convince the gullible. Not that Mrs. Mering needs any convincing. She’s worse than Arthur Conan Doyle. Madame Iritosky probably plans to spend her ‘rest’ sneaking into bedrooms and collecting ammunition for the séance.”

“Perhaps we could get her to steal Tossie’s diary for us,” I said.

She smiled. “What exactly did Finch say about the diary? Did he say it was definitely the fifteenth?”

“He said Mr. Dunworthy said to tell us that the forensics expert had deciphered the date, and it was the fifteenth.”

“Did Finch say how the forensics expert did it? A five looks a lot like a six, you know, or an eight. And if it were the sixteenth or the eighteenth, we’d have time to—I’m going to go talk to him,” she said. “If Mrs. Mering asks where I’ve gone, tell her I went to ask the Reverend Mr. Arbitage to the séance. And see if you can find two pieces of wire about a foot and a half long.”

“For what?”

“For the séance. Finch didn’t happen to send a tambourine back with you in your luggage, did he?”

“No,” I said. “Do you think you should do this? Remember what happened yesterday.”

“I’m going to go talk to Finch, not the forensics expert.” She pulled on her gloves. “At any rate, I’m completely recovered. I don’t find you attractive at all,” she said, and swept out the front door.

I went up to my room, got the covered basket, and put it in the parlor. Verity hadn’t said what she wanted done with it, so I set it on the hearth behind the firescreen, where Baine wouldn’t be likely to see it when he brought the cabinet in and put it efficiently away.

When I went back out in the corridor, Baine was waiting for me in the now luggage-less foyer.

“Might I have a word with you, sir?” he said. He looked anxiously in the direction of the library. “In private?”

“Of course,” I said, and led him up to my room, hoping he wasn’t going to ask me any more questions about conditions in the States.

I shut the bedroom door behind us. “You didn’t throw Princess Arjumand in the river again, did you?”

“No, sir,” he said. “It’s about Madame Iritosky. In unpacking her things, sir, I found some extremely troubling items.”

“I thought Madame Iritosky had said she’d unpack her own things.”

“A lady never does her own unpacking,” he said. “When I opened her trunks, I found a number of unfortunate items: reaching rods, trumpets, bells, slates, an accordion with a self-playing mechanism, wires, several yards each of black cloth and veiling, and a book of conjuring tricks. And this!” He handed me a small bottle.

I read the label aloud. “Balmain’s Luminous Paint.”

“I’m afraid Madame Iritosky is not a true medium, but a fraud,” he said.

“It would seem so,” I said, opening the bottle. It held a greenish-white liquid.

“I fear that her intentions and those of Count de Vecchio toward the Merings are dishonorable,” he said. “I have taken the precaution of removing Mrs. Mering’s jewels for safekeeping.”

“Excellent idea,” I said.

“But it is Madame Iritosky’s influence over Miss Mering that I am most concerned about. I fear she may fall prey to some nefarious scheme of Madame Iritosky’s and the Count’s.” He spoke passionately and with real concern. “While they were at tea, Madame Iritosky read Miss Mering’s palm. She told her she saw marriage in her future. Marriage to a foreigner. Miss Mering is an impressionable young girl,” he said earnestly. “She has not been trained to think scientifically or to examine her feelings logically. I fear she may do something foolish.”

“You truly care about her, don’t you?” I said, surprised.

His neck reddened. “She has many faults. She is vain and foolish and silly, but those qualities are due to her poor upbringing. She has been spoilt and pampered, but at heart she is sound.” He looked embarrassed. “But she has little knowledge of the world. That is why I came to you.”

“Miss Brown and I have been concerned as well,” I said. “We are planning to attempt to persuade Miss Mering to accompany us on an excursion to Coventry tomorrow to get her away from the Count and Madame Iritosky.”

“Oh,” he said, looking relieved. “That is an excellent plan. If there is anything I can do to help—”

“You’d best put this back before Madame Iritosky finds it missing,” I said, handing the bottle of Balmain’s Luminous Paint back regretfully. It would have been perfect for writing “Coventry” on the séance table.

“Yes, sir,” he said, taking the bottle.

“And it might be a good idea to lock up the silver.”

“I have already done so, sir. Thank you, sir.” He started for the door.

“Baine,” I said. “There is something you can do. I’m convinced de Vecchio’s not an authentic count. I believe there’s a possibility he’s travelling under an alias. When you unpack his things, if there are any papers or correspondence . . .”

“I understand, sir,” he said. “And if there is anything else I can do, sir, please let me know.” He paused. “I have only Miss Mering’s best interests at heart.”

“I know,” I said, and went down to the kitchen to look for some strong, thin wire.

“Wire?” Jane said, wiping her hands on her apron. “What for, sorr?”

“To tie up my portmanteau,” I said. “The clasp is broken.”

“Baine’ll fix it for you,” she said. “Will they be having a séance tonight, now that this madam person’s come?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Will they have trumpets, do you think? My sister Sharon, she’s in service in London, her mistress had a séance, and a trumpet floated right over the table and played ‘Shades of Night Are Falling’!”

“I don’t know if there will be trumpets,” I said. “Baine’s busy with Count de Vecchio’s luggage, and I don’t want to bother him. I need two lengths of wire about a foot and a half long.”

“I can be giving you a piece of twine,” she said. “Will that do?”

“No,” I said, wishing I had simply told Baine to steal some out of Madame Iritosky’s trunk. “It has to be wire.”

She opened a drawer and began rummaging through it. “I’ve got the second sight, you know. Me mother had it, too.”

“Umm,” I said, looking into the drawer at a great assortment of unidentifiable utensils. But no wire.

“When Sean got his collar broke that time, I sorr it all in a dream. I get a funny feeling in the pit of me stomach whenever anything bad’s goin’ to happen.”

Like this séance? I thought.

“Last night I dreamed I sorr a great ship. Mark my words, I told Cook this morning, somebody in this house will be going on a journey. And then this afternoon if this madam person didn’t show up, and they’d come by train! Do you think they’ll be having a manifestation tonight?”

I sincerely hope not, I thought, though there was no telling with Verity. “What exactly do you have planned?” I asked her when she got back just before dinner. “You’re not going to dress up in veils or anything, are you?”

“No,” she whispered, sounding regretful. We were standing outside the French doors to the parlor, waiting to go into dinner. On the sofa, Mrs. Mering was rehashing the sounds of Cyril’s nocturnal breathings with Tossie—“The cry of a soul in hideous torment!”—and Professor Peddick and the Colonel were holding Terence captive with fishing stories in the corner by the hearth, so we had to talk softly. Neither Madame Iritosky nor the Count were down yet and were presumably still “resting.” I hoped they hadn’t caught Baine red-handed.

“I think the best thing to do is to keep it simple,” Verity said. “Did you get the wires?”

“Yes,” I said, taking them out of my jacket. “After an hour and a half of Jane’s second-sight experiences. What are they for?”

“The table-tipping,” she said, moving slightly so we couldn’t be seen from inside. “Bend a hook in one end of each of them,” she said, “and then, before the séance, put one wire up each sleeve. When the lights go out, you pull them down till they extend past your wrists and hook them under the edge of the table. That way you can lift the table and still be holding on to your partners’ hands.”

“Lift the table?” I said, putting them back inside my jacket. “What table? That massive rosewood thing in the parlor? No wire’s going to lift that thing.”

“Yes, it will,” she said. “It works on a principle of leverage.”

“How do you know?”

“I read it in a mystery novel.”

Of course. “What if someone catches me in the act?”

“They won’t. It’ll be dark.”

“What if someone says they want the lights on?”

“Light prevents the spirit forms from materializing.”

“Convenient,” I said.

“Extremely. They can’t appear if there’s an unbeliever present either. Or if anyone tries to interfere with the medium or with anyone in the circle. So no one will catch you when you lift the table.”

“If I can tip it. That table weighs a ton.”

“Miss Climpson did it. In Strong Poison. She had to. Lord Peter was running out of time. And so are we.”

“You talked to Finch?” I said.

“Yes. Finally. I had to walk all the way over to Bakers’ farm, where he’d gone to buy asparagus. What is he up to?”

“And the figure was definitely a five?”

“It wasn’t a figure. It was written out. And there’s no other number with two ‘f’s and two ‘e’s. It was definitely the fifteenth of June.”

“The fifteenth of June,” Professor Peddick said from the hearth. “The eve of the Battle of Quatre Bras and the fateful mistakes that led to the disaster of Waterloo. It was on that day that Napoleon made the error of trusting the taking of Quatre Bras to General Ney. A fateful day.”

“It’ll be a fateful day, all right, if we don’t get Tossie up to Coventry,” Verity murmured. “Here’s what we’ll do. You’ll tip the table once or twice, then Madame Iritosky will ask if there’s a spirit present, and I’ll rap once for yes. And then she’ll ask me if I have a message for someone, and I’ll spell it out.”

“Spell it out?”

“With raps. The medium recites the alphabet and the spirit raps on the letter.”

“It sounds rather time-consuming,” I said. “I thought on the Other Side they knew everything. You’d think they could come up with a more efficient means of communication.”

“They did, the Ouija board, but it wasn’t invented till 1891, so we’ll just have to make do.”

“How are you doing the raps?”

“I’ve got half of the sugared-violets box sewn to one garter and the other half to the other. When I hit my knees together, it makes a very nice, hollow sort of rap. I tried it upstairs in my room.

“How do you keep from rapping when you don’t want to?” I said, looking down at her skirts. “In the middle of dinner, for instance.”

“I’ve got one garter pulled higher than the other. I’ll pull it down till they’re at the same spot after we’ve sat down at the séance table. What I need you to do is keep Madame Iritosky from rapping.”

“Has she got a sugared-violets box, too?”

“No. She does it with her feet. She cracks her toes like the Fox sisters. If you keep your leg pressed against hers so you can feel any movement, I don’t think she’ll try rapping herself, at least till after I’ve rapped out, ‘Go to Coventry.’ ”

“Are you certain this will work?”

“It worked for Miss Climpson,” she said. “Besides, it must have worked. You heard Finch. Tossie’s diary says she went to Coventry on the fifteenth, so she must have gone. So we must have convinced her to go. So the séance must have been successful.”

“That makes no sense,” I said.

“This is the Victorian era,” she said. “Women didn’t have to make sense. She hooked her arm through mine. “Here are Madame Iritosky and the Count. Shall we go in to dinner?”

We went into dinner, which consisted of grilled sole, roast rack of lamb, and second-guessing Napoleon.

“Should never have stayed the night at Fleurus,” Colonel Mering said. “If he had gone on to Quatre Bras, the battle would have taken place twenty-four hours earlier, and Wellington and Blücher would never have joined forces.”

“Balderdash!” Professor Peddick said. “He should have waited for the ground to dry after the rainstorm. He should never have pressed forward in the mud.”

It seemed grossly unfair. They had, after all, the advantage of knowing how things had turned out, while all Napoleon and Verity and I had to go on were a handful of battlefield communiqués and a date in a waterlogged diary.

“Rubbish!” Colonel Mering said. “Should have attacked earlier in the day and taken Ligny. Never would have been a battle of Waterloo if he’d done that.”

“You must have seen a great many battles while you were out in India, Colonel,” Madame Iritosky said. “And any number of fabulous treasures. Did you bring any of them home? A Rajah’s emeralds, perhaps? Or a forbidden moonstone from the eye of an idol?”

“What?” Colonel Mering sputtered through his mustache. “Moonstone? Idol?”

“Yes, you know, Papa,” Tossie said. “The Moonstone. It’s a novel.”

“Pah! Never heard of it,” he muttered.

“By Wilkie Collins,” Tossie persisted. “The moonstone was stolen, and there’s a detective and quicksand and the hero did it, only he’d taken it without knowing it. You must read it.”

“No point in it now that you’ve told me the ending,” Colonel Mering said. “And no such thing as jeweled idols.”

“But Mesiel brought me a lovely necklace of rubies,” Mrs. Mering said, “from Benares.”

“Rubies!” Madame Iritosky said, shooting a glance at Count de Vecchio. “Really!”

“What use can the signora have for rubies,” Count de Vecchio said, “when she has such a jewel as her daughter? She ees like a diamond. No, like a zaffiro perfetto, how do you say, a flawless sapphire.”

I looked at Baine, who was serving soup grimly.

“Madame Iritosky once contacted the spirit of a Rajah,” Mrs. Mering said. “Do you think there will be manifestations at our séance tonight, Madame Iritosky?”

“Tonight?” Madame Iritosky said, alarmed. “No, no, there can be no séance tonight. Or tomorrow. These things must not be done in haste. I must have time to prepare myself spiritually.”

And unpack your trumpets, I thought. I looked over at Verity, expecting an expression as grim as Baine’s, but she was calmly eating her soup.

“And manifestations may not be possible here,” Madame Iritosky went on. “Visible phenomena only occur near what we call portals, links between our world and the world beyond—”

“But there is a portal here,” Mrs. Mering cut in. “I’m sure of it. I have seen spirits in the house and on the grounds. I’m certain if you will grant us a séance tonight, we shall have a manifestation.”

“We mustn’t overtire Madame Iritosky,” Verity said. “She is quite right. Railway journeys are fatiguing, and we must not ask her to tax her wonderful psychic powers too far. We shall have to have tonight’s séance without her.”

“Without me?” Madame Iritosky said icily.

“We would not dream of taxing your spiritual powers for a poor, homely affair like ours. When you have recovered your strength, we will have a true séance.”

Madame Iritosky opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again, looking exactly like Colonel Mering’s globe-eyed ryunkin.

“Fish?” Baine said, bending over her with the platter of sole.

Round One to our side. Now, if only the séance would go as well.

The Reverend Mr. Arbitage arrived at nine, I took the opportunity of the subsequent introductions to put the wires up my sleeves, and we all (except for Madame Iritosky, who had excused herself rather huffily and gone upstairs, and Colonel Mering, who had muttered, “Twaddle!” and gone off to the library to read his paper) trooped into the parlor and sat down around the rosewood table which there was no way on earth I was going to be able to lift, leverage or no leverage.

Verity motioned me to sit down next to her. I did and immediately felt a weight on my lap.

“What’s that?” I whispered under cover of Terence, the Count, and the Reverend Mr. Arbitage all jockeying for position next to Tossie.

“Princess Arjumand’s basket,” Verity whispered back. “Open it when I give you the signal.”

“What signal?” I said, and felt a sharp kick on my shin.

The Count and the Reverend Mr. Arbitage won the battle, and Terence was left with Mr. Arbitage and Mrs. Mering. Professor Peddick sat down next to me. Napoleon was interested in spiritism,” he said. “He held a séance in the Great Pyramid of Giza.”

“We must join hands,” the Count said to Tossie, taking her hand in his. “Like this. . . .”

“Yes, yes, we must all join hands,” Mrs. Mering said. “Why, Madame Iritosky!”

Madame Iritosky was standing in the doorway, draped in a flowing purple robe with wide sleeves. “I have been summoned by the spirits to serve as your guide this evening in the parting of the veil.” She touched the back of her hand to her forehead. “It is my duty, no matter what the cost to me.”

“How wonderful!” Mrs. Mering said. “Do come sit down. Baine, pull up a chair for Madame Iritosky.”

“No, no,” Madame Iritosky said, indicating Professor Peddick’s chair. “It is here that the teleplasmic vibrations converge.” Professor Peddick obligingly changed chairs.

At least she hadn’t sat down next to Verity, but she was next to Count de Vecchio, which meant she’d have one hand free. And next to me, which meant I was going to have an even harder time lifting tables.

“There is too much light,” she said. “There must be dark—” She looked round the parlor. “Where is my cabinet?”

“Yes, Baine,” Mrs. Mering said. “I told you to put it in here.”

“Yes, madam,” he said, bowing. “One of the doors was broken, so that it would not lock properly, and I removed it to the kitchen for repairs. I have repaired it. Would you like me to bring it in now?”

“No!” Madame Iritosky said. “That will not be necessary.”

“As you wish,” Baine said.

“I feel that there will not be manifestations tonight,” she said. “The spirits wish to speak to us only. Join hands,” she ordered, draping her voluminous purple sleeves over the table.

I grabbed her right hand and grasped it firmly.

“No!” she said, wrenching it away. “Lightly.”

“So sorry,” I said. “I’m new at this sort of thing.”

She laid her hand back in mine. “Baine, turn down the lights,” she said. “The spirits can only come to us in candlelight. Bring a candle. Here.” She indicated a flower-stand near her elbow.

Baine lit the candle and turned the lights down.

“Do not turn the lights up on any account,” she ordered. “Or attempt to touch the spirits or the medium. It could be dangerous.”

Tossie giggled, and Madame Iritosky began to cough. Her hand let go of mine. I took the opportunity to extend the wires from my wrists and hook them under the table.

“I beg your pardon. My throat,” Madame Iritosky said, and slipped her hand in mine again. And if Baine had turned up the lights, it would have been dangerous, all right. I would have bet anything it would have revealed Count de Vecchio’s hand in mine. Not to mention my own hanky-panky.

There was a faint rustling on my right. Verity, moving her garter into position.

“I’ve never been at a séance before,” I said loudly to cover it. “We shan’t hear bad news, shall we?”

“The spirits speak as they will,” Madame Iritosky said.

“Isn’t this exciting?” Mrs. Mering said.

“Silence,” Madame Iritosky said in a sepulchral tone. “Spirits, we call you from the Other Side. Come to us and tell us of our fate.”

The candle blew out.

Mrs. Mering screamed.

“Silence,” Madame Iritosky said. “They are coming.”

There was a long pause during which several people coughed, and then Verity kicked me on the shin. I let go of her hand and reached onto my lap, and lifted the lid off the basket.

“I felt something,” Verity said, which wasn’t true, because Princess Arjumand was brushing against my legs.

“I felt it, too,” the Reverend Mr. Arbitage said after a moment. “It was like a cold wind.”

“Oh!” Tossie said. “I felt it just now.”

“Is there a spirit there?” Madame Iritosky said, and I leaned forward and lifted up with my wrists.

Amazingly, the table actually moved. Only a little, but enough to make Tossie and Mrs. Mering both give their little screamlets and Terence to exclaim, “I say!”

“If you are there, spirit,” Madame Iritosky said, sounding irritated, “speak to us. Rap once for yes, twice for no. Are you a friendly spirit?”

I held my breath.

Clack went the sugared-violets box, and restored my faith in mystery novels.

“Are you Gitcheewatha?” Madame Iritosky asked.

“That’s her spirit control,” Mrs. Mering explained. “He’s a Red Indian chief.”

Clack, clack.

“Are you the spirit that I saw the other night?” Mrs. Mering said.

Clack.

“I knew it,” Mrs. Mering said.

“Who are you?” Madame Iritosky said coldly.

There was a silence. “She wants us to use the alphabet,” Verity said, and even in the dark I could sense Madame Iritosky glaring at her.

“Do you wish to communicate by means of the alphabet?” Mrs. Mering said excitedly.

Clack. And then a second clack, a different sound, like someone cracking a knuckle.

“You don’t wish to communicate by alphabet?” Mrs. Mering said, confusedly.

Clack, and a sharp kick on the shins.

“She does,” I said hastily. “A B C—”

Clack.

“C,” Tossie said. “O, Madame Iritosky, you told me to beware of the sea.”

“What else?” Mrs. Mering said. “Do go on, Mr. Henry.”

Not while there was a foot loose in here. I slid forward in my chair, stretching my left leg till it touched Madame Iritosky’s skirt, and pressed my foot hard against hers. “ABCDEFGHIJK,” I said rapidly, my foot held tight against hers, “LMNO—”

Clack.

She pulled her leg back, and I wondered what would happen if I clamped my hand down hard on her knee.

It was too late. “ABCD—” Mrs. Mering said, and the rapping sounded again.

“C-O-D?” Mrs. Mering said.

“Cod,” Professor Peddick said. “Gadus callerias, of which the most interesting variety is the Welsh whiting.”

“ ‘Will you walk a little faster,’ ” Terence quoted, “ ‘said a whiting to a—’ ”

“Cod, coddle, cody,” the Reverend Mr. Arbitage said. “Are you the ghost of Buffalo Bill Cody?”

“No!” I shouted before anyone could rap an answer. “I know what it is. It’s not a C, it’s a G. C and G look nearly alike,” I said, hoping no one would notice the letters had been spoken, not written, and that they were nowhere near each other in the called-out alphabet. “G-O-D. She’s trying to spell ‘Godiva.’ Are you the spirit of Lady Godiva?”

A very decisive clack and we were, thankfully, back on track.

“Lady Godiva?” Mrs. Mering said uncertainly.

Tossie said, “Is she the one who rode a horse without any—?”

“Tocelyn!” Mrs. Mering said.

“Lady Godiva was a very holy woman,” Verity said. “She had only her people’s best interests at heart. Her message must be very urgent.”

“Yes,” I said, pressing hard against Madame Iritosky’s leg. “What are you trying to tell us, Lady Godiva? ABC—”

Clack.

I rattled through the alphabet again, determined not to leave any spaces this time for Madame Iritosky to insert a rap. “ABCDEFGHIJK—”

I made it as far as M. There was a sharp rap, like a very annoyed toe being cracked. I ignored it and pressed on to O, but to no avail.

“M,” Mrs. Mering said. “CM.”

“What sort of word begins with CM?” Terence said.

“Could she be saying ‘come’?” Tossie said.

“Yes, of course,” Mrs. Mering said. “But where does she wish us to come? ABC—” and Verity clacked on cue, but I didn’t see what good it was going to do us. We’d never make it to “O,” let alone “V.”

“A—” Mrs. Mering said.

I stamped down hard on Madame Iritosky’s foot, but it was too late. Rap. There was no mistaking the fury behind the rap this time. It sounded like she’d broken a toe.

“C-A—” Mrs. Mering said.

“Cat,” Madame Iritosky pronounced. “The spirit is trying to communicate news of Miss Mering’s cat.” Her voice abruptly changed. “I bring you word of Princess Arjumand,” she said in a low husky growl. “She is here with us on the Other Side—”

“Princess Arjumand? On the Other Side?” Tossie said. “But she can’t be! She—”

“Do not grieve that she has passed over. She is happy here.”

Princess Arjumand chose this moment to jump onto the table, scaring everyone and startling Tossie into a screamlet.

“O, Princess Arjumand!” Tossie said happily. “I knew you hadn’t passed over. Why did the spirit say she had, Madame Iritosky?”

I didn’t wait for her to come up with an answer. “The message was not ‘cat.’ C-A—What are you trying to say to us, spirit?” and rattled off the alphabet as fast as I could. “ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUV—”

Verity clacked, and Tossie said, “C-A-V? What does that spell? ‘Cave’? She wishes us to come to a cave?”

“Cahv?” I said helpfully. “Cuhv?”

“Coventry,” Mrs. Mering said, and I could have kissed her. “Spirit, do you wish us to come to Coventry?”

A fervent clack.

“Where in Coventry?” I said, put my full weight on Madame Iritosky’s shoe, and started through the alphabet at a gallop.

Verity wisely decided not to try for “Saint.” She clacked on M, I, and C, and, not sure how long I was going to be able to hold Madame Iritosky down, I said, “St. Michael’s,” got a clack of confirmation, asked, “Do you wish us to come to St. Michael’s Church?” Another clack, and I withdrew my feet.

“St. Michael’s Church,” Mrs. Mering said. “Oh, Madame Iritosky, we must go first thing tomorrow morning—”

“Silence,” Madame Iritosky said, “I sense a malicious spirit here,” and I groped wildly for her foot with mine.

“Are you a wicked spirit?” she said.

Rap.

I waited for Verity to clack a second time, but there was nothing but a frantic rustling. She must have moved the sugared-violets box back up above her knee.

“Are you being controlled by an unbeliever?” Madame Iritosky asked.

Rap.

“Baine, bring up the lights,” Madame Iritosky said commandingly. “There is someone rapping here who is not a spirit.”

And I was going to be caught with wires sticking out of my wrists. I tried to pull my hand out of Madame Iritosky’s (or the Count’s), but whoever it was had an iron grip.

“Baine! The lights!” Madame Iritosky ordered. She struck a match and lit the candle.

There was a gust of air from the French doors, and the candle blew out. Tossie screamed, and even Terence gasped. Everyone looked toward the billowing curtains. There was a sound, like a low moan, and something luminous appeared beyond the curtains.

“My God!” the Reverend Mr. Arbitage said.

“A manifestation,” Mrs. Mering breathed.

The shape floated slowly toward the open French doors, canting slightly to port and glowing with a ghastly greenish light.

The hand holding mine relaxed, and I shoved the wires up my sleeves all the way to my elbows. Next to me, I could feel Verity pulling up her skirts and then reaching over and jamming the sugared-violets box down the side of my right boot.

“Count de Vecchio, go turn up the lights!” Madame Iritosky said.

“Una fantasma!” the Count exclaimed and crossed himself.

Verity straightened and took my hand. “O manifestation, are you the spirit of Lady Godiva?”

“Count de Vecchio,” Madame Iritosky said, “I command you to turn up the gas!”

The shape reached the French doors and then seemed to rise and take shape as a face. A veiled face with large dark eyes. And a mashed nose. And jowls.

Verity’s hand, holding mine, gave a little spasm. “O spirit,” she said, her voice controlled, “do you wish us to come to Coventry?”

The shape drifted slowly back from the door, and then turned and vanished, as if a black cloth had been thrown over it. The French doors slammed shut.

“It bids us go to Coventry,” I said. “We cannot ignore the spirit’s summons.

“Did you see that?” Count de Vecchio said. “It was horrible, horrible!”

“I have seen a seraphim in the flesh,” the Reverend Mr. Arbitage said rapturously.

The lights came up, revealing Baine standing calmly by the lamp on the marble-topped table, adjusting the flame.

“O, Madame Iritosky!” Mrs. Mering said, collapsing onto the carpet, “I have seen the face of my own dear mother!”

“In all my experience . . . I have never met with such a thing as a trifle yet.”

The Moonstone

Wilkie Collins

C H A P T E R  E I G H T E E N

A Good Night’s Sleep—An Alias—Sudden Departure—More Aliases—Madame Iritosky’s Future Predicted—The Mystery of the Penwiper Solved—The Bishop’s Bird Stump as Murder Weapon—A Robbery—The Mystery of the Rubies Solved—The Mystery of the Diary Solved—An Extended Departure—On the Train to Coventry—A Setback

It took the better part of an hour and a bottle of benzene to get the Balmain’s Luminous Paint off Cyril, with Princess Arjumand assisting, and the fumes must have got to us, because the next thing I knew, Baine was shaking me and saying, “Sorry to wake you, sir, but it’s past six, and Colonel Mering asked me to wake him and Professor Peddick at seven.”

“Umm,” I said, trying to come awake. Cyril burrowed deeper into the covers.

“Jimmy Slumkin, sir,” Baine said, pouring hot water into the washbowl.

“What?”

“The true name of the Count. Jimmy Slumkin. It was on his passport.”

Slumkin. Well, so much for the Count as the mysterious Mr. C, which was probably just as well, but I wished we had at least one suspect. Verity’s Lord Peter’s and Monsieur Poirot’s problem was always that they had too many suspects. I had never heard of a mystery where the detective didn’t have any.

I sat up and put my feet over the bed. “With an ‘S’ or a ‘C’?”

Baine stopped setting the straight razors out and turned to look curiously at me. “I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Slumkin. Is it spelled with an ‘S’ or a ‘C’?”

“An ‘S,’ ” he said. “Why, sir?”

“Madame Iritosky told Miss Mering she would marry someone whose name began with a ‘C,’ ” I said, stretching the truth a bit.

He turned back to his razors. “Really. Perhaps the ‘C’ stood for Count.”

“No,” I said, “she very definitely specified a Mr. C. You don’t know of any eligible gentlemen in the area whose names begin with ‘C,’ do you?”

“Gentlemen?” he said. “No, sir.”

I got shaved and dressed and then tried to get Cyril out of bed. “I am not going to carry you this time.”

“It’s rather cold and cloudy outside this morning,” Baine said, not helping matters. “You’d best wear a coat.”

“Cloudy?” I said, wrestling Cyril to the edge of the bed.

“Yes, sir,” Baine said. “It looks as though it might rain.”

Baine hadn’t exaggerated. It looked like it might pour at any minute, and it felt like I had just made a drop into the middle of December. Cyril took one sniff out the door and bolted halfway up the stairs before I was able to catch him and carry him down again. “It’s not that cold in the stable,” I told him, which was a flat lie. It was freezing, and dark. The groom must have overslept, too.

I groped for matches and a lamp, and lit it. “Hullo,” Verity said. She was sitting on a stack of hay bales, swinging her legs. “Where have you been?”

“What are you doing out here?”

“Madame Iritosky and the Count left at four. They bribed the groom to take them to the station.”

Cyril, who claims he cannot make it up the height of a single stair tread without assistance, made a flying leap onto the hay bales and into Verity’s lap.

“Hullo, Cyril,” Verity said. “I thought perhaps you were right about Count de Vecchio being Mr. C, so I followed them out to make certain he didn’t carry Tossie off with him.”

“He’s not Mr. C,” I said. “He’s Jimmy Slumkin.”

“I know,” she said, scratching Cyril behind the ears. “Also known as Tom Higgins, Comte de Fanaud, and Bob ‘the Weasel’ Wexford. I went through after they left and checked Scotland Yard’s archives. I also know why they were here.”

“To case the joint?”

“Probably,” she said. Cyril turned on his side, sighing. Verity stroked his stomach. “It seems that night before last Madame Iritosky gave a special séance for the Psychic Research Society so they could test her authenticity. They bound her hands and feet and locked her in her cabinet, after which the spirit of Cleopatra appeared, played a tambourine, and danced around the table, touching the participants and telling them to beware the sea.”

She grinned at me. “Unfortunately, one of the Psychic Research Society members was so overcome by Cleopatra’s charms that, in spite of Madame Iritosky’s warnings, he grabbed her wrist and attempted to pull her onto his lap.”

“And then what?”

“The spirit yanked his hair and bit him. He yelped, and at that point another Psychic Research Society member turned up the lights, unlocked the cabinet—”

“Which was, oddly enough, empty.”

“And tore the veils off Cleopatra, who turned out to be Madame Iritosky. Three days later she and her accomplice sailed for France, where she was exposed by Richet, who believed in everybody, and after that for Calcutta, where she learned a new set of tricks from an Indian fakir. In 1922, she went to America, just in time to be exposed as a fraud by Houdini, and thence back to Oxford, where Arthur Conan Doyle pronounced her ‘the greatest medium I have ever seen. There can be no doubt of the truth of her mediumistic talents.’ ”

She looked fondly at Cyril. “When we’ve got Tossie safely connected to Mr. C,” she said, scratching behind his ears, “I think I’ll take you back with me.”

She looked up at me impishly. “I’m kidding,” she said. “I’ve sworn off incongruities. I would like to have a bulldog, though.”

“Me, too,” I said.

She ducked her head. “They haven’t got Carruthers out yet,” she said. “The net still won’t open. Warder thinks perhaps it’s a temporary blockage. She’s switched to an accelerated four-hour intermittent to try and get past it.”

“Has T.J. solved the mystery of why the incongruity was able to get past the net’s defenses?” I asked.

“No. He’s figured out why Napoleon lost the battle of Waterloo, though.” She grinned, and then said more seriously, “And he was finally able to generate an incongruity.”

“An incongruity?” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It was only a simulated incongruity. And it’s not the right sort. It occurred as part of a self-correction. It was one of those sims where he had an historian kill Wellington. When he introduced a second historian into the sim, the historian was able to steal the rifle that the first historian was going to shoot Wellington with and bring it forward through the net, so that it prevented an incongruity rather than causing one. But he said to tell you that at least it proves bringing something forward through the net is theoretically possible, even if it didn’t apply to our case.”

Theoretically possible. It still didn’t solve the problem of getting the net open to get the first historian through to kill Wellington in the first place.

“Anything else?” I asked.

“No. He and Mr. Dunworthy were happy that we’d managed to persuade Tossie to go to Coventry. They both think the fact that they haven’t been able to find any increased slippage around the original drop means the incongruity was short-term and that all it needs to correct itself is for us to get her to St. Michael’s on time.”

She ducked her head again. “And, if it does, we’ll be done here and have to go face Lady Schrapnell. And I promised I’d help you find the bishop’s bird stump. So I decided to wait for you.”

She shifted Cyril off her lap and pulled a pen, a bottle of ink, and some sheets of paper out of her pocket and set them on the hay.

“What’s all that for?” I asked.

“For making a list of all the possibilities of what might have happened to the bishop’s bird stump. Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane made a list in Have His Carcase.”

“There’s no such thing as listing all the possibilities,” I said. “The continuum’s a chaotic system, remember?”

She ignored me. “In an Agatha Christie mystery, there’s always one possibility you haven’t considered, and that’s the solution to the mystery. All right,” she said, dipping her pen in the ink. “One, the bishop’s bird stump was in the cathedral during the raid and was destroyed in the fire. Two, it was in the cathedral, survived the fire, and was found in the rubble. Three,” she said, writing busily, “it was rescued during the raid.”

I shook my head. “The only things saved were a flag, two sets of candlesticks, a wooden crucifix, and the altar books. There’s a list.”

“We are writing down all the possibilities,” she said. “Later, we’ll eliminate the ones that are impossible.”

Which so far was all three.

“Four,” she said, “it survived the raid, even though it didn’t make the list for some reason, and it’s stored somewhere.”

“No,” I said. “Mrs. Bittner went through all the things in the cathedral when they sold it, and it wasn’t there.”

“Lord Peter didn’t keep contradicting Harriet when she was making a list,” she said. “Five, it wasn’t in the church during the raid. It was removed sometime between the tenth and the fourteenth of November.”

“Why?” I said.

“For safekeeping. With the east windows.”

I shook my head. “I went to Lucy Hampton rectory to see. The only things they had of Coventry’s were the windows.”

“Oh. Well, what if some member of the congregation took the bishop’s bird stump home for safekeeping? Or to polish it or something, so that it just happened to be out of the cathedral that night?”

“If that happened, why didn’t the person bring it back?”

“I don’t know,” she said, biting her lip. “Perhaps he was killed during the raid, by a high-explosive bomb, and whoever inherited it didn’t know it belonged to the cathedral.”

“Or he could have thought to himself, ‘I can’t do this to the people of Coventry. They’re already going to have to suffer the loss of their cathedral. I can’t inflict the bishop’s bird stump on them as well.’ ”

“Be serious,” she said. “What if he didn’t bring it back because it was destroyed in the raid, by a bomb or something.”

I shook my head. “Even a high-explosive bomb couldn’t destroy the bishop’s bird stump.”

She flung the pen down. “I am so glad we’re going to Coventry today so I can actually see the bishop’s bird stump. It cannot possibly be as bad as you say.”

She looked thoughtful. “What if the bishop’s bird stump was involved in a crime? It was used as a murder weapon, and it got blood on it, so they stole it to keep anyone from finding out about the murder.”

“You have been reading too many murder mysteries,” I said.

She dipped her pen in the ink again. “What if it was stored in the cathedral, but inside something else, like Poe’s ‘The Purloined Letter’?” She started to write and then stopped and frowned at the pen. She pulled an orange dahlia penwiper out of her pocket.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“Wiping my pen,” she said. She stuck the pen into the dahlia and wiped it off between the layers of cloth.

“It’s a penwiper,” I said. “A pen wiper! It’s used to wipe pens!”

“Yes,” she said, looking at me dubiously. “There was ink on the point. It would have blotted the paper.”

“Of course! So you wipe it on a penwiper!”

“How many drops have you had, Ned?” she said.

“You’re a wonderful girl, you know that?” I said, grabbing her by the shoulders. “You’ve solved a mystery that’s been plaguing me since 1940. I could kiss—”

There was a bloodcurdling scream from the direction of the house, and Cyril buried his face in his paws.

“What now?” Verity said, looking disappointed.

I let go of her shoulders. “The daily swoon?”

She stood up and began brushing straw off her skirts. “This had better not be anything that keeps us from going to Coventry,” she said. “You go first. I’ll come in through the kitchen.”

“Mesiel!” Mrs. Mering shrieked. “O, Mesiel!”

I took off for the house, expecting to find Mrs. Mering laid out among the bric-a-brac, but she wasn’t. She was standing halfway down the stairs in her wrapper, clutching the railing. Her hair was in two operatic braids, and she was waving an empty velvet-lined box.

“My rubies!” she was wailing to the Colonel, who had apparently just come out of the breakfast room. He still had his napkin in his hand. “They’ve been stolen!”

“I knew it!” the Colonel, shocked into using a subject, said. “Should never have allowed that medium person in the house!” He threw down the napkin. “Thieves!”

“O, Mesiel,” Mrs. Mering said, pressing the jewel case to her bosom, “surely you don’t think Madame Iritosky had anything to do with this!”

Tossie appeared. “What’s happened, Mama?”

“Tocelyn, go and see whether any of your jewelry is missing!”

“My diary!” Tossie cried and scampered off, nearly colliding with Verity, who must have come up the back stairs.

“What is it?” Verity said. “What’s happened?”

“Robbed!” the Colonel said succinctly. “Tell Madame Whatever-Her-Name-Is and that Count person to come down immediately!”

“They’ve gone,” Verity said.

“Gone?” Mrs. Mering gasped, and I thought she was going to pitch over the stairs.

I raced up and Verity hurried down, and we supported Mrs. Mering down the steps and into the parlor. We deposited her, sobbing, on the horsehair sofa.

Tossie appeared breathlessly at the top of the stairs. “O, Mama, my garnet necklace is missing!” she cried, pattering down the stairs, “and my pearls, and my amethyst ring!” But instead of running into the parlor, she disappeared down the corridor and reappeared a moment later, carrying her diary. “Thank goodness I hid my diary in the library, in amongst all the other books where no one would notice it!”

Verity and I looked at each other.

“Knew all this table-tipping nonsense would come to no good,” Colonel Mering said. “Where’s Baine? Ring for him!”

Verity started for the bellpull, but Baine was already there, carrying a chipped pottery jug.

“Put that down,” Colonel Mering ordered, “and go fetch the constable. Mrs. Mering’s necklace is missing.”

“And my amethyst ring,” Tossie said.

“I removed Mrs. Mering’s rubies and the other pieces of jewelry last night for cleaning,” Baine said. “I had noticed when the ladies wore them last, they seemed somewhat dimmed.” He reached in the jug. “I left them to soak overnight in a solution of vinegar and baking soda. He pulled out the ruby necklace and handed it to Colonel Mering. “I was just returning the things to their cases. I would have mentioned it to Mrs. Mering, but she was busy with her guests.”

“I knew it!” Mrs. Mering said from the sofa. “Mesiel, how could you have suspected dear Madame Iritosky?”

“Baine, check on the silver,” Colonel Mering said. “And the Rubens.”

“Yes, sir,” Baine said. “What time would you like the carriages brought round?”

“Carriages? What for?” the Colonel said.

“To take us to Coventry,” Tossie said. “We are going to St. Michael’s Church.”

“Pah!” Colonel Mering said. “No business going anywhere. Thieves in the neighborhood! No telling when they might come back!”

“But we have to go,” Verity said.

“The spirits summoned us,” Tossie said.

“Stuff and nonsense!” Colonel Mering sputtered. “Probably concocted the whole thing to get us all out of the house so they could come back and steal our valuables!”

“Concocted!” Mrs. Mering said, rising up majestically from the sofa. “Are you implying the spirit message we received last night was not genuine?”

Colonel Mering ignored her. “We won’t need the carriages. And better make certain the horses are there. No telling what—” He looked suddenly stricken. “My Black Moor!”

I thought it unlikely that Madame Iritosky would steal the Colonel’s goldfish, even if she had been foiled in the matter of the rubies, but it seemed like a bad idea to tell the Colonel that. I stepped back to let him pass as he shot out the door.

Mrs. Mering sank back down on the sofa. “O, that your father would doubt Madame Iritosky’s genuineness! It is a mercy she’s gone and is not here to suffer such vile accusations!” She thought of something. “What reason did she give for their departure, Baine?”

“I was unaware of their departure until this morning,” Baine said. “It appears they left sometime during the night. I was extremely surprised. I had told Madame Iritosky that I felt certain you would write the Psychic Research Society this morning and ask them to come witness the manifestation, and I supposed of course that she would have stayed for that, but perhaps she had urgent business elsewhere.

“No doubt,” Mrs. Mering said. “The spirits’ summons may not be denied. But the Psychic Research Society here! How thrilling that would have been!”

The Colonel came back in, carrying Princess Arjumand under his arm and looking grim.

“Is your Black Moor safe, sir?” I asked anxiously.

“For the moment,” he said, dumping the cat on the floor.

Tossie scooped her up.

“No coincidence that they arrived when they did, on the day before my red-spotted silver tancho was to arrive,” the Colonel said. “Baine! Want you to stand guard over the fishpond all day. No telling when they might come back!”

“Baine is going with me,” Mrs. Mering said, rising from the sofa, looking like a Valkyrie with her braids and the light of battle in her eyes. “And we are going to Coventry.”

“Balderdash! Not going anywhere. Intend to stay here and defend the battlements!”

“Then we shall go without you,” she said. “The spirits’ summons cannot be denied. Baine, when is the next train to Coventry?”

“Nine-oh-four, madam,” Baine said promptly.

“Excellent,” she said, turning her back on the Colonel. “Bring the carriage round at a quarter past eight. We shall leave for the station at half-past.”

He did, but we didn’t. Or at half-past nine. Or ten. Luckily, there were trains at 9:49, 10:17, and 11:05, which Baine, the walking Bradshaw, rattled off each time we experienced a delay.

There were various delays. Mrs. Mering declared the drama of the morning had left her weak, and she could not go without a sustaining breakfast of blood sausage, kedgeree, and stuffed chicken livers. Tossie could not find her lavender gloves. Jane brought down the wrong shawl. “No, no, the cashmere is far too warm for June,” Mrs. Mering said. “The tartan shawl, the one from Dunfermline.”

“We’re going to miss Mr. C,” Verity said, standing waiting in the foyer while Mrs. Mering changed her hat again.

“No, we’re not,” I said. “We can leave in half an hour and still catch the 11:26, and the diary didn’t say anything about what time of day it happened. Relax.”

She nodded. “I’ve been thinking about the bishop’s bird stump,” she said. “What if someone hid something in it to keep someone else from stealing it? And they came back to take it out again, but there wasn’t time, so they just took the whole thing?” She looked up the stairs. “What can be taking them so long? It’s nearly eleven.”

Tossie came tripping down the stairs in her lavender gloves and a medley of lavender frills. She looked out the open door.

“It looks like it’s going to rain,” she said, frowning. “We shan’t be able to see any sights if it rains, Mama,” she said to Mrs. Mering, who was descending the stairs. “Perhaps we should wait till tomorrow.”

“No!” Verity said. “What if Lady Godiva has something urgent to tell us?”

“It does look like rain,” Mrs. Mering said. “Has Baine packed the umbrellas?”

“Yes,” I said. Also the guidebooks, the luncheon hamper, the smelling salts, a spirit lamp, Mrs. Mering’s embroidery, Tossie’s novel, Terence’s Tennyson, several issues of the psychic weekly magazine, The Light, and an assortment of lap robes and rugs, all of which Baine had managed to pack so well there was still room for us in the two carriages, though it was probably a good thing Professor Peddick had decided to stay with the Colonel.

“I wished to discuss several points regarding the Battle of Thermopylae with the Colonel,” he told Mrs. Mering.

“Well, don’t let him stay out if it rains,” she said, apparently softening a little toward her husband. “He’ll catch his death.”

Terence led Cyril over and hoisted him up onto the running board.

“Mr. St. Trewes,” Mrs. Mering said in Wagnerian tones, “you cannot possibly be thinking of taking that creature with you.”

Terence stopped in mid-hoist, Cyril’s hind legs dangling in the air. “Cyril’s a perfect gentleman on trains,” Terence said. “He’s been everywhere on them—London, Oxford, Sussex. He loves to look out the window, you know, at passing cats and things. And he always gets along famously with the railway guards.”

But not with Mrs. Mering.

“A railway carriage is no place for an animal,” she said.

“And I’m wearing my new travelling dress,” Tossie said, patting at the frills with a lavender glove.

“But he’ll be so disappointed,” Terence said, reluctantly lowering him to the ground.

“Nonsense!” Mrs. Mering said. “Dogs haven’t any feelings.”

“Never mind, Cyril,” Professor Peddick said. “You can come with me out to the fishpond. I’ve always been extremely fond of dogs. So has my niece, Maud. Feeds them from the table.” They walked off together.

“Do get in, Mr. St. Trewes,” Mrs. Mering said. “You will make us late for the train. Baine, did you pack my lorgnette?”

We finally left for the station at half-past ten. “Remember,” Verity said to me as I helped her into the carriage, “Tossie’s diary only says ‘the trip to Coventry.’ It doesn’t say which part of the trip. Mr. C could be someone at the station or on the train.”

We arrived at the station at 11:09. The train had already gone, which was probably just as well since it took us nearly ten minutes to get everyone and everything out of the carriages. By the time we got out onto the platform, there was no one there.

“I don’t see why the train couldn’t have waited!” Mrs. Mering said. “A few minutes either way surely wouldn’t make a difference. So inconsiderate!”

“I know it’s going to rain and ruin my travelling dress,” Tossie fretted, looking at the sky. “O, Terence, I do hope it doesn’t rain on our wedding day.”

“ ‘Ah festal day, so fair, so bright,’ ” Terence quoted, but absently, looking off toward Muchings End. “If it does rain, I hope Professor Peddick won’t leave Cyril outside.”

“I do hope they don’t decide to go fishing in this weather,” Mrs. Mering said, “what with Mesiel’s weak chest. He caught a dreadful chill last spring. He was in bed for two weeks, and such a frightening cough! The doctor said it was a miracle it didn’t go into pneumonia. Mr. Henry, do go and see if there’s any sign of the train.”

I walked down to the far end of the platform to check. When I came back, Verity was standing apart from the others. “I’ve been thinking about the bishop’s bird stump,” she said. “In The Moonstone, the jewel was taken by someone who didn’t know he’d stolen it. He was sleepwalking, and he put it in something, and then a second person stole it from him. What if the person who took it—?”

“Was sleepwalking?” I said. “In Coventry Cathedral?”

“No. Didn’t know they were committing a crime.”

“Exactly how many drops have you done in the past week?” I asked.

Baine reappeared, with a porter who was at least seventy years old, and they and the groom began transferring our luggage from the carriages to the edge of the platform. Verity looked speculatively at the porter.

“No,” I said. “She was married to him for over fifty years. That means he’d have to live to be a hundred and twenty.”

“Did you see any sign of the train, Mr. Henry?” Mrs. Mering called.

“No, I’m afraid not,” I said, walking over to her.

“Where can it be?” she said. “I hope its being late isn’t an omen. Mr. Henry, have the carriages gone?”

“We must go to Coventry today,” Verity said. “What would Madame Iritosky think of us if we ignored the spirits’ message?”

“She herself thought nothing of departing in the middle of the night in response to a message she received,” I said, wishing the bloody train would hurry up and come. “And I have no doubt the weather will be fine when we reach Coventry.”

“And there are such lovely things in Coventry,” Verity said and then obviously couldn’t think of any.

“Blue dye,” I said. “They are famous for their Coventry-blue dye. And ribbons.”

“I might buy some for my trousseau,” Tossie said.

“Professor Peddick tends to be absentminded,” Terence said wistfully. “He won’t go off and leave Cyril, do you think?”

“Azure ribbons, I think, for my going-away hat,” Tossie said. “Or baby blue, perhaps. What do you think, Mama?”

“Why can’t these trains arrive at the time listed on the schedule instead of making us wait for hours?” Mrs. Mering said.

And so on. The train arrived at exactly 11:32, pulling into the station with an impressive whoosh of steam, and Verity practically pushed everyone onto the train, keeping an anxious eye out for anyone who looked like he might be Mr. C.

Baine assisted Mrs. Mering up the steps and into our compartment and then ran back to supervise the porter in loading our belongings. Jane settled Mrs. Mering in her seat, gave her her lorgnette, her embroidery, found her handkerchief and her shawl, and then bobbed a curtsey and climbed down the steps.

“Where’s she going?” I said to Verity, watching Jane hurry down the platform to the rear of the train.

“To second-class,” she said. “Servants don’t travel with their employers.”

“How do they do without them?”

“They don’t,” she said, catching up her skirts and starting up the steps.

They certainly didn’t. Baine came back as soon as everything was aboard to bring Mrs. Mering a lap robe and ask if there was anything else she needed.

“A cushion,” she said. “These railway seats are so uncomfortable.”

“Yes, madam,” he said, and took off at a gallop. He returned in under a minute, disheveled and out of breath, with a brocade-covered cushion.

“The train from Reading is a corridor train, madam,” he panted, “but this one has only compartments. I will, however, attend you at each stop.”

“Were there no direct trains to Coventry?” she said.

“Yes, madam,” Baine said. “At 10:17. The train is about to leave, madam. Is there anything else?”

“Yes, the Baedeker. And a rug to put my feet on. The condition of these railway compartment floors is disgraceful.”

Mrs. Mering had obviously never been on the tube. It is a temporal universal that people never appreciate their own time, especially transportation. Twentieth-Century contemps complained about cancelled flights and gasoline prices, Eighteenth-Century contemps complained about muddy roads and highwaymen. No doubt Professor Peddick’s Greeks complained about recalcitrant horses and chariot wheels falling off.

I had ridden on trains before, in the 1940s, most recently to Hampton Lucy to see if the bishop’s bird stump was there with the east windows, but those trains had been packed with soldiers, the windows had been covered with blackout curtains, and all the fittings had been removed to make ammunition. And, even if it hadn’t been wartime, they had been nothing to this.

The high-backed seats were upholstered in green velveteen, and the walls above were panelled in polished mahogany inlaid with a pattern of flowers. There were rich green plush curtains hung at the windows, and gas lamps in brackets on both sides, covered with etched-glass lampshades, and the luggage rack overhead, the hand rails, the arm rests, the curtain rings, were all of polished brass.

Definitely not the tube. And, as the train lurched slowly forward (with Baine making a last flying run to deliver the Baedeker and the rug and another back to second-class) and then picked up speed through the beautiful, misty countryside, definitely nothing to complain about.

That did not stop Mrs. Mering from complaining about the soot blowing in the window (Terence closed the window), about the stuffiness of the compartment (Terence opened the window again and drew the curtains), about the dimness of the day, the roughness of the ride, the hardness of the cushion Baine had brought her.

She gave a little screamlet each time the train stopped, started, or went round a curve, and a large one when the railway guard came in to take our tickets. He was even older than the porter, but Verity leaned forward to look at his name badge and subsided pensively in her seat after he’d gone.

“What was the guard’s name?” I asked her when I helped her down at Reading Station, where we were to change trains.

“Edwards,” she said, looking around the platform. “Do you see anyone who looks like he’d be willing to marry Tossie?”

“What about Crippen over there?” I said, nodding my head toward a pale, timid-looking young man who kept looking down the track and sticking his finger nervously in his collar.

“None of Crippen’s wives managed to stay married to him for fifty years,” she said, watching a large and irritable man with sidewhiskers who kept bellowing, “Porter! Porter!” to no avail. The efficient Baine had commandeered all of them before the train even stopped and was directing the disposition of the Mering effects.

“What about him?” I said, pointing at a five-year-old boy in a sailor suit.

A young man in a boater and a mustache came bolting onto the platform and looked wildly around. Verity gripped my arm. He saw Tossie, standing with Mrs. Mering and Jane, and started toward her, smiling.

“Horace!” A girl waved from another group of three ladies, and Horace raced over to her and began apologizing profusely for being late to meet them.

I looked guiltily over at Terence, thinking about the fateful meeting I’d made him miss.

The young man left with the three ladies, the sidewhiskered man grabbed up his own bags and stormed off, which left Crippen, now warily eyeing a station guard.

But even if he or the young man with the boater had been suddenly smitten, Tossie wouldn’t have noticed them. She was too busy planning her wedding.

“I shall carry orange blossoms for my bouquet,” she said, “or white roses. Which do you think, Terence?”

“ ‘Two roses on one stem on one slender spray,’ ” Terence quoted, looking longingly at a woman carrying a terrier, “ ‘in sweet communion grew.’ ”

“O, but orange blossoms have such a sweet smell.”

“There are far too many trains,” Mrs. Mering said. “They cannot possibly need all these trains.

Baine finally got everything and everyone on the train and arranged in an even more opulent compartment, and we started for Coventry. After a few minutes, a guard, this one much younger and actually quite good-looking, came along the corridor and punched our tickets. Tossie, deep in planning her trousseau, didn’t so much as glance up, and what made us think that when we got to Coventry she would even notice Mr. C, engrossed as she was in her wedding plans with Terence? What made us think she would even notice the bishop’s bird stump?

She would. She had to. The trip to Coventry had changed her life and inspired her great-great-great-great-granddaughter to make ours miserable.

After a few miles, Baine arrived, spread white linen napkins on our laps, and served us a sumptuous luncheon, which cheered everyone considerably (except possibly Baine, who had made approximately two hundred trips between first and second class, bringing us cold roast beef and cucumber sandwiches and Mrs. Mering a fresh handkerchief, her other gloves, her sewing scissors, and, for no discernible reason, Bradshaw’s Railway Guide).

Terence looked out the window and announced it was clearing off, and then that he could see Coventry, and before Jane and Baine had time to gather up everything and fold up Mrs. Mering’s lap robe, we were standing on the platform in Coventry, waiting for Baine to unload our luggage and find us a carriage. It had not cleared off, nor did it look like it was going to. There was a fine mist in the air, and the city’s outline was blurred and gray.

Terence had thought of a poem suitable to the occasion and was declaiming it. “ ‘I waited for a train at Coventry,’ ” he quoted. “ ‘City of three spires . . .’ ” He stopped, looking puzzled. “I say, where are the three spires? I only see two.”

I looked where he was pointing. One, two, and a tall box-like structure stood out against the gray sky.

“St. Michael’s spire is being repaired,” Baine said, struggling under a load of rugs and shawls. “The porter informed me that the church is undergoing extensive restorations at the moment.”

“That explains why Lady Godiva spoke to us now,” Mrs. Mering said. “The spirits’ resting place must have been disturbed.”

The mist deteriorated into a drizzle, and Tossie gave a screamlet. “My travelling dress!” she cried.

Baine appeared, unfurling umbrellas. “I have obtained a closed carriage, madam,” he told Mrs. Mering, handing them to Terence and me to hold over the ladies.

Jane was put into a hack with the luncheon hamper and the rugs and shawls and told to meet us at the church, and we drove into town, the horses clattering along narrow brick-paved streets lined with old, half-timbered buildings that leaned out over the street. A Tudor inn with a painted sign hanging above the door, narrow brick shops selling ribbons and bicycles, narrower houses with mullioned windows and tall chimneys. The old Coventry. This would all be destroyed by fire along with the cathedral that November night in 1940, but it was hard to imagine it, clopping along the damp, placid streets.

The driver pulled the horses to a stop at the corner of St. Mary’s Street, the street Provost Howard and his little band had paraded down, carrying the candlesticks and crosses and the regimental flag they’d rescued from the burning cathedral.

“Cahnt gawna fur thuhsahth dawblottuff,” the driver said in an impenetrable dialect.

“He says he can’t take the carriage any farther,” Baine translated. “Apparently the route to the cathedral is blocked.”

I leaned forward. “Tell him to go back along this street to Little Park Street. That will take us to the west doors of the church.”

Baine told him. The driver shook his head and said something unrecognizable, but turned the horses around and started back up Earl Street.

“O, I can feel the spirits already,” Mrs. Mering said, clutching her bosom. “Something is about to happen. I know it.”

We turned up Little Park Street toward the cathedral. I could see the tower at the end of the street, and it was no wonder we hadn’t been able to see the third spire from the railway station. It was encased in wooden scaffolding from a third of the way up all the way to the top, and, except that it had gray cloth tarps draped across it instead of blue plastic, it looked the way it had looked last week when I’d seen it from Merton’s pedestrian gate. Lady Schrapnell was more authentic than she knew.

The piles of red sandstone blocks and heaps of sand in the churchyard looked the same, too, and I worried that the entire approach to the church might be blocked, but it wasn’t. The driver was able to pull the carriage up directly in front of the west doors. On them was a large, hand-lettered sign.

“Iffley’s churchwarden’s been here,” I said, and then saw what it said:

“Closed for repairs.

1 June to 31 July.”

“The heart is its own fate.”

Philip James Bailey

C H A P T E R  N I N E T E E N

A Fateful Day—Another Conversation with a Workman—I Sink to Promoting Jumble Sales—The Cathedral Ghost—A Tour—I Attempt to Find Out Two Workmen’s Names—The Bishop’s Bird Stump Is Found at Last—Tossie’s Reaction—The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots—Baine Expresses an Aesthetic Opinion—Tossie’s Reaction—The Albert Memorial, Beauties of—Penwipers—Prevalence of Flower Names in Victorian Times—A Premonition—I Attempt to Find Out the Curate’s Name—A Quarrel—An Abrupt Departure

“Closed!” Tossie said.

“Closed?” I said and looked over at Verity. The color had drained from her face.

“Closed,” Mrs. Mering said. “It’s just as Madame Iritosky said. ‘Beware,’ and the letter ‘C.’ She was trying to warn us.”

As if to prove her point, it began to drizzle.

“It can’t be closed,” Verity murmured, looking disbelievingly at the sign.

“How can it be closed?”

“Baine,” Mrs. Mering said. “What time is the next train?”

Don’t let Baine know, I thought. If he didn’t know the schedule, we had at least a quarter of an hour while he trotted back to the station to check and back, a quarter of an hour in which to think of something.

But this was Baine we were talking about, clearly the forerunner of Jeeves, and Jeeves had always known everything.

“2:08, madam,” he said. “It goes to Reading. Or there’s an express at 2:46 to Goring.”

“We shall take the 2:08,” Mrs. Mering said. “Goring is so common.”

“But what about Lady Godiva?” Verity said desperately. “She must have had a reason for wanting you to come to Coventry.”

“I am not at all convinced it was her spirit, particularly under the circumstances,” Mrs. Mering said. “I believe Madame Iritosky was right about there being mischievous spirits at work. Baine, tell the driver to take us to the station.”

“Wait!” I shouted, and jumped out of the carriage and squarely into a puddle. “I will be right back,” I said. “Stay there,” and took off along the tower wall.

“Where on earth is he going?” I heard Mrs. Mering say. “Baine, go and tell Mr. Henry to come back here immediately.”

I sprinted round the corner of the church, holding my coat collar together against the wet.

I remembered from the rubble and the reconstruction that there was a door on the south side of the cathedral and another on the north, and if necessary I’d bang on the vestry door till someone answered.

But it wasn’t necessary. The south door was open, and a workman was standing in it, under the porch just out of the rain, arguing with a young man in a clerical collar.

“You promised the clerestory would be completed by the twenty-second and here it is the fifteenth and you’ve not even begun the varnishing of the new pews,” the curate, who was pale and rather pop-eyed, though that might have been from the workman, was saying.

The workman looked as though he had heard all this before and would hear it again. “We carn’t start the varnishin, guv, till they’re done in the clerestory ‘cuz o’ the dust.”

“Well, then, complete the work in the clerestory.”

He shook his head. “Carn’t. Bill as wuz puttin’ the steel girders in the beams is ‘ome sick.”

“Well, when will he be back? The work must be completed by next Saturday. That’s the date of our church bazaar.”

The workman gave him the identical shrug I had seen an electrician give Lady Schrapnell three weeks ago, and it occurred to me it was a pity she wasn’t here. She’d have cuffed him smartly on the ear, and the work would have been done by Friday. Or Thursday.

“Cud be tomorra, cud be next month. Don’t see wot you need new pews for anyways. I liked the aud box pews.”

“You are not a member of the clergy,” the curate said, getting more pop-eyed, “or an expert on modern church architecture. Next month is not good enough. The renovations must be completed by the twenty-second.”

The workman spit on the damp porch and sauntered back into the church.

“Pardon me,” I said, running up to the curate before he could disappear, too. “I wondered if we might tour the church.”

“Oh, no!” the curate said, looking wildly round like a housewife surprised by unexpected guests. “We’re in the midst of major renovations to the clerestory and the bell tower. The church is officially closed until the thirty-first of July, at which time the vicar would be delighted to conduct you on a tour.”

“That’s too late,” I said. “And it’s the renovations we’ve come to see. The church at Muchings End is badly in need of them. The altar’s positively mediaeval.”

“Oh, but,” he said reluctantly, “the thing is, we’re trying to prepare for the church bazaar, and—”

“Church bazaar!” I said. “What a wonderful coincidence! Mrs. Mering has just put on a bazaar at Muchings End.”

“Mrs. Mering?” the curate said, looking back at the door as if he’d like to escape through it. “Oh, but the church is in no fit condition for ladies. You wouldn’t be able to see the choir or the altar. There’s sawdust everywhere, and workmen’s tools.”

“The ladies won’t mind,” I said, putting myself firmly between him and the door. “Sawdust is exactly what they’ve come to see.”

Baine came running up with an umbrella, which he handed to me. I handed it back. “Go and bring the carriage round,” I said to him. “Tell Mrs. Mering we can tour the church.”

Which just goes to show you that hanging round Lady Schrapnell and her ancestors can teach you a thing or two about getting things done.

“Hurry!” I said to Baine, and he sprinted off through the drizzle, which was rapidly turning into rain.

“I really do not think a tour at this time is advisable,” the curate said. “The workmen are installing a new choir railing, and I have an appointment to meet with Miss Sharpe regarding the fancywork table.”

“You’ll be having a jumble sale, of course,” I said.

“A jumble sale?” the curate said uncertainly.

“It’s the latest thing in bazaars. Ah, here they are.” I bounded down the steps as the carriage pulled up, snatched Verity’s hand, and pulled her out of the carriage. “What good luck! St. Michael’s is open after all, and the curate’s offered to give us a tour of the church. Quick,” I muttered under my breath. “Before he changes his mind.”

Verity tripped lightly up to the curate, smiled brightly at him, and peered in through the door. “Oh, do come look at this, Tossie,” she said, and ducked inside.

Terence helped Tossie out and into the church, and I assisted Mrs. Mering, holding the umbrella Baine handed me over her head.

“Oh, dear,” she said, looking anxiously at the clouds. “The weather looks very threatening. Perhaps we should start for home before the storm breaks.”

“Some of the workmen say they’ve seen a spirit,” I said rapidly. “One of them went home ill after the experience.”

“How wonderful!” Mrs. Mering said.

We came up even with the curate, who was standing in the doorway, wringing his hands. “I’m afraid you will be sadly disappointed in St. Michael’s, Mrs. Mering,” he said. “We are—”

“—preparing for the annual bazaar. Mrs. Mering, you must tell him about your dahlia penwipers,” I said shamelessly, maneuvering her around him and into the church. “So clever, and beautiful, besides.”

There was a crack of thunder so loud I was convinced I’d been struck by lightning for lying.

“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Mering said.

“I’m afraid this is an inauspicious time for a tour of the church,” the curate said at the same time. “The vicar is away, and Miss Sharpe—”

I opened my mouth to say, “A brief tour, at least, since we’re here,” and didn’t have to. There was a second crack of thunder, and the skies opened up.

Mrs. Mering and the curate stepped back into the church, away from the splashing raindrops, and Baine, the ever-ready, stepped forward and shut the door. “It looks like we’ll be here awhile, madam,” he said, and I could hear Verity sigh with relief.

“Well,” the curate said, “as you’re here, this is the nave. As you can see, we are undertaking renovations.” He had not exaggerated about the sawdust or the mess. It looked nearly as bad as after the air raid. The chancel was blocked off with wooden hoardings. The pews were draped in dusty tarps. Stacks of lumber lay in front of the choir, from which there issued a loud banging.

“We are modernizing the church,” the curate said. “The decorations were hopelessly out-of-date. I had hoped to have the bell tower replaced with a modern carillon, but the Renovations Committee refused to consider it. Hopelessly hidebound. But I was able to persuade them to remove the galleries and many of the old tombs and monuments, which were cluttering up the chapels. Some of them dated all the way back to the Fourteenth Century.” He rolled his eyes. “Simply ruined the look of the church.”

He smiled a rather protruding smile at Tossie. “Would you care to see the nave, Miss Mering? We’ve put in all new electric lighting.”

Verity came up next to me. “Get his name,” she whispered.

“When our proposed plans are completed,” the curate said, “the church will be a fully modern church which will last hundreds of years.”

“Fifty-two,” I muttered.

“I beg your pardon?” the curate said.

“Nothing,” I said. “You’re modernizing the tower, too?”

“Yes. It and the spire are being completely recased. It’s rather rough here, ladies.” He offered Tossie his arm.

Mrs. Mering took it. “Where is your crypt?” she asked.

“The crypt?” he said. “Over here,” he pointed in the direction of the hoarding, “but it’s not being modernized.”

“Do you believe in the world beyond?” Mrs. Mering said.

“I . . . of course,” he said, bewildered. “I’m a man of the cloth.” He smiled protuberantly at Tossie. “I am of course merely a curate at present, but I hope to be offered a living next year in Sussex.”

“Are you familiar with Arthur Conan Doyle?” Mrs. Mering demanded.

“I . . . yes,” he said, looking even more bewildered. “That is, I’ve read A Study in Scarlet. Thrilling story.”

“You have not read his writings on spiritism?” she said. “Baine!” she called to the butler, who was neatly standing the umbrellas next to the door. “Fetch the issue of The Light with Arthur Conan Doyle’s letter in it.”

Baine nodded, opened the heavy door, and disappeared into the deluge, pulling his collar up as he went.

Mrs. Mering turned back to the curate. “You have heard, of course, of Madame Iritosky?” she said, steering him firmly in the direction of the crypt.

The curate looked confused. “Is she something to do with jumble sales?”

“She was right. I can feel the presence of the spirits here,” Mrs. Mering said. “Have you any history of ghosts here at St. Michael’s?”

“Well, actually,” the curate said, “there is a legend of a spirit having been seen in the tower. The legend dates back to the Fourteenth Century, I believe,” and they passed beyond the hoardings to the Other Side.

Tossie looked after them uncertainly, trying to decide whether she should follow them.

“Come look at this, Tossie,” Terence said, standing in front of a brass inscription. “It’s a monument to Gervase Scrope. Listen to what it says, ‘Here lies a poor tossed tennis ball/Was racketed from spring to fall.’ ”

Tossie obediently came over to read it, then to look at a small brass plate to the Botoners, who had built the cathedral.

“How quaint!” Tossie said. “Listen. ‘William and Adam built the tower, Ann and Mary built the spire. William and Adam built the church, Ann and Mary built the choir.’ ”

She moved on to look at a large marble monument to Dame Mary Bridgeman and Mrs. Eliza Samwell, and then an oil painting of “The Parable of the Lost Lamb,” and we proceeded round the nave, stepping over boards and bags of sand, and stopping at each of the chapels in turn.

“Oh, I do wish we had a guidebook,” Tossie said, frowning at the Purbeck marble baptismal font. “How can one tell what to look at without a guidebook?”

She and Terence moved on to the Cappers’ Chapel. Verity paused and gently tugged on my coat-tails, pulling me back. “Let them get ahead,” she said under her breath.

I obediently stopped in front of a brass of a woman in Jacobean costume dated 1609. “In memory of Ann Sewell,” it read. “A worthy stirrer-up of others to all holy virtues.”

“Obviously an ancestor of Lady Schrapnell’s,” Verity said. “Have you found out the curate’s name?”

When would I have had the chance to do that? I thought. “You think he’s Mr. C?” I said. “He did seem taken with her.”

“Every man seems taken with her,” she said, looking at Tossie, who was hanging on Terence’s arm and giggling. “The question is, is she taken with him? Do you see the bishop’s bird stump?”

“Not yet,” I said, looking round the nave. The flowers in front of the choir hoardings were in plain brass vases, and the sawdust-covered roses in the Cappers’ Chapel were in a silver bowl.

“Where is it supposed to be?”

“In the fall of 1940, standing against the parclose screen of the Smiths’ Chapel,” I said. “In the summer of 1888, I have no idea. It could be anywhere.” Including under one of those green tarps or somewhere behind the hoardings.

“Perhaps we should ask the curate where it is when he comes back,” she said anxiously.

“We can’t,” I said.

“Why not?”

“First, it’s not the sort of thing that would be in Baedeker. The average tourist, which is what we’re supposed to be, would never have heard of it. Second, it’s not the bishop’s bird stump yet. It only became the bishop’s bird stump in 1926.”

“What was it till then?”

“A cast-iron footed pedestal firugeal urn. Or possibly a fruit compote.”

The sound of hammering behind the hoardings stopped abruptly, and there was the ghostly sound of swearing.

Verity glanced at Tossie and Terence, who were pointing at a stained-glass window, and then asked, “What happened in 1926?”

“There was a particularly acrimonious Ladies’ Altar Guild meeting,” I said, “at which someone proposed the purchase of a bird stump, which was a sort of tall ceramic vase popular at the time, for the flowers in the nave. The bishop had recently instituted cost-cutting measures for the running of the cathedral, and the proposal was voted down on the grounds that it was an unnecessary expense and that there must be something around somewhere they could use; i.e., the cast-iron footed pedestal firugeal urn which had been in storage down in the crypt for twenty years. It was thereafter referred to somewhat bitterly as ‘the bishop’s notion of a bird stump,’ and eventually shortened to—”

“The bishop’s bird stump.”

“But if it wasn’t the bishop’s bird stump when Tossie saw it, how does Lady Schrapnell know what she saw?”

“She described it in considerable detail in her diaries over the years, and when Lady Schrapnell first proposed her project, an historian was sent back to identify it in the spring of 1940 from the descriptions.”

“Could the historian have stolen it?” she asked.

“No.”

“How can you be certain?”

“It was me.”

“Cousin,” Tossie called. “Do come see what we’ve found.”

“Perhaps she’s found it without us,” I said, but it was only another monument, this one with a row of four swaddled infants carved on it.

“Isn’t it cunning?” Tossie said. “Look at the dearum-dearum babies.”

The south door opened, and Baine came in, sopping wet and clutching the issue of The Light inside his coat.

“Baine!” Tossie called.

He came over, leaving a trail of water. “Yes, miss?”

“It’s chilly in here. Fetch my Persian shawl. The pink one, with fringe. And Miss Browns.”

“Oh, that isn’t necessary,” Verity said, looking pityingly at Baine’s bedraggled appearance. “I’m not cold at all.”

“Nonsense,” Tossie said. “Bring both of them. And see they don’t get wet.”

“Yes, miss,” Baine said. “I shall fetch them as soon as I’ve brought your mother her book.”

Tossie put her lips in a pout.

“Oh, look, Cousin,” Verity said before she could demand Baine go get the shawls now. “These misereres show the Seven Works of Mercy,” and Tossie obediently went into the Girdlers’ Chapel to admire them, followed by the black marble altar tomb, assorted fan vaulting, and a monument with a particularly long and illegible inscription.

Verity took the opportunity to pull me ahead. “‘What if it isn’t here?” she whispered.

“It’s here,” I said. “It didn’t disappear till 1940.”

“I mean, what if it isn’t here because of the incongruity? What if events have changed, and they’ve already moved it down to the crypt or sold it at a jumble sale?”

“The bazaar’s not till next week.”

“Which aisle did you say it was in in 1940?” she said, starting purposefully toward the back of the nave.

“This aisle,” I said, trying to catch up, “in front of the Smiths’ Chapel, but that doesn’t mean that’s where it is now—” I said, and stopped because it was.

It was obvious why they had put the bishop’s bird stump in this particular aisle. In 1888 the light in this part of the nave had been very dim, and one of the pillars blocked it from the view of the rest of the church.

And one of the ladies of the Altar Guild had done the best she could, obscuring the upper levels with large, drooping peonies and twining ivy over the centaurs and one of the sphinxes. It was also newer, and therefore shinier, which tended to hide some of the details. It didn’t look half bad.

“Good Lord,” Verity said. “Is that it?” Her voice echoed back and forth among the fan vaulting. “It’s absolutely hideous.”

“Yes, well, that’s already been established. Keep it down.” I pointed at a pair of workmen at the back of the nave. One of them, in a blue shirt and blackened neckerchief, was shifting boards from one pile to another. The second, his mouth full of nails, was hammering loudly on a board laid across a sawhorse.

“Sorry,” Verity whispered contritely. “It was just rather a shock. I’d never seen it before.” She pointed gingerly at one of the decorations. “What is that, a camel?”

“A unicorn,” I said. “The camels are on this side, here, next to the depiction of Joseph’s being sold into Egypt.”

“And what’s that?” she said, pointing at a large group above a cast-iron garland of roses and thistles.

“The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots,” I said. “The Victorians liked art that was representational.”

“And crowded,” she said. “No wonder Lady Schrapnell was having trouble getting a craftsman to make a reproduction.”

“I had made sketches,” I said. “I think the craftsmen refused on moral grounds.”

Verity surveyed it intently, her head to one side. “That cannot possibly be a seahorse.”

“Neptune’s chariot,” I said. “And this over here is the Parting of the Red Sea. Next to Leda and the Swan.”

She reached out and touched the swan’s outstretched wing. “You were right about it being indestructible.”

I nodded, looking at its cast-iron solidity. Even the roof falling in on it would scarcely have dented it.

“And hideous-looking things are never destroyed,” she went on. “It’s a law. St. Pancras Station wasn’t touched in the Blitz. And neither was the Albert Memorial. And it is hideous.”

I agreed. Even the drooping peonies and the ivy couldn’t hide that fact.

“Oh!” Tossie said behind us, in a transport of joy. “That’s the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen!”

She fluttered up, Terence in tow, and stood gazing at it, her gloved hands clasped under her chin. “Oh, Terence, isn’t it the most cunning thing you’ve ever seen?”

“Well . . .” Terence said dubiously.

“Look at the darling cupids! And the Sacrifice of Isaac! O! O!” She uttered a series of screamlets that made the workman doing the hammering look up in irritation. He saw Tossie, spit his nails out onto the floor, and nudged his companion. The companion looked up from his sawing. The hammerer said something to him that made him burst into a wide and toothless smile. He tipped his cloth cap to Tossie.

“I know,” I murmured to Verity. “Get their names.”

As the workmen were under the impression that I was going to report them to the curate for leering, it took some time, but when I got back, Tossie was still going on about the bishop’s bird stump.

“O, look!” she mini-screamed. “There’s Salome!”

“Widge and Baggett,” I whispered to Verity. “They don’t know the curate’s name. They refer to him as Bug-Eyes.”

“And look,” Tossie exclaimed. “There’s the platter, and there’s John the Baptist’s head!”

And this was all very well, but so far it didn’t look like a life-changing experience. Tossie had ooh-ed and ahh-ed like this over the china wooden shoe at the jumble sale. And over Miss Stiggins’s cross-stitched needlecases. And even if she was having an Epiphany (depicted above Neptune and his chariot on the side facing the pillar), where was Mr. C?

“O, I do wish I had one,” Tossie enthused. “For our dear home, Terence, after we’re married. One exactly like it!”

“Isn’t it rather large?” Terence said.

The south door banged open, and Baine came in, looking like something from the wreck of the Hesperus, and carrying an oilcloth-wrapped parcel.

“Baine!” Tossie called, and he squelched his way over to us.

“I’ve brought your shawl, miss,” he said, folding the tarp back from a corner of a pew and setting the bundle down and beginning to unwrap it.

“Baine, what do you think of this?” Tossie said, indicating the bishop’s bird stump. “Don’t you agree it’s the most beautiful piece of art you’ve ever seen?”

Baine straightened and looked at it, blinking water out of his eyes.

There was a considerable pause while Baine wrung out his sleeve. “No.”

“No?” Tossie said, making it into a screamlet.

“No.” He bent over the pew, opening the oilcloth to reveal the shawls, neatly folded and perfectly dry. He straightened again, reached inside his coat for a damp handkerchief, wiped his hands on it, and picked the pink shawl up by the corners. “Your shawl, miss,” he said, holding it out to her.

“I don’t want it now,” Tossie said. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“I mean the sculpture is a hideous atrocity, vulgarly conceived, badly designed, and shoddily executed,” he said, folding the shawl carefully and bending to lay it back in the bundle.

“How dare you say that?” Tossie said, her cheeks very pink.

Baine straightened. “I beg your pardon, miss. I thought you were asking my opinion.”

“I was, but I expected you to tell me you thought it was beautiful.”

He bowed slightly. “As you wish, miss?’ He looked at it, his face impassive. “It is very beautiful.”

“I don’t wish,” she said, stamping her little foot. “How can you not think it’s beautiful? Look at the cunning little Babes in the Wood! And the sweet little sparrow with a strawberry leaf in its mouth!”

“As you wish, miss.”

“And stop saying that,” she said, her ruffles quivering with rage. “Why do you say it’s an atrocity?”

“This,” he extended his hand toward the bishop’s bird stump, “is cluttered, artificial, and,” he looked pointedly at the Babes in the Wood, “mawkishly sentimental, intended to appeal to the aesthetically uneducated middle class.”

Tossie turned to Terence. “Are you going to allow him to say such things?” she demanded.

“It is a bit cluttered,” Terence said. “And what’s that supposed to be?” he added, pointing to the Minotaur, “A horse or a hippopotamus?”

“A lion,” Tossie said, outraged. “And there’s Androcles taking a thorn out of its paw.

I looked at Verity. She was biting her lip.

“And it is not mawkishly sentimental,” Tossie said to Baine.

“As you wish, miss.”

His life was saved by the timely arrival of the curate and Mrs. Mering from behind the hoardings.

“The Roman cavalry,” Verity murmured.

“Directly beneath Bacchus, holding a bunch of grapes,” I murmured back.

“I do hope you will consider having a jumble sale at your bazaar,” Mrs. Mering was saying, steering the curate toward us. “People have so many treasures in their attics that make excellent jumble sale items.”

She stopped at the sight of the bishop’s bird stump. “Something like this, for instance. Or an umbrella stand. Vases are so useful. We had a china one with a painted waterfall at our fête which sold for—”

Tossie interrupted her. “You think this is beautiful, don’t you?” she said to the curate.

“Indeed I do,” he said. “I consider it an example of all that is best in modern art,” he said. “Excellent representations and a high moral tone. Particularly the depiction of the Seven Plagues of Egypt. It was donated a number of years ago by the Trubshaw family on the death of Emily Jane Trubshaw. She had purchased it at the Great Exhibition, and it was her most treasured possession. The vicar tried to dissuade them from donating. He felt it should remain in the family’s possession, but they were adamant?”

“I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Tossie said.

“I quite agree,” the curate said. “It has always reminded me of the Albert Memorial?’

“I adore the Albert Memorial,” Tossie said. “I glimpsed it when we went to Kensington to hear Mrs. Guppy speak on ectoplasm, and I couldn’t rest until Papa had taken me to see it. I love the mosaics and the gilt spire!” She clasped her hands together. “And the statue of the Prince, reading the catalogue of the Great Exhibition!”

“It is an extraordinary monument,” Terence said.

“And indestructible,” Verity murmured.

“I find the sculptures representing the four continents particularly well-rendered,” the curate said, “though in my opinion Asia and Africa are scarcely suitable for young ladies?’

Tossie colored prettily. “I thought the elephant was absolutely cunning. And the frieze of great scientists and architects?’

“Have you ever seen St. Pancras Railway Station?” the curate asked. “I consider that an extraordinary example of architecture as well. Perhaps you’d care to see the work we’re doing on the church?” he asked her. “It is not, of course, on a par with the Albert Memorial, but J.O. Scott has done some excellent work.” He took Tossie’s arm and led her up to the choir. “The galleries have been cleared and all the box pews have been removed.”

He pointed up at the clerestory arches above, still holding onto Tossie’s arm. “Scott has had iron girders inserted in each of the timber beams to tie the clerestory walls together and make them much stronger. It is a classic example of how superior modern building materials are, compared to old-fashioned stone and wood.”

“Oh, I think so, too,” Tossie said eagerly.

Actually, it was a classic example of trying to turn the Titanic. When the cathedral caught fire on the night of November fourteenth, the iron girders had buckled and bent and then collapsed, taking the clerestory arches and the internal colonnades with them. Without the girders, the church might have remained standing. The outer walls and the tower, which hadn’t been renovated to make them stronger, had.

“After we’ve completed the renovations,” the curate was saying to Tossie, we will have a church befitting this modern age, a church which will be treasured hundreds of years from now. Would you like to see the renovations we are doing on the tower?”

“Oh, yes,” Tossie nodded, making her curls bob prettily.

There was a sound from over by the south door, and I looked up. It was a young woman in a gray dress. She had a large basket and a long nose, and she strode across the nave to the bishop’s bird stump with sharp, staccato-sounding steps, like rifle shots.

“Miss Sharpe,” the curate said, looking caught out. “Allow me to introduce—”

“I only came to deliver these for the bazaar,” Miss Sharpe said. She thrust the basket at him and then withdrew it when she saw the curate was holding Tossie’s arm. “It is penwipers. Two dozen.” She turned. “I will leave them in the vestry.”

“Oh, but can you not stay, Miss Sharpe?” the curate said, extricating his arm from Tossie’s. “Miss Mering, allow me to introduce Miss Delphinium Sharpe.”

I wondered if she was a relation of Mrs. Chattisbourne’s.

“I was so hoping we could discuss the arrangement of the stalls for the bazaar, Miss Sharpe,” the curate said.

“I shall not be able to attend the fête. I will leave these in the vestry,” she said again. She turned and started her rifle-fire way back across the nave.

“We should love to see St. Pancras Railway Station, shouldn’t we, Mama?” Tossie said. A door slammed loudly.

“It’s a sterling example of neo-Gothic,” the curate said, flinching a little. “I feel that architecture should reflect society, particularly churches and railway stations.”

“Oh, so do I,” Tossie said.

“I . . .” Mrs. Mering said, and Tossie and the curate both turned to look at her. She was looking at the bishop’s bird stump, and she had an odd, tentative look on her face.

“What is it, Mama?” Tossie said.

Mrs. Mering put her hand uncertainly to her bosom and frowned slightly, the way people do when they are trying to decide whether they have chipped a tooth.

“Are you ill?” Terence said, taking hold of her arm.

“No,” she said. “I’ve just had the oddest feeling . . . it . . .” She frowned. “I was looking at the . . .” she waved the hand that had been on her bosom at the bishop’s bird stump, “. . . and all at once, I . . .”

“You received a spirit message?” Tossie said.

“No, not a message,” Mrs. Mering said, probing at the tooth. “It . . . I had the oddest feeling. . . .”

“A premonition?” Tossie prompted.

“Yes,” Mrs. Mering said thoughtfully. “You . . .” She frowned, as if trying to remember a dream, and then turned and stared at the bishop’s bird stump. “It had . . . We must go home at once.”

“Oh, but you can’t go yet,” Verity said.

“I so wanted to discuss the Treasure Hunt with you,” the curate said, looking disappointedly at Tossie. “And the arrangement of the fancy goods tables. Can’t you at least stay to tea?”

“Baine!” Mrs. Mering said, ignoring both of them.

“Yes, madam,” Baine, who had gone back over by the south door, said.

“Baine, we must return home at once,” Mrs. Mering said, and started across the nave toward him.

Baine hurried to meet her, bringing an umbrella. “Has something happened?” he said.

“I have had a Warning,” Mrs. Mering said, looking much more like herself. “When is the next train?”

“In eleven minutes,” he said immediately. “But it is a local train. The next express to Reading isn’t till 4:18.”

“Bring the carriage round,” she said. “Then run ahead to the station and tell them to hold the train for us. And take down that umbrella. It’s bad luck to have an open umbrella indoors. Bad luck!” She clutched her heart. “Oh, what if we are too late?”

Baine was struggling to get the umbrella furled. I took it from him, and he nodded gratefully and took off for the station, running.

“Wouldn’t you like to sit down, Aunt Malvinia?” Verity asked.

“No, no,” Mrs. Mering said, shaking off her hand. “Go and see if the carriage is here yet. Is it still raining?”

It was, and the carriage was. Terence and the driver helped her down the steps and bundled her and her travelling skirts into it.

I took advantage of the momentary delay to shake the curate’s hand. “Thank you so much for showing us the church, Mr.—?” I said.

“Mr. Henry!” Mrs. Mering called from the carriage. “We shall miss our train.”

The south door banged open, and Miss Sharpe emerged and walked rapidly down the steps past us and up Bayley Street. The curate looked after her.

“Goodbye,” Tossie said, leaning out the window. “I should so love to see St. Pancras.”

I tried again, my foot on the carriage step. “Good luck with your church bazaar, Mr.—?”

“Thank you,” he said absently. “Goodbye, Mrs. Mering, Miss Mering. If you will excuse me—” He hurried after Miss Sharpe. “Miss Sharpe!” he called. “Wait! Delphinium! Dellie!”

“I don’t believe I caught your name—” I said, leaning out the window.

“Mr. Henry!” Mrs. Mering snapped. “Driver!” And we rattled off.

“Every man meets his Waterloo at last.”

Wendell Phillips

C H A P T E R  T W E N T Y

Retreat—I Attempt to Ascertain the Station Guard’s Name—Mrs. Mering’s Premonition, Possible Meanings of—Shawls—Aliases of Clergymen—Eglantine Has Her Future Predicted—John Paul Jones—Tea, Unfortunate Revivifying Effects of—Apports—Newspapers—Fans—Yet Another Swoon—Baine to the Rescue—A Shocking Headline

The trip home closely resembled Napoleon’s retreat from Waterloo: a great deal of panic, hurry, and confusion, followed by inaction and despair. Jane nearly got left behind in the scramble for the station, Mrs. Mering threatened to faint again, and there was another cloudburst just as we rolled up. Terence nearly poked Tossie in the eye trying to get the umbrellas up.

Baine was holding the train by brute force. “Hurry,” I said to Mrs. Mering, helping her out of the hansom cab, “the train’s pulling out.”

“No, no, it mustn’t leave without us,” she said, sounding genuinely urgent. “My premonition—”

“Then we must hurry,” Verity said, taking her other arm, and we propelled her across the platform to first-class.

The station guard, still arguing with Baine, gave up at the sight of Tossie struggling with her skirts and her ruffled parasol and helped her board, tipping his hat gallantly. “I know,” I muttered. “Get his name.”

There was no time to find a porter. Terence and I, ignoring the conventions of class, grabbed the hampers, satchel, parcels, rugs, and Jane out of the hansom cab and flung them willy-nilly into the second-class carriage.

I ran back to pay the driver, who tore off as soon as the money was in his hands as if Blücher's Prussians were after him, and ran back onto the platform. The train had started to move, its heavy wheels turning in a slow but mounting acceleration. The station guard stepped back from the edge of the platform, his hands clasped behind his back. “What’s your name?” I gasped, running up.

Whatever he answered, the train’s whistle drowned it out completely. The train began to pick up speed.

“What?” I shouted. The whistle blew again.

“What?” he shouted.

“Your name,” I said.

“Ned!” Terence shouted from the first-class platform. “Come on then!”

“I’m coming. What’s your name?” I shouted to the guard and jumped for it.

I missed. My right hand caught the brass railing and I hung there for an instant. Terence grabbed my left arm and hauled me up onto the step. I grasped the railing and turned around. The station guard was trotting toward the station, his head ducked into his pulled-up collar.

“Your name!” I shouted into the rain, but he had already disappeared into the station.

“What was that all about?” Terence said. “You very nearly ended up like Anna Karenina.”

“Nothing,” I said. “Which is our compartment?”

“Third back,” he said and started down the corridor to where Verity stood, looking back at the platform, which was now rapidly receding from us. Rain poured down on its empty boards.

“ ‘Thy fate is the common fate of all,’ ” Terence quoted. “ ‘Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary,’ ” and opened the compartment door. Mrs. Mering sat slumped against the cushions in a state of semicollapse, holding a lace-edged handkerchief to her nose.

“Are you certain Tossie’s mother wasn’t the one who had the life-changing experience?” I whispered to Verity.

“Mr. Henry, Verity, do come in and sit down,” Mrs. Mering said, waving the handkerchief. I caught a blast of Parma violets. “And shut the door. You’re causing a draft.”

We came in. I shut the door. We sat down.

“ ‘And homeward bound we wend our merry way,’ ” Terence quoted, smiling at everyone.

No one smiled back. Mrs. Mering sniffed at her handkerchief, Verity looked worried, and Tossie, huddled in the corner, positively glared at him.

If she had had a life-altering experience, she certainly didn’t look it. She looked tired and sulky and damp. Her ruffled organdy was limp and non-fluttering, and her golden curls had begun to frizz.

“We might at least have stayed for tea, Mama,” she said fretfully. “The curate intended to ask us, I’m sure of it. It isn’t as if this were the only train. If we’d taken the 5:36, we’d have had plenty of time for tea.”

“When one has a dreadful premonition,” Mrs. Mering said, obviously feeling better, “one does not stop for tea.” She waved the handkerchief, and I got another staggering whiff of violets. “I tried to tell Mesiel he should come with us.”

“Did your premonition specify it was Colonel Mering who was in danger?” Verity asked.

“No,” Mrs. Mering said, and got that odd, probing-a-tooth look again. “It . . . there was . . . water—” She gave a tiny scream. “What if he’s fallen in the fishpond and drowned? His new goldfish was to arrive today.” She sank back against the cushions, breathing into the handkerchief.

“Papa knows how to swim,” Tossie said.

“He might have hit his head on the stone edging,” Mrs. Mering said stubbornly. “Something dreadful’s happened. I can feel it!”

She wasn’t the only one. I glanced sideways at Verity. She was looking calmly desperate. We needed to talk.

“Can I fetch you anything, Mrs. Mering?” I said. I wasn’t sure how to get Verity out of the compartment. Perhaps I could get the railway guard to give her a message. I’d cross that railway bridge when I came to it. “It’s rather chilly in here. Can I fetch you a travelling rug?”

“It is cold,” she said. “Verity, go and tell Jane I want my Scottish shawl. Tossie, do you want yours?”

“What?” Tossie said uninterestedly, looking out the window.

“Your shawl,” Mrs. Mering said. “Do you want it?”

“No!” Tossie said violently.

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Mering said. “It’s cold in here,” and to Verity, “Bring Tossie’s shawl.”

“Yes, Aunt Malvinia,” Verity said and went out.

“It is cold in here,” I said. “Shall I ask the guard to bring in a stove? Or a heated brick for your feet?”

“No. Why on earth don’t you want your shawl, Tossie?”

“I want my tea,” Tossie said to the window. “Do you think I’m aesthetically uneducated?”

“Of course not,” Mrs. Mering said. “You speak French. Where are you going, Mr. Henry?”

I took my hand off the compartment door. “I just thought I’d step out onto the observation platform for a moment,” I said, taking out a pipe as proof.

“Nonsense. It’s pouring rain out there.”

I sat down, defeated. Verity would be back in a moment, and we’d have missed our chance. The way we had missed our chance in Coventry.

“Mr. St. Trewes,” Mrs. Mering said, “go and tell Baine to bring us some tea.”

“I’ll do it,” I said, and was out of the compartment before she could stop me. Verity would already be on her way back with the shawl. If I could stop her before she got to the end of the second-class carriage, we could—

A hand reached out of the second-to-last compartment, grabbed my sleeve, and yanked me inside. “Where have you been?” Verity said.

“It isn’t easy to get away from Mrs. Mering,” I said, taking a look down the corridor to make sure there was no one coming before I shut the compartment door.

Verity pulled down the shades. “The real question is, what do we do now?” She sat down. “I was sure getting her to Coventry would do the trick. She’d see the bishop’s bird stump, she’d meet Mr. Whatever-His-Name-Is-Beginning-With-a-C, her life would be changed, and the incongruity would be fixed.”

“We don’t know that it wasn’t. She may have had her life changed, and we just don’t know it yet. There were those men on the platform in Reading, and the conductor, and the curate. And the one who looked like Crippen. And Cyril. We mustn’t forget his name begins with a ‘C.’ ”

She didn’t even smile. “Tossie didn’t let him come to Coventry, remember?”

I sat down opposite her. “Personally, my money’s on the curate,” I said. “A bit too pop-eyed and pompous for my taste, but then Tossie’s already demonstrated how wretched her taste is, and you saw how he was ogling her. My bet is that he shows up at Muchings End tomorrow on some pretext or other—he’s decided to become a spiritist, or he wants advice on the coconut shy, or something—they fall in love, she drops Terence like a hot potato, and the next thing you know, they’re posting the banns for Miss Tossie Mering and the Reverend Mr.—”

“Dolt,” Verity said.

“It’s a perfectly legitimate theory,” I said. “You heard the two of them cooing about the Albert Mem—”

“Doult. D-O-U-L-T,” she said. “The Reverend Mr. Doult.”

“Are you certain?”

She nodded grimly. “Mrs. Mering told me his name when we were getting into the carriage. ‘A well-intended young man, the Reverend Mr. Doult,’ she said, ‘but lacking in intelligence. He refuses to see the logic of the afterlife?’ ”

“You’re sure it was Doult, and not—”

“Colt?” she said. “I’m positive.” She shook her head. “The curate wasn’t Mr. C.”

“Well, then, it must have been one of the men on the platform at Reading. Or Muchings End’s curate.”

“His name is Arbitage.”

“So he says. what if he’s operating under an alias?”

“An alias? He’s a clergyman.”

“I know, and the Church would be particularly unforgiving of youthful misbehavior and misdemeanors, which would be why he had to take an assumed name. And his constantly being at Muchings End shows he’s interested in her. And, speaking of which, what is this peculiar fascination she has for curates?”

“They all need wives to help them with the Sunday school and the church fêtes.”

“Jumble sales,” I muttered. “I knew it. The Reverend Mr. Arbitage is interested in spiritism,” I said to Verity. “He’s interested in vandalizing old churches. He’s—”

“He’s not Mr. C,” Verity said. “I looked him up. He married Eglantine Chattisbourne.”

“Eglantine Chattisbourne?” I said.

She nodded. “In 1897. He became the vicar of St. Albans in Norwich.”

“What about the station guard?” I said. “I didn’t catch his name. He—”

“Tossie didn’t even glance at him. She hasn’t shown the slightest interest in anybody all day.” She leaned tiredly back against the seat. “We have to face it, Ned. The life-changing experience didn’t happen?”

She looked so discouraged I felt I had to try and cheer her up. “The diary didn’t say she had the life-changing experience in Coventry,” I said. “All it said was, ‘I shall never forget that day we went to Coventry.’ It might have happened on the way home. Mrs. Mering had a premonition something terrible was going to happen,” I said, and smiled at her. “Perhaps there’ll be a train wreck, and Mr. C will pull Tossie out of the wreckage.”

“A train wreck,” she said longingly. She stood and picked up the shawl. “We’d better be getting back before Mrs. Mering sends someone to look for us,” she said resignedly.

I opened the door. “Something will happen, you’ll see. There’s still the diary. And Finch’s related project, whatever that is. And we’ve still got a half-dozen stations and a change of trains before Muchings End. Perhaps Tossie will collide with Mr. C on the platform in Reading. Or perhaps she already has. When you didn’t come back, her mother sent her to look for you, and as the train swayed going round a curve, she fell into his arms. Dashing, titled, as insufferable as she is, and he happens to be the sculptor of the bishop’s bird stump, and she’s in his compartment right now, discussing Victorian art.”

But she wasn’t. She was still in her corner, looking moodily out at the rain, when we entered our compartment.

“There you are,” Mrs. Mering said. “Where have you been? I’m nearly frozen.”

Verity hastened to drape the shawl around Mrs. Mering’s shoulders.

“Did you tell Baine we wanted our tea?” Mrs. Mering said.

“I am just on my way to do so now,” I said, my hand on the door handle. “I met Miss Brown on my way there and accompanied her back,” and ducked out.

I expected to find Baine deep in Toynbee’s The Industrial Revolution or Darwin’s Descent of Man, but his book lay open on the seat beside him, and he was staring out at the rain. And apparently thinking about his aesthetic outburst and what the consequences of it might be, because he said gloomily, “Mr. Henry, might I ask a question about the States? You have been there. Is it true America is the Land of Opportunity?”

I really should have studied Nineteenth Century. All I could remember was a civil war, and several gold rushes. “It is definitely a country where everyone is free to voice his opinion,” I said, “and does so. Particularly in the western states. Mrs. Mering would like tea,” I told him and then went out on the rear platform and stood there with my pipe, pretending to smoke and looking at the rain myself. It had subsided into a misty drizzle. Heavy clouds hung grayly over the muddy roads we rattled by. Retreating to Paris.

Verity was right. We had to face it. Mr. C wasn’t going to show up at Reading or anywhere else. We had attempted to mend the tear in the continuum by tying the broken threads together again, getting Tossie to the appointed place on the appointed day.

But in a chaotic system, there was no such thing as a simple tear. Every event was connected to every other. When Verity waded into the Thames, when I walked down the tracks to the railway station, dozens, thousands of events had been affected. Including the whereabouts of Mr. C on 15 June, 1888. We had broken all the threads at once, and the fabric in the space-time loom had come apart.

“ ‘Out flew the web and floated wide,’ ” I said aloud. “ ‘ “The curse is come upon me,” cried the Lady of Shalott.’ ”

“Eh, what’s that?” a man’s voice said, opening the door and coming out on the platform. He was stout, with an enormous set of Dundreary whiskers and a meerschaum pipe which he tamped down violently. “Curse, did you say?” he said, lighting his pipe.

“Tennyson,” I said.

“Poetry,” he growled. “Lot of rot, if you ask me. Art, sculpture, music, what use are they in the real world?”

“Exactly,” I said, extending my hand. “Ned Henry. How do you do?”

“Arthur T. Mitford,” he said, crushing my hand in his grip.

Well, it was worth a try.

“Don’t believe in curses,” he said, sucking fiercely on his pipe. “Or Fate, or destiny. Lot of rot. A man makes his own destiny.”

“I hope you’re right,” I said.

“Of course I’m right. Look at Wellington.”

I knocked the tobacco out of my pipe onto the rails below, and started back to the compartment. Look at Wellington. And Joan of Arc at Orléans. And John Paul Jones. They had all succeeded when everything looked lost.

And the continuum was tougher than it looked. It had slippage and backups and redundancy. “Missing you one place, we meet another.” And if so, what I’d told Verity might be true, and Mr. C might be on the platform at Reading. Or in our compartment at this very moment, punching our tickets or hawking sweetmeats.

He wasn’t. Baine was, handing round china cups and dispensing tea, which was having an unfortunate revivifying effect on Mrs. Mering. She sat up straight, arranged her plaid shawl around her, and set about making everyone miserable.

“Tossie,” she said. “Sit up properly and drink your tea. You were the one who wanted tea. Baine, didn’t you bring lemon?”

“I will see if there are any for sale in the station, madam,” he said and departed.

“Why is this such a long stop?” Mrs. Mering said. “We should have taken an express. Verity, this shawl gives no warmth at all. You should have told Jane to bring the cashmere.”

The train started up, and after several minutes, Baine reappeared, looking like he had had to run for it. “I’m afraid they hadn’t any lemon, madam,” he said, producing a bottle of milk from his pocket. “Would you care for milk?”

“From who knows what sort of cow? Hardly. This tea is lukewarm.”

Baine produced a spirit lamp, and proceeded to heat more water while Mrs. Mering looked around at us for another victim. “Mr. St. Trewes,” Mrs. Mering said to Terence, who had retreated behind his book of poems, “it’s far too dark to read in here. You will ruin your eyes.”

Terence closed the book and put it in his pocket, looking like a man who was just beginning to realize what he had let himself in for. Baine lit the lamps and poured more tea.

“What a dull group you all are,” Mrs. Mering said. “Mr. Henry, tell us about the States. Mrs. Chattisbourne says you told her you were out West fighting Red Indians.”

“Briefly,” I said, wondering if she were going to ask about scalping next, but she was on a different course.

“Did you have the opportunity while you were in the West of attending one of Baroness Eusapia’s séances in San Francisco?” she asked.

“I’m afraid not,” I said.

“Pity,” she said, and it was clear she thought I had missed all the best tourist attractions. “Eusapia is famous for her apports.”

“Apports?” Terence asked.

“Objects transported through the air from distant locations,” she said.

That’s it, I thought. That’s what happened to the bishop’s bird stump. It was apported to a séance in San Francisco.

“. . . flowers and photographs,” Mrs. Mering was saying, “and once she apported a sparrow’s nest all the way from China. With the sparrow in it!”

“How do you know it was a Chinese sparrow?” Terence said dubiously. “It didn’t chirp in Chinese, did it? How do you know it wasn’t a California sparrow?”

“Is it true that servants in America don’t know their proper place,” Tossie said, looking at Baine, “and that their mistresses actually allow them to express opinions on education and art as if they were equals?”

It looked like the universe was going to collapse right here in this compartment. “I . . . uh . . .” I said.

“Did you see a spirit, Mrs. Mering,” Verity said, trying to change the subject, “when you had your premonition?”

“No, it . . .” she said, and got that odd, inward look again. “Baine, how many more stops does this horrid train make?”

“Eight, madam,” he said.

“We shall be frozen before we reach home. Go and tell the conductor to bring us a stove. And fetch a rug for my knees.”

And so on. Baine fetched the rug, and a warmed brick for Mrs. Mering’s feet, and a powder for the headache which Mrs. Mering had given all of us, but which she took herself.

“I certainly hope you do not intend to keep dogs after you are married,” she told Terence, and made him turn down the lamps because they hurt her eyes. At the next station, she sent Baine to purchase a newspaper. “My premonition said that something dreadful was going to happen. Perhaps there has been a robbery. Or a fire.”

“I thought you said your premonition had something to do with water,” Tossie said.

“Fires are put out with water,” she said with dignity.

Baine came in, looking like he had nearly missed the train again. “Your newspaper, madam.”

“Not the Oxford Chronicle,” Mrs. Mering said, pushing it aside. “The Times.”

“The newspaperboy did not have the Times,” Baine said. “I will attempt to see if there is a copy in the smoking car.”

Mrs. Mering sank back against the seat. Terence picked up the discarded Oxford Chronicle and began to read it. Tossie went back to looking uninterestedly out the window.

“It’s stifling in here,” Mrs. Mering said. “Verity, go fetch my fan.”

“Yes, Aunt Malvinia,” she said gratefully, and made her escape.

“Why do they insist on overheating these railway cars?” Mrs. Mering said, fanning herself with her handkerchief. “It really is a disgrace that we must travel in such uncivilized conditions.” She glanced across at Terence’s newspaper. “I simply do not see—”

She stopped, staring blindly at Terence.

Tossie looked up. “What is it, Mama?”

Mrs. Mering stood up and took a staggering step backward in the direction of the door. “That night at the séance,” she said, and fainted dead away.