“I should imagine the churchwarden would know of any spirits,” Verity said helpfully.

Yes, and would have put up a sign saying, “No manifestations,” I thought. “Absolutely no ectoplasm.”

“Oh, yes!” Tossie said and gave another of her little screamlets. “Mr. St. Trewes, we must ask the churchwarden!” They went out the door, consulted the sign, and started off for Harwood House and the churchwarden, who would no doubt be delighted to see them.

“All Mr. Dunworthy would tell me was that he was sending me back to two hours after I’d rescued the cat,” Verity said, picking up where she’d left off, “and to report back if there was any unusual slippage or coincidental happenings, and I assumed that meant Princess Arjumand was already back at Muchings End. But when I came through, she wasn’t there. Tossie had discovered she was missing and had the whole household out searching for her, and I began to worry that something had gone wrong. And before I could report back to Mr. Dunworthy and find out what had happened, Mrs. Mering had hauled us all off to Oxford, and Tossie had met Count de Vecchio.”

“Count de Vecchio?”

“A young man at one of the séances. Rich, handsome, charming. Perfect, in fact, except that his name begins with a ‘V’ and not a ‘C.’ He’s interested in theosophy,” she said. “He was also interested in Tossie. He insisted on sitting next to her at the table so he could hold her hand, and he told her not to be afraid if she felt a touch on her feet, that it was only the spirits. That’s why I suggested the walk by the Thames, to get her away from him, and then Terence came rowing by, and his name doesn’t begin with a ‘C’ either. And he seemed so smitten with her. Not that that’s unusual. Every young man who meets Tossie is smitten with her.” She looked up at me from under her veil. “Speaking of which, why aren’t you?”

“She thinks Henry the Eighth had eight wives,” I said.

“I know, but I’d have thought with your time-lag you’d have been in poor Titania’s condition, wandering about ready to fall in love with the first girl you saw.”

“Which was you,” I said.

If she had been the untouched English rose she looked like, she’d have blushed a becoming pink under that veil, but she was Twenty-First Century.

“You’ll get over it,” she said, sounding just like the Infirmary nurse, “as soon as you’ve had a good night’s sleep. I wish I could say the same for Tossie’s suitors. Especially Terence. Tossie seems so taken with him. She insisted on coming to Iffley this afternoon even though Mme. Iritosky had arranged a special séance for finding Princess Arjumand. And on the way over in the carriage, she asked me what I thought of plum cake for a bride’s cake. That’s when I got truly worried that my taking the cat had caused an incongruity and Count de Vecchio and Terence would never have met Tossie if she hadn’t come to Oxford, and neither of their names begins with a ‘C.’ ”

I was getting lost again. “Why do their names need to begin with a ‘C’?”

“Because that summer — this summer — she married someone whose name begins with a ‘C.’ ”

“How do you know? I thought the diary was unreadable.”

“It is.” She walked over to a pew and sat down next to a sign that read, “Sitting in pews allowed only during services.”

“Then couldn’t the ‘C’ refer to that trip to Coventry that changed her life forever?” I said. “Coventry begins with a ‘C.’ ”

She shook her head. “Her diary entry for May 6, 1938 says, ‘This summer we shall have been married fifty years, and I am happier than I ever thought possible being Mr. C-something’s wife,’ but the middle of his name is blotted out, and the letter ‘w’ of ‘wife.’ ”

“Blotted?”

“An ink stain. Pens did that in those days, you know.”

“And you’re certain it’s a ‘C’ and not a ‘G’?”

“Yes.”

That seemed to rule out not only Count de Vecchio and Terence but also Professor Peddick and Jabez. And thankfully, me.

“Who is this Mr. Chips or Chesterton or Coleridge she’s supposed to marry?” I said.

“I don’t know. It’s no one she’s ever mentioned and no one who’s ever been to Muchings End. I asked Colleen, the parlor maid. She’d never heard of him.”

There was the sound of distant voices from outside. Verity stood up. “Walk with me,” she said. “Pretend we’re examining the architecture.” She strolled over to the baptismal font and looked interestedly at it.

“So you don’t know who this Mr. C is, but you know it’s someone Tossie hasn’t met yet and you know she married him this summer,” I said, examining a sign that said, “Do not remove church furnishings.” “I thought Victorians went in for long engagements.”

“They do,” she said, looking grim, “and after the engagement, the banns have to be read out in church for three successive Sundays, not to mention meeting the parents and sewing a trousseau, and it’s already nearly the middle of June.”

“When were they married?”

“We don’t know that either. The church at Muchings End was burned during the Pandemic, and her later diaries don’t mention the date.”

I thought of something. “But surely they mention his name, don’t they? The May sixth entry can’t have been the only time she mentioned her husband in fifty years.”

She looked unhappy. “She always refers to him as ‘my darling husband’ or ‘my beloved helpmeet.’ ‘Darling’ and ‘beloved’ underlined.”

I nodded. “And exclamation points.” I’d had to read some of the diaries for references to the bishop’s bird stump.

We strolled over to the side aisle. “The diaries stopped for several years after this summer’s,” Verity said, “and then started up again in 1904. By that time they were living in America, and he was working in silent films under the stage name of Bertram W. Fauntleroy, which he changed to Reginald Fitzhugh-Smythe in 1927, when the talkies came in.”

She stopped in front of a stained-glass window half-covered with a sign that read, “Do not attempt to open.” “He had a long and distinguished career playing British aristocrats,” she said.

“Which means it was likely he was an aristocrat himself. That’s good, isn’t it? It means at least he wasn’t a tramp who wandered by.” I thought of something. “What about his obituary?”

“It lists his stage name,” she said, “and so does hers.” She smiled wryly at me. “She lived to the age of ninety-seven. Five children, twenty-three grandchildren, and a major Hollywood studio.”

“And nary a clue,” I said. “What about Coventry? Could she have met this Mr. C there, while she was looking at the bishop’s bird stump, and that’s the event that changed her life forever?”

“It’s possible,” she said. “But that’s another problem. They haven’t said anything about a trip to Coventry. Mrs. Mering’s talked about going to Hampton Court to see Catherine Howard’s ghost, but they’ve never so much as mentioned Coventry, and they didn’t go before I got here. I know because I asked—”

“—the upstairs maid,” I finished.

“Yes. And we know Tossie went there sometime in June. That’s why I’ve been so worried about their coming to Oxford to see Madame Iritosky. I was afraid Princess Arjumand’s disappearance had made them come to Oxford when they should have been going to Coventry, or that Mr. C might have come to Muchings End while Tossie was here and missed meeting her. But if Mr. Dunworthy and T.J. have returned Princess Arjumand, that means the cat’s simply wandered off. And who knows? Mr. C may be the one who finds her and brings her back. Perhaps that’s why they got engaged so suddenly, because she was grateful to him for returning Arjumand.”

“And it isn’t as if you’ve been away from Muchings End long,” I said. “Only a day. If Mr. C did come calling, the maid would no doubt ask him to wait in the parlor till you returned.”

“What do you mean?” she said. She stood up abruptly, her skirts rustling.

“I just assumed,” I said, surprised. “Weren’t the Victorians the ones with parlors? Didn’t their maids ask callers to wait?”