“One or two,” I said.

“Well, then, you know that there are donated fancy goods and jellies and needlework tables. My idea was that we also donate objects that we no longer have any use for, all sorts of things, dishes and bric-a-brac and books, a jumble of things!”

I was gazing at her in horror. This was the person who had started it all, the person responsible for all those endless jumble sales I’d been stuck at.

“You would be amazed, Mr. Henry, at the treasures people have in their attics and storerooms, sitting there covered in dust. Why, in my own attic I found a tea urn and a lovely celery dish. Baine, were you able to get the dents out of the tea urn?”

“Yes, madam,” Baine said, pouring her coffee.

“Would you care for coffee, Mr. Henry?” Mrs. Mering asked.

I was surprised at how pleasant Mrs. Mering was being to me. It must be the politeness Verity had referred to.

Tossie came in, carrying Princess Arjumand, who had a large pink bow tied round her neck. “Good morning, Mama,” she said, scanning the table for Terence.

“Good morning, Tocelyn,” Mrs. Mering said. “Did you sleep well?”

“O yes, Mama,” Tossie said, “now that my dearum-dearums pet is safely home.” She snuggled the cat. “You slept cuddled next to me all night long, didn’t you, sweetum-lovums?”

“Tossie!” Mrs. Mering said sharply. Tossie looked chagrined.

Obviously some sort of breach of etiquette, though I had no idea what. I would have to ask Verity.

Colonel Mering and Professor Peddick arrived, talking animatedly about the battle of Trafalgar. “Outnumbered twenty-seven to thirty-three,” the Colonel was saying.

“Exactly my point,” Professor Peddick said. “If it hadn’t been for Nelson, they’d have lost the battle! It’s character that makes history, not blind forces! Individual initiative!”

“Good morning, Papa,” Tossie said, coming over to kiss the Colonel on the cheek.

“Good morning, Daughter.” He glared at Princess Arjumand. “Doesn’t belong in here.”

“But she’s had a terrible ordeal,” Tossie said, carrying the cat over to the sideboard. “Look, Princess Arjumand, kippers,” she said, put one on a plate, set it and the cat down, and smiled defiantly at Baine.

“Good morning, Mesiel,” Mrs. Mering said to her husband. “Did you sleep well last night?”

“Tolerably,” he said, peering under the wolf. “And you, Malvinia? Sleep well, my dear?”

This was apparently the opening Mrs. Mering had been waiting for. “I did not,” she said, and paused dramatically. “There are spirits in this house. I heard them.”

I knew I shouldn’t have trusted Verity with her “The walls in these country houses are thick. One can’t hear a thing through them.”

“O, Mama,” Tossie said breathlessly, “what did the spirits sound like?”

Mrs. Mering got a faraway look. “It was a strange, unearthly sound such as no living being could make. A sort of sobbing exhalation like breathing, though of course the spirits do not breathe, and then a…” she paused, searching for words, “…a shriek followed by a long painful gasp, as of a soul in torment. It was a dreadful, dreadful sound.”

Well, I would agree with that.

“I felt as though it were trying to communicate with me, but could not,” she said. “O, if only Madame Iritosky were here. I know she would be able to make the spirit speak. I intend to write to her this morning and ask her to come, though I fear she will not. She says she can only work in her own home.”

With her own trapdoors and hidden wires and secret connecting passages, I thought, and supposed I should be grateful. At least she wasn’t likely to show up and expose my harboring of Cyril.

“If she could have but heard the spirit’s fearful cry, I know she would come to us,” Mrs. Mering said. “Baine, has Mr. St. Trewes come down yet?”

“I believe he is coming momentarily,” Baine said. “He took his dog for a walk.”

Late for breakfast, and walking his dog. Two strikes against him, though Mrs. Mering didn’t look as irritable as I’d thought she might.

“Hullo,” Terence said, coming in, and without Cyril. “Sorry I’m late.”

“That’s perfectly all right,” Mrs. Mering said, beaming at him. “Do sit down, Mr. St. Trewes. Would you care for tea or coffee?”

“Coffee,” Terence said, smiling at Tossie.

“Baine, bring coffee for Mr. St. Trewes.”

“We’re all so delighted you’ve come,” Mrs. Mering said. “I do hope you and your friends will be able to stay for our church fête. It will be such fun. We shall have a coconut shy and a fortuneteller, and Tocelyn will be baking a cake to raffle. Such an excellent cook, Tocelyn, and so accomplished. She plays the piano, you know, and speaks German and French. Don’t you, Tossie, dear?”

“Oui, Mama,” Tossie said, smiling at Terence.

I looked questioningly at Verity. She shrugged back an “I don’t know.”

“Professor Peddick, I do hope your pupils can spare you for a few days,” Mrs. Mering was saying. “And Mr. Henry, do say you’ll help us with the Treasure Hunt.”

“Mr. Henry has been telling me he lived in the States,” Verity said, and I turned and looked at her in astonishment.

“Truly?” Terence said. “You never told me that.”

“It… it was when I was ill,” I said. “I… was sent to… the States for treatment.”

“Did you see Red Indians?” Tossie asked.

“I was in Boston,” I stammered, silently cursing Verity.

“Boston!” Mrs. Mering cried. “Do you know the Fox sisters?”

“The Fox sisters?” I said.

“The Misses Margaret and Kate Fox. The founders of our spiritist movement. It was they who first received communications from the spirits by rapping.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t have that pleasure,” I said, but she had already turned her attention back to Terence.

“Tocelyn embroiders beautifully, Mr. St. Trewes,” she said. “You must see the lovely pillowcases she has sewn for our fancy goods stall.”

“I am certain the person who purchases them will have sweet dreams,” Terence said, smiling goopily at Tossie, “ ‘a dream of perfect bliss, too beautiful to last.…’ ”

The Colonel and the professor, still at Trafalgar with Nelson, pushed back their chairs and stood up, muttering, one after the other, “If you’ll excuse me.”

“Mesiel, where are you going?” Mrs. Mering said.

“Out to the fishpond,” the Colonel said. “Show Professor Peddick my nacreous ryunkin.”

“Do wear your greatcoat then,” Mrs. Mering said. “And your wool scarf.” She turned to me. “My husband has a weak chest and a tendency to catarrh.”

Like Cyril, I thought.

“Baine, fetch Colonel Mering’s greatcoat,” she said, but they were already gone.

She turned back immediately to Terence. “Where do your people come from, Mr. St. Trewes?”

“Kent,” he said, “which I always thought the fairest spot on earth till now.”

“Might I be excused, Aunt Malvinia?” Verity said, folding her napkin. “I must finish my glove boxes.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Mering said absently. “How long have your family lived in Kent, Mr. St. Trewes?”

As Verity passed me, she dropped a folded note in my lap.

“Since 1066,” Terence said. “Of course, we’ve improved the house since then. Most of it’s Georgian. Capability Brown. You must come and visit us.”

I unfolded the note under the table and sneaked a look at it. It read, “Meet me in the library.”

“We should love to come,” Mrs. Mering said eagerly. “Shouldn’t we, Tocelyn?”

“Oui, Mama.”

I waited for an opening and dived in. “If I might be excused, Mrs. Mering,” I began.

“Absolutely not, Mr. Henry,” she said. “Why, you haven’t eaten a thing! You must have some of Mrs. Posey’s eel pie. It is unparalleled.”

It was, and so was the kedgeree, which she made Baine dump on my plate with a large shovel-like utensil. A kedgeree spoon, no doubt.

After some eels and as little kedgeree as possible, I made my escape and went to look for Verity, though I had no idea where the library was. I needed one of those diagrams like in Verity’s detective novels.