She didn’t hit her ball quite so violently as Tossie had, but it wasn’t a tap either. It went through the first hoop, and her next shot brought her within two feet of Tossie’s ball.

“Your turn, Mr. St. Trewes,” Tossie said, moving so her long skirt covered her ball. After his shot, when she walked over to him, her ball was a good yard farther away from Verity.

I went over to Verity. “She cheats,” I said.

She nodded. “I wasn’t able to find Tossie’s diary,” she said.

“I know. She had it with her. She read the dress description to the Chattisbourne girls.”

“Your turn, Mr. Henry,” Tossie said, leaning on her croquet mallet.

Verity had not said anything about the proper grip, and I hadn’t been paying attention. I put my ball down by the wicket and took hold of the mallet with a sort of cricket bat grip.

“Fault!” Tossie called. “Mr. Henry’s ball isn’t the proper length from the hoop. You lose a turn, Mr. Henry.”

“He does not,” Verity said. “Move your ball back the width of a mallet head.”

I did and then hit the ball more or less the right direction, though not through the hoop.

“My turn,” Tossie said and thwacked Verity’s ball completely off the court and into the hedge. “Sorry,” she said, simpered demurely, and did the same thing to Terence’s.

“I thought you said this was a civilized game,” I said to Verity, crawling under the hedge to retrieve her ball.

“I said simple,” she said.

I picked up the ball.

“Pretend you’re still looking for it,” Verity said under her breath. “After I searched Tossie’s room, I went through to Oxford.”

“Did you find out how much slippage there was on your drop?” I said, prying branches apart.

“No,” she said, looking solemn. “Warder was too busy.”

I was about to say that Warder always thought she was too busy, when she said, “The new recruit — I don’t know his name — the one who was working with you and Carruthers — is stuck in the past.”

“In the marrows field?” I said, thinking of the dogs.

“No, in Coventry. He was supposed to come through after he’d finished the rubble, but he hasn’t.”

“He probably couldn’t find the net,” I said, thinking of him messing with his pocket torch.

“That’s what Carruthers said, but Mr. Dunworthy and T.J. are worried it’s connected to the incongruity. They’ve sent Carruthers back to look for him.”

“It’s your turn, Verity,” Tossie said impatiently. She started over to us. “Haven’t you found it yet?”

“Here it is,” I called and emerged from under the hedge, holding it aloft.

“It went out here,” Tossie said, pointing with her foot to a spot several miles from where she hit it out.

“It’s like playing with the Red Queen,” I said, and handed Verity the ball.

My only goal on my next three turns was to get my ball on the same side of the court as Verity’s, a goal that was repeatedly thwarted by “Off With Her Head!” Mering.

“I’ve got it,” I said, limping over to Verity after one of Tossie’s shots had sent Terence’s ball straight into my shin, at which point Cyril had got up and moved to the far side of the lawn. “Mr. C is the physician who’s called in to doctor Tossie’s croquet casualties. What else did you find out?”

Verity lined up her shot carefully. “I found out who Terence married.”

“Please don’t say it was Tossie,” I said, standing on my good leg and rubbing my shin.

“No,” she said. She hit the ball neatly through the hoop. “Not Tossie. Maud Peddick.”

“But that’s good, isn’t it?” I said. “That means I didn’t ruin things by making Terence miss meeting Maud.”

She pulled a folded sheet of paper out of her sash and handed it surreptitiously to me.

“What’s this?” I said, sticking it in my breast pocket. “An excerpt from Maud’s diary?”

“No,” she said. “She’s apparently the only woman in the entire Victorian era who didn’t keep a diary. It’s a letter from Maud St. Trewes to her younger sister.”

“Your ball, Mr. Henry!” Tossie called.

“Second paragraph,” Verity said.

I gave the red ball an enthusiastic whack that sent it straight past Terence’s ball and into the center of the lilacs.

“I say, too bad!” Terence said.

I nodded and went crashing into the lilacs after it.

“Farewell, dear friend,” Terence called gaily, waving his mallet. “ ‘Farewell! For in that fatal word — howe’er we promise — hope — believe — there breathes despair.’ ”

I found the ball, picked it up, and moved into the thickest part of the lilacs. I unfolded the letter. It was written in a delicate, spidery hand. “Dearest Isabel,” it read, “I am so happy to hear of your engagement. Robert is a fine young man, and I only hope you will be as happy as Terence and I are. You worry that you met on the steps of an ironmonger’s, a singularly unromantic location. Do not fret. My darling Terence and I first met at a railway station. I was standing with my Aunt Amelia on the platform of Oxford Railway Station—”

I stood there looking down at the letter. The platform of Oxford Railway Station.

“—scarcely a romantic location, yet I knew instantly, there amidst the luggage vans and steamer trunks, that he was my true mate.”

Only she hadn’t. I had been there, and she and her aunt had hired a fly and gone on.

“Can’t you find it?” Terence called.

I hastily folded the letter and stuck it back in my pocket. “Here it is,” I said, and emerged from the bushes.

“It went out here,” Tossie said, indicating a totally fictitious point with her foot.

“Thank you, Miss Mering,” I said and, measuring one mallet head’s length from the edge with my mallet, placed it on the grass, and prepared to hit it again.

“Your turn is ended,” Tossie said, going over to her ball. “It’s my turn, she said, giving it an enormous whack that sent my ball right back into the lilacs.

“Roquet,” she said, smiling sweetly. “Two strokes.”

“Isn’t she a topping girl?” Terence said, helping me look for my ball.

No, I thought, and even if she were, you’re not supposed to be in love with her. You’re supposed to be in love with Maud. You were supposed to meet her at the railway station, and this is my fault, my fault, my fault.

“Mr. Henry, it’s your turn,” Tossie said impatiently.

“Oh,” I said and hit blindly at the nearest ball.

“Your fault, Mr. Henry,” Tossie said impatiently. “You’re dead.”

“What?”

“You’re dead on that ball, Mr. Henry,” she said. “You’ve hit it once already. You can’t hit it again till you’ve gone through the hoop.”

“Oh,” I said, and aimed for the wicket instead.

“Not that hoop,” Tossie said, shaking her blonde curls at me. “I call a fault for attempting to skip a hoop.”

“Sorry,” I said, trying to focus.

“Mr. Henry is used to playing according to the American rules,” Verity said.

I went over and stood next to her, watching Tossie line up her shot, setting it up like a billiards shot, calculating how the balls would ricochet off each other.

“There’s worse,” Verity said. “One of their grandsons was an RAF pilot in the Battle of Britain. He flew the first bombing raid on Berlin.”

“Terence!” Tossie said. “Your animal is in the way of my double roquet.”

Terence obediently went to shift Cyril. Tossie sighted along her mallet, measuring the angles at which the balls would collide, calculating the possibilities.

I stood there, watching Tossie line up her shot. Verity didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. I knew all about that first bombing raid. It was in September of 1940, in the middle of the Battle of Britain, and Hitler had vowed that bombs would never fall on the Fatherland, and when they did, he had ordered the full-scale bombing of London. And then, in November, of Coventry.

Tossie swung her mallet. Her ball hit mine, ricocheted off, hit Verity’s, and went straight through the hoop.