“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?”