'I don't know.'

'The only other people with keys to the rooms are Alice and Mrs Hagstrom. Surely you're not insinuating one of them is . . . Titus, they've worked for me for years.'

'I insinuate nothing. The facts speak for themselves. There is a traitor among us.'

Delphine's breathing quickened. And she's closer than you think.

'Hmph.' Lord Alderberen sat back in his chair. 'Sounds jolly fishy to me.'

'Mmm.' Propp sounded as if he had a pipe between his teeth. Delphine inhaled through her nostrils, thought she caught a whiff; it smelt like burning hair. 'Maybe not so fish. Today I visited library. Prentice is missing.'

'Don't be silly,' said Alderberen, 'it's just been miscatalogued.'

'No,' said Propp. 'I walked room twice. Book is gone.'

'Well, what if it is? Three-quarters of it is the purest fudge anyway. No wonder he published under a pseudonym. You'd have more chance jumping into pools at random than following . . . Oh. Oh my.'

'What?' Dr Lansley rose from his seat. 'What's wrong? Are you all right, old man? Is it your heart again?'

'I'm fine. Sit down. I just had a thought . . . You don't think Kung was trying to . . . '

'Yes,' said Propp. 'I think exactly this.'

'But how did he know?'

Mr Propp made a small, noncommittal noise. 'Your father's library is world famous.'

'Also,' said Lansley, 'evidently he did not know. If he did, he'd still be alive.'

'Still,' said Alderberen, 'he knew enough. He knew to try, didn't he?' He let the innuendo hang.

'Well,' said Lansley, 'now he's gone. And the book's somewhere at the bottom of the ocean.'

The hairs on Delphine's neck prickled.

'This I doubt,' said Propp. 'This I very much doubt. He would not risk damaging it.'

'If he had it in the first place,' said Lansley.

She listened to the three men breathing. In her mind, she saw Daddy on the moonlit beach, retrieving a grey book from the sand.

Propp said: 'You are correct. We speculate.'

'It's worse than that. It's scaremongering.' Lord Alderberen coughed up something wet. 'A few dead mice and we're up on a chair clutching our petticoats.'

Lansley snorted. 'Mice don't fire shotguns.'

'What in blazes are you talking about?' said Alderberen.

'Someone shot at me twice.'

'Oh, poppycock that was just the wind.'

'The wind doesn't blow a hole in the chapel ceiling!'

'What were you doing in chapel?' said Propp.

'That's none of your damn business.'

'Oh,' said Alderberen. 'So now you don't trust us, either? Come on, man. Pull yourself together.'

'That's your solution, is it?' said Lansley. 'Stick our fingers in our ears and go la la la? If they're onto us, we're buggered.'

'All right,' said Alderberen. 'Supposing they are. Why on earth would they want us to know they've got an inside man? Why tip their hand like this?'

'Two possibles,' said Propp. 'One, they feel very assured. Two, they feel very afraid. Either way, very careless. We may use.'

'That's it.' Lord Alderberen's slippers settled on the floor. With a shuddering effort, he stood. 'I'm going to talk to them. Face to face. Get this whole ugly knot untangled.'

Propp sighed. 'Not wise.'

'Hate to say it,' said Lansley, 'but I'm with the Fat Owl of the Remove on this one. Knots don't send death threats. They'll take you as a hostage, Stokeham or no.'

'Why don't we pre-empt them?' said Lord Alderberen. 'Say they can have her?'

Delphine shivered. Her nails dug into her palms.

'No,' said Propp. 'Not possible.'

Nobody said anything for a while. Lord Alderberen sat back down.

Propp said: 'I will speak to them.' He rose.

'What?' said Lord Alderberen. 'Now?'

'Yes.'

'But you just said it was a bad idea! What on earth will you say?'

Propp's voice dropped to a murmur, his accent thickening. 'My dearest friend, you must not worry. Wait here. I will speak to them.'

He walked slowly out of Delphine's view. She heard the door click shut.

Lansley spoke almost immediately. 'He's insane.'

'No.' Lord Alderberen sounded like he was talking through his fingers. 'Very sane. Also: very arrogant.'

'You're even starting to sound like him.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Why has he got so much power over you?'

Lord Alderberen exhaled heavily. 'Don't be absurd.'

'Prove it, then. Overrule him. Tell them what happened. Say that Propp acted alone, without your authority. Give up the child.'

A freezing river poured down Delphine's back. She clamped a hand over her lips.

'Are you mad?'

'I think insanity's a very relative concept these days, don't you?'

'But he'll never consent. And what if they don't accept our apology? What if handing her over isn't enough? Surely we should just keep mum.'

'Neither of those things need concern us unduly.'

'What on earth do you mean?'

Lansley drew a long breath. 'We'll give them Propp too.'

This time the silence held for what seemed like minutes. She listened to the sound of her own breaths, felt them hot and damp against her fingers.

When Lord Alderberen spoke, it was in a whisper.

'You forget your place.'

She heard the catch in Lansley's throat as he inhaled.

'No, my Lord. You forget yours.' He stood. As he continued, his voice rose. 'Quite amazing, the things a man will tell his physician when he believes himself to be on the verge of death. The unburdening of the soul.' He began to walk around the room. 'Like draining a boil.'

'If you're threatening me . . . '

'I am reminding you. Did Arthur sacrifice himself for this, this . . . picayune stalemate?' The toes of Lansley's calf-leather shoes spun to face his master. 'You are the last of the Stokeham line in England. You have a responsibility to assume control of this house and not let some dusky, jumped-up goat farmer come wandering off the steppe and use you as a foothold in his desperate scramble for significance. We were supposed to be gathering an elect for the new world. Now it's all star jumps and watering your many-petaled iris.'

'It's a lotus, Lansley.'

'I don't care what bloody flower it is! That's precisely my bloody point! Once, we dreamed we could be nation-makers. Propp's turned us into bloody botanists.'

There was a pause.

'So instead of kowtowing to Propp, I should kowtow to you?'

'Lazarus. You know I have only your best interests at heart.'

'Spoken like a true Machiavellian.'

'Do you want to die?' Lansley was shouting now. 'Because you know that's going to happen, don't you? This isn't about negotiating any more. Propp is prepared to sacrifice all our lives out of pig-headed sentimentality.'

'No! Right from the beginning, the whole purpose of the Society was to '

Lansley brought a foot smartly down. 'He doesn't care. He's turned. And we've just sent him to speak on our behalf. I mean, do you know what he's going to say? I don't.'

Lord Alderberen was silent for a time.

'Perhaps you're right. We must . . . make plans.'

'The time for plans is long gone. We must stop him.'

Alderberen's chair moaned as he let out a sigh. Very quietly, he said: 'Agreed.'

Delphine rolled away from the hole. Putting a palm on the dusty floor, she stood. Blood rushed to her head; the ringing in her ears swallowed all other sound. For a moment, she thought she would pass out. She slapped a palm against the wall with a dull bang. She thought she heard a voice react, the upward inflection of a question, but she did not care.

She would gather up her evidence and go straight to the police. She would have Scotland Yard breaking down the door. Mother and Daddy had been bewitched. Why else would Mother have done that thing, touching Dr Lansley? Propp couldn't charm the whole of England. The authorities would see him with eyes unclouded by his exotic glamour. He and Alderberen and Lansley would hang for treason.

She negotiated the darkness with the grace of practice, stopping at last at the door. She pressed her ear to the crack in the door frame and listened.

Silence. She turned the club-shaped key in the lock and stepped out, into the smoking room.

A hand gripped her shoulder.

'And that,' said Dr Lansley, 'is quite enough of that.'

*'A torrent of Barbarians may pass over the earth, but an extensive empire must be supported by a refined system of policy and oppression; in the centre, an absolute power, prompt in action and rich in resources; a swift and easy communication with the extreme parts; fortifications to check the first effort of rebellion; a regular administration to protect and punish; and a well-disciplined army to inspire fear, without provoking discontent and despair.'

Miss DeGroot had been trialling this new pet name for over a week (apparently a reference to Florence Nightingale), eliciting steadily more vehement reactions from Lansley. That, in this instance, he did not even seem to notice, can be read as a direct index of his distress.

CHAPTER 18.

TRIAL OF THE PROFLIGATE.

It was not like in The Champion. She tried to pull free and he grabbed her by the scruff of her cardigan.

'If you misbehave, I shall hurt you.'

He marched her to the bell button, rang for Alice.

It was nothing like The Champion. She did not flatten her captor with a hook to the jaw. She waited, meekly. She thought private, angry thoughts but did not act on them.

Alice arrived. She gave Delphine a curious glance.

'Yes, Doctor?'