Chapter Eighteen – A Vision in White

“Why’s it dark now?” Edie twisted round, straining her eyes in the blackness.

The space around Adam and Edie had gradually dimmed until all they could now see was each other. They were both aware only of slight flashes of images around them – one moment a river slicked past them and was gone again, then open fields and now a town, just a blur of walls and tumbledown cottages.

“I think he’s skipping bits, taking us somewhere else – Morelake – was that the name of that place he’s being sent to?” she asked.

“Mortlake,” he corrected her. “I know the city pretty well; it’s much further along the Thames and it would’ve still been a village during Dee’s life.”

Almost as if prompted, the images around them began to settle and solidify once more and when the illusion was fully re-formed, they stood in a small village square surrounded by the bustle of a market. Adam immediately began to scan the crowd for D’Scover and quickly found him heading towards a track leading away from the crowds.

“There he is!” He grabbed Edie. “Quick, let’s get after him.”

They both ran through the crowd, closing their eyes to run through the people that blocked their way, until they were just a few steps behind D’Scover on the path. They followed him to another settlement, but this was quite unlike the houses they had seen before. The house itself was normal enough, a farmhouse of decent proportions with a tidy vegetable garden and the brilliant white flash of boiled linen drying on the walls around the perimeter – it was the rest of the building that stunned them.

Attached to the main house were low buildings that seemed to have been added in haste by someone who had only seen houses in pictures. They resembled houses in that they had four walls and a roof, but they were so crudely made they looked more like a child’s playhouse than the home of one of the greatest minds of the age. These extensions to the house seemed to lean against each other for support and looked as though a decent wind would carry them off across the fields.

“They say that intellectuals are the most eccentric and they’re not wrong, are they?” Edie laughed. “Is this really Dee’s house?”

“Must be,” Adam said. “Let’s try and get a bit closer.”

They ran through the wall and across the lawn until they were up against the house. They systematically began to peer in each of the windows around the ground floor. But despite their best efforts, the gloom of the interior revealed nothing of use and they could not decide which wall to walk through.

“We have to find him,” Edie moaned. “Where would you keep books safe in a rickety old house like this?”

“Maybe you’d keep them in a room without windows?” Adam pointed towards the jumble of other buildings that sprouted from the main building. “They could be . . .”

He was interrupted by a loud banging noise from the front of the house. Gesturing for Edie to follow, he ran back round to the gardens.

A young boy was knocking on the door of the main house, running an impatient hand through his black hair as he waited for someone to open it.

“Adam!” Edie shouted. “It’s him!”

They ran closer to be sure they would miss nothing of the impending conversation. By the time they reached the door, a tall, wiry woman had answered it and was already talking to D’Scover.

“I do not think that my husband is seeking help, boy,” she said, “but as you have come all this way, I will ask him. Wait in the gardens to the back, but mind my vegetables or I will have your hide.”

She disappeared into the house and D’Scover wandered round to the back, closely followed by Adam and Edie. They did not have to wait long. A few minutes later a shout came from one of the flimsy-looking buildings on the far side of the property.

“YOU – BOY!”

They all turned to look and there in the doorway of the furthest building stood a tall thin man with a long, pointed beard. He fitted the physical description of the man they had seen at the party, but his face carried a wearier look. In this tired face the only signs of vitality were his eyes and these shone with a hard stare on D’Scover. Dee was dressed in a shabby, long black robe liberally peppered with ash and covered in small burn holes, some of which still smouldered. The woman stood alongside him wearing a gentle smile and, glancing down at his robe, patiently bent down and patted out the smoking patches.

“Master Dee,” D’Scover said, and bowed low before walking to where the great man stood. “I come to offer my services.”

“You, offer your services to me?” Dee began to laugh, a loud, rattling laugh that seemed to fill the garden. “What can you do for me, boy?”

D’Scover looked up and his face carried a look of absolute confidence.

“I can read, sir, English, Latin and French and Greek and some of the Germanic tongues, and I can write the same,” he said.

“Can you now?” Dee looked surprised. “Well, we shall see about that. Follow me.” He walked back into the building and his wife, smiling indulgently, beckoned for D’Scover to follow.

“He likes you,” she whispered to D’Scover as he came to the door. “He trusts his first impressions always and he would not invite you in if he did not like you.”

“Thank you, mistress,” D’Scover replied. “I hoped that it would be so.”

Inside the room it was dark and hot with an acrid stench that should have made D’Scover’s eyes water. Adam and Edie followed Dee and D’Scover through into another room even darker than the one they had left. No external door or window cast light into this room and momentarily they were blinded by the gloom. They listened to the rustling of Dee’s robe as it dragged across the floor and a vivid yellow flare of flame suddenly lit the room. The shadows danced across the floor, falling away from a jumble of equipment the like of which Adam and Edie had seen only in movies.

“It looks like the lab of a mad scientist!” Adam laughed, walking round the large central table.

This table dominated the room and it was overloaded with all manner of glass containers and pipes. There rose from the table a confection of glass tubing that looked so fragile it almost defied gravity by remaining upright. These tubes twisted and turned on themselves, curving once in a while low to the table so that the flames of a candle could brush a swollen bulge in the pipe. Glossy copper piping shone under the table in great coils, looking like metallic snakes frozen in mid-strike. Throughout the glass, and dripping from the copper, were great globs of a silver liquid that clung to itself in perfect gleaming beads.

“Mercury,” Adam said. “Isn’t that, like, really poisonous?”

“Yes, the air in here must be totally toxic,” Edie replied. “No wonder he thought he saw angels.”

“Angels?”

“Yeah, one of the things Dee is known for is that he believed that he had conversations with angels, archangels in fact.” Edie watched Dee move around the room and light more candles. “Actually, not surprising if he was breathing in all this mercury vapour; he would’ve hallucinated all sorts of things. It would’ve killed him in the end.”

“But what if he really did see angels?” Adam asked.

“You’re dead,” Edie reminded him. “Seen any angels?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Good point. Hey, I remember that D’Scover said Father Dominic spoke to angels too; maybe that’s the connection here.”

“Or maybe Father Dominic licked his lead-covered paintbrush too many times and he was hallucinating too,” Edie said.

“Boy,” Dee said. His voice was thick with phlegm and the sound made them want to cough. “So you claim you can read?”

“Yes, master. I was raised in a holy order and I was taught texts.”

“Holy order?” Dee suddenly flew at him and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Amongst the Sisters? Are you sent from them?”

“No, master,” D’Scover protested. “I was raised amongst the Benedictine Brotherhood at St Albans.”

Dee let him go. “I have no tolerance for the holy sisters; they are too keen to pry into my collection. I am tired of their attempts to steal my library and discredit me, sneaking around with Elizabeth’s questions, talking to the Court . . .” He trailed off, seemingly forgetting D’Scover was there.

He gave a little cough to remind the man of his presence.

“Well, boy,” Dee snapped himself out of it, “we shall see if your arrogance lives up to your claims, shall we? I warn you, I do not have time for liars; if you can read as you claim, I may have some use for you.”

The tall man turned and placed both hands on a section of wall panelling behind a large iron candlestick and pushed hard. The wood gave an almost imperceptible click and revealed itself to be on hinges. Dee pulled the section forward and the panel folded back on itself to expose the rows of bookshelves hidden there and the books crammed into them. He reached into the crowded shelves, pulled out a large brown volume and blew dust from it. Cradling it in his right arm, he flicked through the pages until he came to one that made him smile; he raised the book and offered it to D’Scover.

“How come he can hold the book?” Edie asked. “He’s still a ghost after all and I can’t see that crackly light that normally comes just before he holds something.”

“Dunno,” Adam shrugged. “Must be the Senior Council’s doing; they’re giving him their strength, remember.”

D’Scover looked down into the book and frowned.

“What is the matter, boy? Can you not read this text? It is simple Latin and should be well within your grasp if your claims are true.” Dee smiled under his white beard.

“Reading it is not a challenge, master, but I am ashamed to read it aloud,” D’Scover mumbled.

“Tell me, boy, what do you read there?” Dee demanded.

“’Tis a potion, sir, or recipe for one.” D’Scover’s voice was barely audible.

“Go on, tell me in full,” Dee persisted.

“’Tis for . . .” D’Scover faltered. “It deals with matters of love, sir, and with how to make a girl’s head turn to you . . . even if she is already betrothed to another.”

“HA!” Dee laughed a short burst and banged his hand upon the table so hard it set the glass tinkling. “You can indeed read, boy; you may be of use to me.”

He took the book from D’Scover and replaced it on the shelves before pulling the panel back across and hiding the books from view once more.

“I do not pay a regular wage, but you may earn a penny or two for good work, you will not go hungry and you will always be warm,” Dee said. “I expect loyalty and discretion. If you do not give it me, then I have many friends and I am sure you are aware of the fact that even the Queen’s spies owe many favours to me.”

D’Scover nodded and watched as Dee shuffled around, snuffing out candles one by one.

“Go back to the house,” he said, “and the kitchen girl will feed you and find you somewhere to sleep.”

With that, the last candle was extinguished and the room was in darkness. He shuffled past D’Scover, turning back so that his unkempt hair created a halo when silhouetted in the thin light from the other doors beyond.

“Understand this though, boy,” Dee said, his voice now much lower and more malevolent than before, “I do not make idle threats and I will tolerate nothing more than absolute loyalty. If you betray any of what you see here, you will fall harder than you would have imagined possible. Do I make myself understood?”

D’Scover nodded furiously in the thin light.

“Excellent!” Dee said, his voice full of cheer once more. “Away to my wife now. I have work to continue and shall see you later when you are fed.”

He shuffled off into the dark maze of other rooms leaving D’Scover standing in the doorway alone. He waited for a moment, throwing a brief glance behind him into the room, before running off to find the kitchen with Adam and Edie in hot pursuit.

Before they reached the kitchen the image started to blur once more. They could just see a girl step from the gardens towards the kitchen, her apron held up at the hem full of apples.

“Look!” Adam called out. “It’s you!”

The image was fading fast, but it was clear this was yet another incarnation of the life spirit Edie now carried, another of her ancestors.

“Amazing!” Edie gasped. “It’s like watching an old film of myself! I suppose working in the house of an alchemist would be the perfect way for a young witch to secretly learn her craft.”

The image of the girl continued to fade until all around them was a faint blur that grew ever darker.

“He’s skipping bits again, look,” Adam said.

He pointed through the darkness to what was forming before them. There in front of them was a silent scene, played out as though on a stage, of Dee and D’Scover in Dee’s workroom. D’Scover swept the floor as Dee talked in an animated fashion, moving around the glass equipment, tapping and touching sections as he did so. The scene smudged and the colours ran into another scene of Dee and D’Scover sitting in front of a table loaded to breaking point with books; both seemed to be scouring the pages for something.

The scenes changed again and again, speeding up as they did so. They watched as D’Scover became closer to Dee and gained his confidence even more. The passage of time speeded up and they saw many visit Dee in his crowded house. Edie leaned on Adam’s freshly strengthened shoulder to steady herself as the images began to slow down and form a room around them.

“Looks like we’re here again,” Adam said.

“D’you think this is nearly over?” Edie asked. “I’m starting to forget what home is like.”

“Yeah, well, I . . .” Adam stopped short as Dee burst into the room closely followed by D’Scover.

“Quickly, boy, the carriage will be here soon and we must be ready to leave,” Dee urged. “My trunk is almost ready; put these remaining books in and bolt it securely.”

“Your library, master,” D’Scover asked. “What will become of it?”

“I have left instructions with someone I trust in the village to guard my house well,” he sighed. “We shall have to hope that his word is good and he will take care of it.”

Dee walked to the panels that concealed the bookcases and rolled them back to reveal the books within.

“It has been my life’s work to gather these volumes,” he said, caressing the spines of a few books. “And now I am forced to take my leave of them and to place them in the hands of a man with less education than a coachman.”

Dee spun round to look at D’Scover and his face burned with a look of anger and hate that made Adam and Edie shudder involuntarily.

“The royal house shall regret this move to force me and my counterpart from the country,” he raged, angrily slamming the panel closed behind him. “One day they shall realise that Kelly and I are privy to great truths from the hearts of the angels and they shall all be doomed for their failure to allow us freedom of movement.”

“Who’s Kelly?” Adam asked.

“Kelly was a con artist, basically,” Edie said. “Somehow he managed to convince Dee he could hold a seance and get in touch with angels when he wanted to. He got Dee to observe and write about it all and he was totally sucked in.”

“Well, it can’t have all been a con,” Adam protested. “Otherwise why would we be seeing this now? Something here must be important.”

Dee reached out an arm and swept it across the table, forcing the complicated tangle of glass to fall to the floor and shatter on the hard stone. Adam looked down as the rain of shards cascaded through his legs, but the scene in the room seemed to transfix Edie.

“They shall not have my work,” Dee said through gritted teeth. He dumped a large fabric bag unceremoniously on the table and began to stuff it with parchment and books from his desk.

“Master, where will you go?” D’Scover asked.

“I have a friend in Prague who has gained me an audience with King Rudolf. I shall find work in his court,” Dee said. “At least he is not a fearful ignoramus! These fools here in England who jump at the beck of the girl we call Queen shall mourn my leaving. Well, to hell and to damnation with the lot of them.”

Dee returned to his desk and began rummaging around in the huge mound of loose papers for something. It cascaded like an avalanche over the side of the desk and skidded along into the mess of broken glass and spilled mercury.

“Blast, where is the monk’s book? I cannot leave without it,” Dee muttered angrily to himself. “That fat nun may have slandered my name, but she will not seize my book.”

“Which book, master?” D’Scover asked, bending to look under the desk.

“The one I showed you before, the coded one from the monastic house.”

“Here, master.” D’Scover bent over and pushed aside a pile of paper. “Here it is.” He held up a book for Dee to take. It was smaller than most of the books in the library and bound only in a crumpled cover of creamy vellum around diaphanous sheets of white paper. Dee looked visibly relieved to find it and snatched it from D’Scover, holding it tight to his body.

“Why d’you think he’s going away?” Adam asked, turning back to Edie.

Edie stood next to him, but as Adam looked at her, he felt he was only looking at an empty shell – Edie seemed to have gone. She stood stock-still and her wide-stretched eyes had a glazed look as she stared into the distance.

“Edie?” he said. “Edie – EDIE!”

He began to shout, took her shoulders in his hands and shook her. She rocked stiffly backwards and forwards as if she was a rigid doll and her eyes seemed fixed on something way beyond Adam’s vision. He let her go and she softened and crumpled to the floor with her eyes still wide and staring. Behind them, the illusory Dee continued to pack to leave and D’Scover fussed around with the spilled paper, but Adam only had eyes for Edie. Kneeling down beside her, he concentrated on solidifying his own hand, gripped hers tightly and closed his eyes.

“Don’t leave me, Edie,” he begged, “we’ve only just found you, come on, hang on.”

He wrapped both of his hands round hers, hoping to force them into the real world with his tight grip, and willed his thoughts to D’Scover.

“C’mon, D’Scover!” he shouted. “Get us out of here.”

Adam took a deep breath and focused on her cold hands in his and pictured the office, imagined the walls rising up around him and the couch beneath them. He gave his whole being to making this image in his mind real and, when he opened his eyes a moment or two later, he was back in the real world.

“Carriage, books, trunk, glass, rain, fear, haste, boat, sickness, destruction, books . . .”

D’Scover still mumbled in his soft voice, his eyes closed, deep in the illusion himself.

“D’Scover!” Adam yelled. “Something’s wrong with Edie!”

“What?” D’Scover shook himself back to an alert state. “How did you remove the influence of the vision?”

“I dunno,” Adam snapped. “Does it matter? Edie needs help.”

D’Scover stood up and leaned over Edie where she sat with her head slumped backwards over the cushions of the couch. Her eyes still stared at nothing and she was quite still. D’Scover took her limp wrist, felt for a pulse, then he reached out a hand, and a small mirror appeared in it. This he held over her mouth and with her breath the surface immediately steamed over. Adam sighed with relief.

“She is fine,” D’Scover said. “She told me about this during our train journey. She is having a psychic episode. She said once in a while they can be very strong and quite overwhelming like this, but often they are just a brief glimpse of something that will happen. Sometimes the episodes come along out of the blue, but she explained that more often than not they are triggered by something. She may have seen something in the Hypnagogia that provoked this.”

“So what do we do?” Adam asked, horrified by Edie’s stillness.

“Nothing,” D’Scover replied. He clicked his fingers and made the mirror vanish again. “Just make sure she is comfortable and wait for it to pass. She will be tired when she comes out of it, but it should not cause her any damage. I hope she learns something useful.”

“Should not cause her damage?” Adam spluttered. “How can you be sure?”

“We cannot, but she seemed very sure of these episodes when she told me about them.”

“It’s horrible,” Adam said, leaning over her. “She actually looks deader than I do.”

“Hmm,” D’Scover mumbled from his seat at the computer where he had once more called up the reports that Adam had seen before. “I have some work to do now. I suggest you Disperse until Edie revives. You should take every opportunity for rest as there is no telling when the Trial will come.”

“Oh, the Trial,” Adam said. “Actually, I was meaning to talk to you about that. I don’t think that . . .”

“Enough . . .” D’Scover cut in. “That is enough for now, you must Disperse. There will be time to talk later.”

Adam fell silent, raising his hands before him and, with a confidence that suggested he had been doing it for centuries, muttered his Ritual and scattered himself in his trademark scarlet beads before vanishing altogether into his Dispersal.

D’Scover did not turn to watch him go, engrossed instead in the screen before him. Report after report rolled across it and all seemed to have one thing in common: defunct spirits were being resurrected. Some of these ghosts had not been reported in over a century and yet here they were again, wandering corridors and clanking chains with all the style and grace of a cheap horror movie.

These were not the ghosts of the new and yet also did not seem to be the antiquated ghosts that had become accustomed to modern ways and adapted. These were the ghosts of the old worlds resurrected. They were striking fear into the living that saw them as they walked in the darkness, dripping spectral blood and wailing. One of the biggest areas of increase was in the sighting of headless ghosts and screamers. These ghastly phantoms were terrorising some of the older houses and castles around the world and people were fleeing their homes in terror.

The Brotherhood was being swamped with pleas for help from living agents and other Shades were using their CCs to send message after message back, asking for information. As D’Scover paged through these reports, another CC message flashed up on the screen – he cancelled it and carried on reading, but the message came back again. Again he cancelled it, but it flashed up one more time. Curiosity won and he clicked on it and raised Marcus’s ident screen.

“What do you want, Marcus? I am very busy.”

“I have to see you; I have to tell you something, it’s really urgent,” Marcus whispered. “Call me in now – you have to do it. Please get me out of here and I’ll explain everything.”

“Very well,” D’Scover sighed, “but it had better be good or I will Disperse you myself. Do you have a secure line for me to bring you in?”

“I’ve managed to get into the webcam in the ant colony – will that do?”

“It might be a bit choppy on transmission as a video stream is not as smooth as a straight data feed, but it will do,” D’Scover said. “Can you be sure you will not be seen?”

“Oh yes, I’m sure of that; the museum’s been closed today – that’s one of the things I need to tell you.”

“Very well, stand ready.”

“I can’t stand. It’s a glass case and not all of me fits in,” Marcus said, taking furtive glances around. “I can lay ready, does that count?”

D’Scover rolled his eyes in frustration and tapped the keyboard. The image of Marcus blurred and a crackling and vivid blue cloud began to take shape in front of the desk. First the legs formed and then the shape sputtered and sparks flew around the room. D’Scover tapped the keyboard a few times and the image seemed to strengthen and start re-forming once more. D’Scover waited until a fully formed Marcus stood in the room in front of him.

“Still makes me feel a bit sick,” he said.

“What is all this about, Marcus?”

“Something’s going on at the museum,” Marcus said proudly with a smug expression on his face.

“You will have to be more specific. I do not have psychic powers.”

“Well, I keep hearing voices, at night in the shadows, and no one’s there.”

D’Scover sighed. “Marcus, I really do not have time for you if you are just angling for another transfer.”

“No, absolutely not,” Marcus insisted. “I do hear voices, and I’m not cracking up. I think they’re keeping their substance low so they can Disperse in a second – clever trick.”

“I am listening,” D’Scover said and turned away from his computer. “Tell me more.”

“They talk about searching for something, but I’m not sure what. They’ve been all over the place by all accounts. They know where one of the things they’re looking for is, but they need something that goes with it. Last week they went to a place by Newquay – or at least that was what it sounded like.”

“I do not think they were saying that,” D’Scover said. “What are they looking for? Better still, who are they?”

“Now that I might be able to help you with – I think that one of them’s the bloke I’ve been lumbered with. Fifth earl of thingy, totally barking and a flash uniform, but he has a nasty streak a mile wide and I think he’s up to something. I’ve seen him sneaking around a lot.”

“I am familiar with William Lawton, a gambler and one with greedy tastes,” D’Scover mused. “You said they – who is he acting with?”

“Can’t tell, never seen the other one and they always whisper.” Marcus shrugged. “I think it’s the Ice Maiden – she’s the woman who controls the museum, the one who dealt with me when I arrived there. The other one was keeping their substance very low, almost at the point of Dispersal, but I’m sure it was a woman. I’ve never seen Lawton with anyone else but her and she’s really strict about movement around the building. I don’t think anyone could get in here from the outside without her knowing about it and kicking up a stink. I just know something’s going on. He was nowhere to be found one night last week and then I heard the voices planning to go by Newquay or somewhere that sounds like it. Can they do that travelling around thing without you knowing?”

“Strictly speaking, yes,” D’Scover said. “Although it is difficult and more than noticeable and I am surprised that the Senior Council have not picked it up.”

“Maybe it’s because so many other spirits have gone crazy; maybe they can’t tell who’s doing what.”

“How do you know about the rise in activity?” D’Scover asked.

“Have you been in the museum lately?” Marcus laughed. “The place is a nuthouse. Cases smashed, the library’s been messed about with and stuff has even gone missing. The living had the security cameras pointed at everything and all they could see was stuff moving around on its own. They even closed the museum for a couple of days to see if there was a fault with the cameras.” Marcus frowned and realised what D’Scover had said. “Hey, you mean this’s been happening in other places too? I thought it was just the museum.”

“No, it is not just the Natural History Museum; it has been happening in other places,” D’Scover said. “We are experiencing some problems with old spirits.”

“Maybe these voices wanted to cover their tracks.”

“That is a distinct possibility,” D’Scover said. “Now, if that is all, I had better send you back.”

“No way.” Marcus jumped to his feet.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not going back there,” he protested.

“You have no choice in this issue,” D’Scover said dismissively.

“If you send me back,” Marcus said in an oily fashion, “I won’t tell you what they are looking for.”

“I may well consider reallocation when there is time, but right now I am considering Final Dispersal and then attempting memory retrieval from your scattered substance,” D’Scover said menacingly.

Edie stirred on the couch, sitting up and blinking away the psychic episode. She licked her lips and looked around in a bemused fashion.

“Hey!” Marcus pointed at Edie. “I thought she was dead! I didn’t like to say anything, but I did think it was a bit odd to have a corpse just laying around on the sofa, but who am I to question you?”

D’Scover stood up and walked over to Edie, pulling a glass of water out of mid-air as he strode over.

“How do you feel?” he asked as she sipped the water.

“Mrrr,” she mumbled.

“What did you say?”

She took a large gulp of water and swallowed hard. “Mirror,” she blurted. “One of the things they’re looking for is a mirror.”

“Hey, how did you know that?” Marcus asked.

“She is psychic,” D’Scover said. “So maybe we will not need your help after all.”

He turned back to Edie. “Did you see anything else?” he asked. “Anything that might help us find these people.”

“A building, white, very white, and two staircases wrapped round a shiny white building.” She sipped more water and her eyes slowly drifted open and shut as she struggled to stay awake. “It was like a building inside a building, but all white and shining, pure white and above it . . .” Her head lolled back and her eyes closed.

“Edie, you must help us.” D’Scover gripped her shoulders. “Please try and keep going; you can sleep all you want afterwards, but you must help us now.”

“Hmmm.” Edie shook her sleepy head awake. “A library, lots of books, but a roof that is blue, blue like a duck’s egg. They need a book too. But the white, outside but inside too, it’s all white. Above that . . . above that . . .” She drifted again and her head slumped on to her shoulder.

“Edie,” D’Scover said firmly, and shook her again.

“Mmm, yes, I’m awake,” Edie slurred.

“What is above it?” he asked with insistence. “You said something about above.”

“Above,” she repeated. “All white, walls and floor and two staircases curving up.”

“You said that, but what else?”

“Spider web,” she mumbled, “like a spider’s web, high up above it all, all over the white, shining white, white and inside the room books and the blue . . .”

Her head dramatically dropped right back and she fell into a deep sleep, snoring lightly.

“Damn the frailties of the living!” D’Scover said angrily. “I shall just have to wait until she has had her rest then try and make sense of all of this.”

He stood up once more and turned back to find Marcus grinning widely behind him.

“What on earth is that inane expression for?” D’Scover asked.

“Oh, I’ve got plenty to smile about,” Marcus chuckled. “You see, I know exactly where she’s describing!”