“Dash the girl, cannot she stay still?” exclaimed Damerell. “The enchantment will never get a fix on her if she keeps flitting about.”
When Zacharias looked at him, he said:
“I came prepared to fight off a magical ambush, but find myself embroiled in a domestic melodrama—and what is worse, striving with Murchie’s wretched locationary, which is a spell I have never liked. Indeed”—turning to Lady Wythe—“I think it unlikely Miss Gentleman has done what you fear, ma’am. She is surely too sensible to run away with a man upon a single day’s acquaintance, when she has no assurance regarding his income.”
“You believe she has eloped?” said Zacharias.
Lady Wythe hesitated.
“It is a dreadful thing to think of her,” she said. “But I cannot make any sense of Prunella’s note unless it is that her abductor reappeared and repeated his offer. I did think that she seemed to regret refusing him, when she was telling me of him yesterday. It would be imprudent of her to accept, of course, but she is so young, and has lacked the guidance of firm principles, and it is so easy for an unscrupulous man to impose upon a giddy young female! Zacharias,areyou acquainted with the gentleman who wished to run away with her?”
Zacharias murmured that they were acquainted, but he believed there was a misunderstanding. Mr. Hsiang was a very gentlemanlike man, not given to the abduction of young ladies—apart from anything else, he already had three wives.
“And he is so plagued by them that he has often expressed regret that he was not contented with one,” said Zacharias. “No, I cannot think she has run away with Hsiang.”
He was worried, but for quite a different reason. Zacharias did not know why Prunella had taken the familiars with her, but he suspected it meant Prunella had a plan. The thought filled him with apprehension.
The pale, frightened face of a footman peered around the door.
“Beg pardon, ma’am,” he said. “I have said you are not at home, but they have marched all the way from the Society, and they say they will not be put off whatever we do.”
For once Damerell relinquished his self-control so far as visibly to lose his patience.
“Oh, what now?” he cried.
•••
ZACHARIASopened the door to an illusion of magicians on Lady Wythe’s doorstep. Midsomer was among them.
“Zacharias Wythe, you are summoned to appear before the Presiding Committee of the Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers tosurrender your staff,” said one of the men. He handed Zacharias a scroll. “At a meeting called this morning, it was proposed that the Hallett procedure should be undertaken today. The vote was passed by a majority.”
Zacharias took the scroll silently.
Damerell swept the group of thaumaturges with a look of supreme contempt, ending with the man who had spoken. “Why, Cullip, you ha’penny conjurer, Wythe gave you your step!”
Cullip drew himself up to his full height.
“I was elected Secretary to the Committee because it was believed I should do my duty,” he said. “And I am doing it now, I hope.”
“Quite right,” said Zacharias composedly. “Gentlemen, I shall be with you directly. Damerell, if you would have the goodness to tell Lady Wythe—”
“I shall tell Lady Wythe nothing,” said Damerell. Damerell did not often lose his temper, but he did nothing by half measures. “They used to say that a man became a magician who was too scheming for Parliament, too bloodthirsty for the Army, and too much of a bloody sodomite for the Navy. But these are not quite the end times. We must still attempt to merit the name of civilised people. On what grounds is it proposed to strip Mr. Wythe of his staff? Even Hallett was deposed for a reason, however factitious. What fiction haveyouinvented, pray?”
Cullip had gone a deep pink.
“It is a matter of common knowledge that Zacharias Wythe murdered Sir Stephen Wythe—his predecessor, his benefactor and the man who gave him his name!” he said. “And if it is possible to do worse than that, he has done it, for he also murdered the familiar Leofric, who had served the Sorcerers Royal of England since time immemorial. Now Wythe seeks to rob honest Englishmen of our magic, and give it over into the hands of women and foreigners!”
“What an extraordinary series of accusations,” said Zacharias. “On what basis am I said to have committed such wrongdoing?”
He strove to keep his voice light, but his heart sank when he saw the look on Midsomer’s face. This was the opportunity for which his enemy had been waiting.
“Do you deny, sir, that the Fairy Court has deliberately withheld magic from Britain at the behest of a parcel of Malayan vampiresses?” said Midsomer. “And was it not you who received their chieftainess when she came to England to further her scheme of revenge? You who defended her, and contrived at her escape when she was confined for her violent assault upon an Englishwoman?”
“I have not heard that Mrs. Midsomer suffered any greater injury than in losing a turban,” said Damerell. “Indeed, having seen the headdress in question, I am inclined to believe the witch rather did her a service.”
Zacharias shot Damerell a warning look. To Midsomer he said:
“I only recently discovered the block on England’s magic, and the reason for it. If you were aware of it before, sir, I am surprised you did not report it sooner. A solution might have been arrived at by now if the circumstances had been explained to the Society. But it seems you have preferred to foment dissension among our colleagues instead.”
