“I have been working to ensure the removal of a murderer, a thief and a traitor from the highest office in English thaumaturgy,” said Midsomer coldly. “It is hardly for you to judge the value of the exercise. If you wish to defend yourself, however, you may do so before the Presiding Committee. The Committee will doubtless give due consideration to any pleas you wish to submit in mitigation.”
“Yes, it will all be perfectly aboveboard, I am sure,” said Damerell, eyeing him. “You certainly do not lack perseverance, Midsomer. I would not have expected less than that, having failed in all your attempts to assassinate Wythe, you should resort to knocking on his door and demanding that he put his neck in your noose.”
“You call me an assassin, sir?” said Midsomer. He tried to smile.“But the Hallett is a legal device, as I think you will find, and one of great antiquity.”
“Oh no,” said Damerell, his eyes gleaming. “I call you a sad incompetent, and your toad-eaters a pack of cowards, to seek to murder a man by committee.”
Midsomer’s face grew stormy. Cullip leapt forward, unholstering a wand from beneath his coat. Behind him an angry chant rose, many-voiced.
Damerell held up his hands. The sky grew dark, though it was morning. The lamps lining the street took on a lurid purple glow. Every man was haloed with green light, and the thick smell of magic washed into the nostrils with every breath.
“Gentlemen, I beg you will be calm,” said Zacharias, but he was already scrabbling for the counter-formula.
It was by pure chance that he looked up while searching his memory for the right syllables, and saw Prunella in the sky, speeding towards them upon a cloud.
She was shouting as she came, and when she leapt off her cloud he saw that she was soaking wet, her hair plastered to her head and her dress clinging to her form.
“She has run away,” she gasped. “She has hid herself in the sea, the coward, and she will not come out whatever names I call her. I had her—oh, I had her by the tail! I have searched an age, but the longer she is hidden, the more likely it is that we shall never find her. It is her realm, you know, so she will know all the best places to hide. You must come directly and find her out. There is not a moment to lose!”
“Prunella, my dear, you are soaked through!” cried Lady Wythe. She burst forth to the startlement of the assembled thaumaturges, who had not observed her lurking behind the door. “Where on earth have you been? But let us have no explanations now. We must get you dry as soon as we can. Oh—how do you do, sirs?”
The ominous chanting had fallen silent upon Lady Wythe’s appearance. Cullip stuck his wand back into his coat and muttered:
“Very well, ma’am, how d’you do? Ahem! I regret the necessity of disrupting your morning with Society business.”
“Not at all,” said Lady Wythe, smiling. “But you will forgive me if I ask whether the Society’s business could not be transacted somewhere other than my doorstep? I have here a young lady who will catch cold if swift measures are not taken, and Zacharias has not yet had his breakfast. These domestic contretemps will seem of little consequence to you, sirs, but you will humour a mere female, I know.”
The thaumaturges wavered. Lady Wythe had a great deal of natural authority; she was still held in considerable esteem by the Society; and she knew how to handle magicians. She had resisted the temptation to rush out and make a scene, showing herself at precisely that moment upon good advisement, and she would have brought it off if not for Prunella.
“Zacharias will have to delay his breakfast, ma’am,” Prunella said firmly. “We must go and kill the fairy who has been trying to murder him.”
Midsomer had begun to speak, but he clamped his mouth shut. Zacharias stared at Prunella, taken aback.
“The fairy?” he said.
“We have had it all wrong, Zacharias,” said Prunella. “It is not Mr. Midsomer who set those horrid traps for you, but his familiar! I saw the orb at the party, you see—the curse, I mean—so I went to his house, thinking I might discover if it was the same. But there Mrs. Midsomer attacked me! I routed her, however, I and my fa—” Prunella broke off, glancing at the thaumaturges. “That is to say, I suppose her guilt overcame her, for she turned into a mermaid and fled to the sea. I pursued her, but when I could not find her I thought I ought to return and seek assistance.”
“Where is Midsomer?” said Damerell abruptly.
The man was nowhere to be seen. His accomplices appeared no less bewildered than Damerell.
“Oh, was he here?” said Prunella, looking around. “You might have said. He will have gone to help her, of course. I should not be surprised if the creature were halfway across the Channel by now, with her husband in tow.”
“Where did you leave her?” said Damerell.
Prunella was already climbing back upon her cloud.
“She was just off the coast at Lyme when I left,” said Prunella. “It is a great distance to traverse even by cloud, but we—that is to say,Ihave worked out a modification of Mr. Hsiang’s spell that closes the leagues with singular speed.”
“We will follow by another method,” said Zacharias, who disliked heights. “Damerell, do you think it wise, perhaps, to call—?”
“It is already done,” said Damerell. “Gentlemen, we will take our leave of you.”
Cullip spluttered: “The Committee’s summons—!” But before he could complete his protest, Zacharias and Damerell had vanished.
“If you are so concerned about what the Presiding Committee will think, may I suggest that you summon a conclave to discuss the matter?” said Lady Wythe. A dangerous light shone in her eye. “I shall have something to say to the Committee myself, for it seems to me there has been a great deal of impropriety in these proceedings, which would never have been permitted in Sir Stephen’s day.”
•••
