Three or four minutes passed. Elizabeth seemed to be searching with her unseeing eyes while Sid waited nervously. Hawthorne was showing no emotion at all. The séance was about as action-packed as the empty screen behind us and I was beginning to think that the main feature might have been cancelled when Elizabeth suddenly tensed. Her head jerked, first one way, then the other.

‘There is someone . . .’ she announced.

‘Who?’ Sid whispered.

‘I can’t see. I can’t see. They’re getting closer. They’re coming towards me now.’ Her voice wavered, on the edge of fear. ‘I don’t want to hurt you! I just need your help!’ She was addressing whatever presence was gliding towards her and I was annoyed with myself: I was almost unnerved. ‘It’s Marlon!’ she exclaimed.

Sid visibly relaxed. ‘Marlon is a friend,’ he whispered. ‘He’s helped us before.’

‘Dear Marlon! Please forgive me for disturbing your rest, but I need help. Can you help me? Can you tell me anything about a man who has recently crossed to the other side? His name is Charles le Mesurier and he was taken before his time, violently. He must be in great pain and we only want to give him comfort.’

We waited in silence. Did Elizabeth know that Helen le Mesurier had also been killed? It was quite possible that she hadn’t been told . . . especially if she’d spent the whole day in the hotel. Her focus was only on Charles.

She cried out, her voice catching in her throat. ‘Marlon is calling him!’ she told us. There was another long wait. ‘He’s there!’ She called out to him: ‘Charles? Can you hear me? I want to help you.’

A long silence, broken only by the sound of Elizabeth’s breathing.

‘Charles isn’t sure,’ she explained. ‘He’s very confused. But I think he’s going to talk to me.’ She shivered. ‘Sid, I’m terribly cold.’

Sid slipped off his jacket and placed it over her shoulders.

‘Charles is here!’ she whispered.

The strange thing was that I was unsure how much time had actually passed. Maybe it was down to all the theatrics or simply because we were in an enclosed space, in a basement, with no connection to the outside world. I still didn’t believe any of it, but I would be doing Elizabeth Lovell an injustice if I didn’t admit that I was captivated by her performance.

‘He’s talking but I can’t hear what he’s saying,’ she continued. She lowered her head. ‘Charles, do you remember me? We met at your house . . . your home on this side of the mirror. The Lookout. Do you remember?’ We had no way of knowing if he did or didn’t. Elizabeth cried out and writhed in her chair. ‘No! We want to help you! We want to find the person who hurt you. Can you tell us who it was?’