Clarice’s head regained its normal position immediately above her neck, where it balanced itself, a dead thing, on a column, but Cora’s came forward as though to take the place of its counterpart and to keep the machinery working. In the same flat whisper she continued from where her sister had left off:

‘All we do is to do what we’ve been told to do.’ Her head came forward another two inches. ‘There isn’t anything difficult. It’s easy to do. We go to the big door and then we find two little pieces of cloth sticking through from the inside, and then –’

‘We set them on fire!’ broke in her sister in so loud a voice that Steerpike closed his eyes. Then with a profound emptiness: ‘We’ll do it now,’ said Clarice. ‘It’s easy.’

‘Now?’ said Steerpike. ‘Oh no, not now. We decided it should be tomorrow, didn’t we? Tomorrow evening.’

‘I want to do it now,’ said Clarice. ‘Don’t you, Cora?’

‘No,’ said Cora.

Clarice bit solemnly at her knuckles. ‘You’re frightened,’ she said; ‘frightened of a little bit of fire. You ought to have more pride than that, Cora. I have, although I’m gently manured.’

‘“Mannered” you mean,’ said her sister. ‘You stupid. How ignorant you are. With our blood, too. I am ashamed of our likenesses and always will be, so there!’

Steerpike brushed an elegant green vase from the mantel with his elbow, which had the effect he had anticipated. The four eyes moved towards the fragments on the floor – the thread of their dialogue was as shattered as the vase.

‘A sign!’ he muttered in a low, vibrant voice. ‘A portent! A symbol! The circle is complete. An angel has spoken.’

The twins stared open-mouthed.

‘Do you see the broken porcelain, dear ladies?’ he said. ‘Do you see it?’

They nodded.

‘What else is that but the Régime, broken for ever – the bullydom of Gertrude – the stony heart of Sepulchrave – the ignorance, malice and brutality of the House of Groan as it now stands – smashed for ever? It is a signal that your hour is at hand. Give praise, my dears; you shall come unto your splendour.’

‘When?’ said Cora. ‘Will it be soon?’

‘What about tonight?’ said Clarice. She raised her flat voice to its second floor, where there was more ventilation. ‘What about tonight?’

‘There is a little matter to be settled first,’ said Steerpike. ‘One little job to be done. Very simple; very, very simple; but it needs clever people to do it.’ He struck a match.

In the four lenses of the four flat eyes, the four reflections of a single flame, danced – danced.

‘Fire!’ they said. ‘We know all about it. All, all, all.’

‘Oh, then, to bed,’ said the youth, speaking rapidly. ‘To bed, to bed, to bed.’