“The date is written at the top of them. 2nd February 1808. That is two weeks ago.”

“Indeed? I had not observed.”

“Two Spells to Make an Obstinate Man leave London,” read Arabella. “I wonder why the magician would want to make people leave London?”

“I do not know. There are certainly too many people in London, but it seems a great deal of work to make them leave one at a time.”

“But these are horrible! Full of ghosts and horrors! Making them think that they are about to meet their one true love, when in truth the spell does nothing of the sort!”

“Let me see!” Strange snatched back the offending spells. He examined them rapidly and said, “I promise you I knew nothing of their content when I purchased them – nothing whatsoever. The truth is that the man I bought them from was a vagabond and quite destitute. With the money I gave him he was able to escape the workhouse.”

“Well, I am glad of that. But his spells are still horrible and I hope you will not use them.”

“But what of the last spell? One Spell to Discover what My Enemy is doing Presently. I think you can have no objection to that? Let me do the last spell.”

“But will it work? You do not have any enemies, do you?”

“None that I know of. And so there can be no harm in attempting it, can there?”

The instructions called for a mirror and some dead flowers,³ so Strange and Henry lifted a mirror off the wall and laid it upon the table. The flowers were more difficult; it was February and the only flowers Mrs Redmond possessed were some dried lavender, roses and thyme.

“Will these do?” she asked Strange.

He shrugged. “Who knows? Now …” He studied the instructions again. “The flowers must be placed around, like so. And then I draw a circle upon the mirror with my finger like this. And quarter the circle. Strike the mirror thrice and say these words …”

“Strange,” said Henry Woodhope, “where did you get this nonsense?”

“From the man under the hedge. Henry, you do not listen.”

“And he seemed honest, did he?”

“Honest? No, not particularly. He seemed, I would say, cold. Yes, ‘cold’ is a good word to describe him and ‘hungry’ another.”

“And how much did you pay for these spells?”

“Henry!” said his sister. “Did you not just hear Mr Strange say that he bought them as an act of charity?”

Strange was absent-mindedly drawing circles upon the surface of the mirror and quartering them. Arabella, who was sitting next to him, gave a sudden start of surprize. Strange looked down.

“Good God!” he cried.

In the mirror was the image of a room, but it was not Mrs Redmond’s drawing-room. It was a small room, furnished not extravagantly but very well. The ceiling – which was high – gave the idea of its being a small apartment within a large and perhaps rather grand house. There were bookcases full of books and other books lay about on tables. There was a good fire in the fireplace and candles on the desk. A man worked at a desk. He was perhaps fifty and was dressed very plainly in a grey coat. He was a quiet, unremarkable sort of man in an old-fashioned wig. Several books lay open on his desk and he read a little in some and wrote a little in others.