“Oh!” said Stephen.

“I took the pearls, let the miserable corpse fall to the ground and passed on. Next I turned my attention to your mother’s pretty rose-coloured gown. The sailor who had acquired it, kept it among his things for a year or two until he happened to find himself in a cold, miserable little hamlet on the eastern coast of America called Piper’s Grave. There he met a tall, thin woman and, wishing to impress her, he gave her the gown as a present. The gown did not fit this woman (your mother, Stephen, had a sweetly rounded, feminine figure), but she liked the colour and so she cut it up and sewed the pieces into a counterpane with some other cheap materials. The rest of this woman’s history is not very interesting – she married several husbands and buried them all, and by the time I found her she was old and withered. I plucked the counterpane off her bed as she slept.”

“You did not kill her, did you, sir?” asked Stephen, anxiously.

“No, Stephen. Why would I? Of course it was a bitter night with four feet of snow and a raging north wind outside. She may have died of the cold. I do not know. So we come at last to the kiss and the captain who stole it from her.”

“Did you kill him, sir?”

“No, Stephen – though I would certainly have done so to punish him for his insult to your esteemed mother, but he was hanged in the town of Valletta twenty-nine years ago. Fortunately he had kissed a great many other young women before he died and the virtue and strength of your mother’s kiss had been conveyed to them. So all I had to do was to find them and extract what was left of your mother’s kiss.”

“And how did you do that, sir?” asked Stephen, though he feared that he knew the answer all too well.

“Oh! It is easy enough once the women are dead.”

“So many people dead, just to find my name,” sighed Stephen.

“And I would gladly have killed twice that number – nay, a hundred times – nay, a hundred thousand times or more! – so great is the love I bear you, Stephen. With the ashes that were her screams and the pearls that were her bones and the counterpane that was her gown and the magical essence of her kiss, I was able to divine your name – which I, your truest friend and most noble benefactor, will now … Oh, but here is our enemy! As soon as we have killed him, I will bestow your name upon you. Beware, Stephen! There will probably be a magical combat of some sort. I dare say I shall have to take on different forms – cockatrices, raw head and bloody bones, rains of fire, etc., etc. You may wish to stand back a little!”

The unknown person drew closer. He was as thin as a Banbury cheese, with a hawk-like, disreputable-looking face. His coat and shirt were in rags and his boots were broken and full of holes.