“Oh, please,” tutted Charismo. “This is embarrassing. I am embarrassed for both of you, really.”

He placed a hand on Riley’s forehead and tipped him over backward. Riley fell awkwardly, knocking over a marble-topped table and sending the Farspeak skittering to the end of its wire.

“Now look what you have done!” said Charismo, mildly irritated.

“You animal!” shouted Chevie, lurching from the chair; but she was well trussed and succeeded only in toppling herself onto the floor, cracking her head on a gryphon wing on the way down.

Charismo rolled his eyes. “Oh, now look, there is blood on Tibor’s special desk. I shall be exceedingly glad when you are dead, Miss Savano. I had hoped to interrogate you as I did the boy, perhaps learn how the world has turned since my day, but now I think I shall forgo that pleasure and proceed directly to the endgame.”

Chevie spat blood on the rug. “What about your queen? How would she feel about all these murders?”

“Old Vic?” said Charismo. “I do not care a fig for Her rheumatic Majesty, beyond the fact that her patronage secures my status. At any rate, she will die confused at the dawn of the new century, and her daughter the following year, which will ring the closing bell on the house of Hanover.”

“And what of your precious Duke of Westminster?”

Charismo laughed bitterly. “That old coot will be gone before Christmas. Would that he should survive another twenty years, as it is extremely convenient to have the ear of the richest man in Britain. But no, the outdoor life will sow the seeds of bronchitis, and that shall do the duffer in.”

Charismo knelt and tousled Chevie’s hair. “Do you know, I would have preferred to have kept you alive. We could have spoken of the future. I have so many plans. One, for example, is that I could change the course of wars. Imagine how different World War One would be if the Germans were warned not to torpedo the Lusitania. America would never enter the war, and by 1918 England would be a German colony, with Tibor Charismo very nicely placed in its court. That is just one of my many ideas.”

“You’re mad,” said Chevie, trying hard to keep Charismo’s attention on her.

“Mad, delusional, comatose. Who cares? I am happy, and I intend to remain happy for as long as possible.”

Charismo dinged a service bell on his desk and Barnum entered, still a little sulky from his recent dismissal.

“Oh, you wants me back in the room, does you, master?”

“Don’t be petulant, Barnum. Your boxer’s countenance does not suit the expression.”

“Very good, master. What’s the drill with these two? I was thinking a quick stab over the kitchen sink, for to catch the blood, then into a sack and roly-poly down the embankment.”