He did have some money in his pockets. What luck. I put that in the clothier’s for the garments I’d taken, which seemed more than adequate when I did my arithmetic, at which I am not so good, preternatural powers or no. Then I wrote a little note of thanks, unsigned, of course. And I locked up the shop door tight with a few little telepathic twists, and off I went again.

CHAPTER FIVE

IT WAS striking midnight when I reached Talbot Manor. It was as if I had never seen the place before. I had time now to roam the maze in the snow, and to study the pattern of clipped shrubbery, and imagine what the garden would be come spring. Beautiful old place.

Then there were the close dark little rooms themselves, built to hold out the cold English winters, and the little lead-mullioned windows, many of which were full of light now, and most inviting in the snowy dark.

David had finished his supper, obviously, and the servants—an old man and woman—were at work still in the kitchen belowstairs while the lord changed his clothes in his bedroom on the second floor.

I watched him as he put on, over his pajamas, a long black dressing gown with black velvet lapels and sash that made him look very much like a cleric, though it was far too ornately patterned to be a cassock, especially with the white silk scarf tucked in at the neck.

Then he made his way down the stairs.

I entered by my favorite door at the end of the passage and came up beside him in the library as he bent to rake the fire.

“Ah, you did come back,” he said, trying to conceal his delight. “Good Lord, but you come and go so quietly!”

“Yes, it’s very annoying, isn’t it?” I looked at the Bible on the table, the copy of Faust, and the little short story by Lovecraft, still stapled, but smoothed out. There was David’s decanter of Scotch also and a pretty thick-bottomed crystal glass.

I stared at the short story, the memory of the anxious young man coming back to me. So odd the way he moved. A vague tremor passed through me at the thought of his having spotted me in three distinctly different places. I’d probably never lay eyes on him again. On the other hand … But there was time to deal with this pest of a mortal. David was on my mind now, and the delicious awareness that we had the night to talk to each other.

“Wherever did you get those handsome clothes?” David asked. His eyes passed over me slowly, lingeringly, and he seemed not to notice my attention to his books.

“Oh, a little shop somewhere. I never steal the garments of my victims, if that’s what you mean. And besides, I’m too addicted to lowlife and they don’t dress well enough for that sort of thing.”

I settled in the chair opposite his, which was my chair now, I supposed. Deep, pliant leather, creaking springs, but very comfortable, with a high winged back and broad substantial arms. His own chair did not match it but was just as good, and a little more creased and worn.