“Yes, hm, ha-ha,” Harper murmured, lifting her teacup, touching the cold tea to her lips. A newspaper wedged between two books in a tall stack displayed its browning folio line: Friday, March 13, 1992. Harper felt a cool sheen of sweat at her temples. She half expected Iago’s minions to burst right through the door, to kidnap her where she sat.

Rose Posonby loosed an elaborate sigh. Pensively touched the silver bun at the back of her head. A long tabby stretched up the shapeless front of her, blinked a greeting into her face. “We were just reminiscing about the old days, Monty and I, the days before the Great War, before the Great War swept the world away. I was barely born, of course, but Monty remembers. He was Dean of Kings College Cambridge, as you know, and I was getting him to talk about the Christmases there, the famous Christmas Eves.”

Harper frowned and grumbled impatiently as the old woman went off into a fugue state: smiling to herself, rocking slightly in her chair, stroking the cats that all but covered her. Harper, meanwhile, noticed an apparent phone number scrawled on a piece of paper atop a lamp stand: 313- … and the rest covered over with flotsam.

“There would be services first in the beautiful chapel,” Rose Ponsonby said. “Then dinner and hot spiced beer and a game of cards. And then a select group would retire to Monty’s rooms. And there, finally, finally,” she went on, leaning forward over the cats in her lap with brightening eyes, “Monty would go into his bedroom and come out with his latest manuscript. And he would blow out all the candles except for one. And he would sit in his great wing chair with that one candle beside him and his manuscript in his hand—and he would begin to read. Oh, imagine, Harper, imagine—to be the first to hear those great stories. ‘The Ash Tree’ or ‘Abbot Thomas.’ Or ‘Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad.’ Those great ghost stories. The greatest ever written, I believe. And now to be a ghost himself, poor dear …” She shook her head, sighed again, another elaborate sigh.

Harper’s cup rattled against her saucer as she set them down on the table. She seized her pipe and began once more to tamp it furiously. But she knew her friend could not be rushed.

Rose Ponsonby poured herself just another splash of tea. Gave it a speculative taste. Said: “Ah!” Then: “Robert Hughes was at several of those readings, you know.”

Harper stopped tamping her pipe. Stopped casting anxious glances here and there. She gave all her attention to the other woman, to the slack, sagging face in the yellow light of the fringed lantern above them.

“Robert Hughes,” Harper said slowly. “The author of ‘Black Annie’?”