“Dear Annabella!” Mr. Oberon exclaimed. “Yes. On Tuesday. Unexpectedly.”

“Ah!” said Carbury Glande, looking at his paint-stained fingernails. “On Tuesday. Then she will be rested and ready for our Thursday rites.”

“Dear Annabella!” Dr. Baradi echoed sumptuously.

The sixth guest turned her ravaged face and short-sighted eyes towards Ginny Taylor.

“Is this your first visit?” she asked.

Ginny was looking at Mr. Oberon. She wore an expression that was unbecoming to her youth, a look of uncertainty, excitement and perhaps fear.

“Yes,” she said. “My first.”

“A neophyte,” Baradi murmured richly.

“Soon to be so young a priestess,” Mr. Oberon added. “It is very touching.” He smiled at Ginny with parted lips.

A tinkling crash broke across the conversation. Robin

Herrington had dropped his glass on the tessellated floor. The remains of his cocktail ran into a little pool near Mr. Oberon’s feet.

Mr. Oberon cut across his apologies. “No, no,” he said. “It is a happy symbol. Perhaps a promise. Let us call it a libation,” he said. “Shall we dine?”

Chapter I

Journey to the South

i

Alleyn lifted himself on his elbow and turned his watch to the blue light above his pillow. Twenty minutes past five. In another hour they would be in Roqueville.

The abrupt fall of silence when the train stopped must have woken him. He listened intently but, apart from the hiss of escaping steam and the slam of a door in a distant carriage, everything was quiet and still.

He heard the men in the double sleeper next to his own exchange desultory remarks. One of them yawned loudly.

Alleyn thought the station must be Douceville. Sure enough, someone walked past the window and a lonely voice announced to the night: “Douce-v-i-ll-e.”