When he passed the gloom-filled parlor, he glimpsed a desk amid the assortment of heavy furniture.

He went into the room, crossed the red and black patterned carpet and quickly opened the various drawers. None contained the diary but casually tucked into a cubby-hole was a sheet of paper with a list of names and addresses. Yesterday's date and the words nine o'clock had been noted at the top of the page.

He studied the list for a few seconds before it came to him that he was most likely looking at the names of the sitters who had attended Elizabeth Delmont's last séance.

One of the names was heavily underlined. There was something vaguely familiar about it but he could not quite place it. That in and of itself was disturbing. He possessed an excellent memory. Such a talent had been necessary in the old days when he had sold gossip and other peoples' secrets to earn a living.

He moved in far more elevated circles now, but some things had not changed. He never forgot a name or a face or a rumor. Information gave him power in the glittering, treacherous jungles of Society, just as it had helped him survive on the streets of London in his youth.

He concentrated on the underlined name, trying to summon up an image or an impression or even a trivial bit of gossip. A fleeting memory surfaced. He was almost certain that Julia or Wilson had mentioned the name in passing. Something to do with a piece in the newspaper. Not the Times; he was certain of that. He read it faithfully every day.

The reference must have come from one of the less respectable papers, he decided. The sort that relied on lurid accounts of sensations—violent crimes and illicit sexual scandals—to sell copies.