“I say, Mrs. Lake, are you all right? Whitby told me about your nasty experience at the hands of the intruder.”

“You suffered far worse than I did.” She went to the side of the bed. “How is your head?”

“Sore, but I am assured I shall recover.” Tredlow looked at Tobias. “Very kind of you to lend me your man, Whitby, for the night, sir.”

“You’re welcome,” Tobias said from the doorway. “He tells me that you cannot remember much about what happened, however. I suppose that means you cannot provide a description of the intruder?”

“I don’t believe I ever even saw him,” Tredlow said. “I do recall that after sending word to Mrs. Lake, I closed my shop and went out to get a bite to eat. I expected to return before she arrived, you see. I may have left the door unlocked.”

“The intruder must have thought you had left for the evening,” Tobias said. “He entered the shop while you were gone and was still there when you returned a short time later.”

“I think I heard some noise in the back room,” Tredlow said. “I must have gone to investigate. The next thing I knew, I was waking up here in my bed with you and Whitby standing over me.”

Lavinia’s mouth tightened. “Just as well you were unconscious while you were in that sarcophagus. I cannot imagine anything worse than waking up inside a coffin.”

“Not a pleasant notion,” Tredlow agreed somberly.

“Do you remember why you sent me a message saying that you wished to speak with me?” Lavinia asked.

Tredlow grimaced. “I intended to inform you that I had heard that two of my competitors had their shops broken into during the past two days. Rumor has it that someone is searching for the Blue Medusa.”

Lavinia exchanged a look with Tobias and then turned back to Tredlow. “Had anyone seen or heard anything that might help us identify the intruder?”

“Not that I’ve heard,” Tredlow said.

The mesmerist opened the door himself. He did not look pleased to see Tobias on the step.

“March. This is a surprise. What are you doing here?” Hudson searched his face warily. “Have you some news about the killer?”

“I want to talk to you.” Tobias moved forward, giving Hudson no choice but to fall back into the hall. “Do you mind if I come in?”

Hudson scowled. “You’re already inside, are you not? Come with me.”

He closed the door and turned to lead the way down a short corridor.

Tobias followed him toward a room at the end of the hall. He surveyed the interior of the house as he moved through it. The door of the parlor stood open. He noticed that it was dark inside. All of the drapes were pulled closed. There appeared to be very little furniture. He glimpsed only a chair and a single table. The Hudsons had not bothered to completely furnish their rented house. Either Celeste had been killed before she could choose fabrics and purchase furnishings or else the Hudsons had never intended to stay here for long.

Hudson ushered Tobias into a spare study. “Sit, if it pleases you. I’d offer you tea, but my housekeeper has left for the day.”

Tobias ignored the invitation. He went to stand at the window instead, his back to the cloudy skies. He did a quick inventory of the room. There were only a handful of books on the shelves, one of which appeared to be very old. The leather binding was cracked and worn. No pictures or drawings adorned the walls. There were no personal effects on the desk.

“Can I assume that you planned a rather short stay in Town?” he asked.

If Hudson was startled by the question, he gave no indication. He went to stand behind his desk. By chance or by choice, he had chosen the one place in the room that the light from the window did not reach. He looked at Tobias from a pool of shadows, eyes deep wells of night.

“You refer to the lack of furniture in the house.” With a casual movement of his hand he removed his watch from his pocket. The gold fobs danced lightly. “The house is rented. Celeste and I never got a chance to unpack properly, let alone select sofas and tables and fabrics. And then she was murdered and naturally I lost all interest in such things.”

“Naturally.”

“May I ask what this is about, March?” Hudson’s voice took on a rich, sonorous quality. The gold watch seals swayed gently. “Surely you have not come here to discuss interior decoration.”

“You are quite correct. I came here to talk about Gunning and Northampton.”

The fobs jangled a little, but Hudson’s shadowed features gave no hint of any reaction other than polite confusion. His eyes never wavered.

“What about them?” he asked.

The watch fobs went back to their steady, rhythmic arcs.

“They were clients of yours in Bath, I believe.”

“Yes. Gunning visited me for a time because he experienced difficulty sleeping. Northampton’s problem centered on his inability to sustain an erection.” Howard’s voice grew more resonant. The watch fobs continued to swing. “Both are common complaints among men of their years. I fail to see how either of those two cases affects this situation.”

The motion of the watch fobs was becoming annoying, Tobias thought.

“Both men were victims of a jewel thief sometime after they came to you for treatments,” he said.

“I don’t understand. Surely you are not implying that my Celeste had anything to do with their losses? How dare you, sir?” Howard’s voice did not tighten with outrage as he came to the defense of his wife’s reputation. If anything, it only reverberated more strongly and deeply. “I told you, she was a beautiful, impulsive woman, but she was no thief, sir.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. It doesn’t matter now, does it?”

“A beautiful, impulsive woman,” Howard repeated gently. The gleaming fobs swung like pendulums. “Not a thief. Eyes as bright as gold. As golden in the light as these little balls dangling from my watch. Look at the balls, March. Golden and bright and lovely in the light. It is very easy to look at them. Very hard to look away.”

“Save your energy, Hudson.” He smiled thinly. “I am in no mood to be put into a trance.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Celeste’s criminal talents do not interest me. What does interest me, Hudson, is the fact that it is quite probable that you are also a thief.”

“Me.” Howard’s voice abruptly hardened. The watch fobs ceased swinging. “How dare you accuse me of having committed theft?”

“I cannot prove it, of course.”

“You certainly cannot.”

“But here is what I think happened.” Tobias clasped his hands behind his back and started to prowl the room. “You worked alone for years. However, I suspect you had one or two close brushes with the law at some point and decided it might be wise to disappear for a while. So you sailed to America. You did rather well for yourself there and remained for some time. But eventually you chose to come back to England. You returned and settled in Bath.”

“This is utter conjecture on your part.”

“Indeed. Utter conjecture is something that I do very well. As I was saying, you set up in business in Bath. And there you met Celeste, a lady whose principles mirrored your own.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Merely that neither of you had any difficulty with the notion of pursuing a life of crime.”

“I could call you out for that, sir.”

“You could, but you won’t,” Tobias said. He halted at the far end of the room and looked at Howard. “You know very well that I am likely the better shot, and in any event, the gossip would be bad for your business.”

“How dare you.”

“As I was saying, you and Celeste formed a team. You selected the victims, no doubt favoring wealthy, aging gentlemen well into their dotage, who would be especially vulnerable to Celeste’s charms. She used her wiles to convince them to consult you for therapy. Once you had them in your treatment room, you employed your mesmeric skills to manipulate them into giving you some valuable from their personal collections. Afterward they remembered nothing of the experience, of course, thanks to the instructions you gave them while they were entranced.”