For a moment both residents and intruders paused to consider their positions. Then Piggott thrust himself one square forward, all eighteen stone, rubbing his hands together. What larks, he seemed to say.

"Bert Piggott at your service, sir." He would not tug his forelock. He gave his head a little bob instead.

His lordship did not so much as lift an eyebrow. He removed his topcoat, revealing himself in his waistcoat like some dangerous red-chested bird with gold embroidery around its buttonholes and pockets. An older boy would know to be afraid of all this Tory needlework, but I was thrilled to see Piggott in a state of terror.

His lordship threw his coat across a chair. So peaceful did he seem that it was a wonder he did not call to have his slippers fetched.

"Have you registered your wife, sir?"

Piggott lifted up his thirty-pound bucket of head and thrust out his chin. "As you say, sir, she is my wife."

"Then you understand your legal position, Mr. Piggott. You must take her to Exeter tomorrow. You will register her, do you understand?"

"She is as good as English, sir, please."

His lordship must have been a funny fellow when with his mates, for he bugged his eyes up very big. "She is what exactly?"

"In a manner of speaking, sir."

Devon turned to Poole and Benjamin. "Mr. Poole," he said, "you are the wicket keeper. Mr. Benjamin-you are silly mid-on."

They are playing cricket now, I thought. His lordship retrieved his coat, a silky thing as light as butterfly wings, and tossed it to Poole. "Bees sting," he said. "Ants bite. Do keep an eye out."

This was not cricket or any other game I ever heard of and the hidden language was very frightening. I knew it was time to see my father. However, his lordship, as if reading my mind, lifted a finger and raised his eyebrows and I understood I was under his orders.

"So I shall take her to Exeter," said Mr. Piggott, shoving his hands into his apron pockets. "I do business in Exeter, so it is quite convenient."

"So, this is your property, Piggott. En avez-vous herite? Vous avez cambriole une banque?"

"I'm afraid I don't parlez the lingo, sir."

"Your house. A lovely old place," said his lordship, running his hand admiringly over the tight curling grain of the panels. "Nicholas Owen," he said.

"Sir?"

"Are you a Catholic yourself, perhaps?"

"I am sir, yes."

"Poor old Owen was a Jesuit, I think. They were bad times for Catholics, when he designed this place."

"Could I fetch you some refreshment, sir? A brandy?"

"Brandy?" Devon raised his cane and smashed it down upon the paneling. Mrs. Piggott was not the only one to flinch. "No one told you your house was famous?" he asked, not looking at Piggott but tapping on the wall with his knuckles.

"Famous, sir? Ha-ha."

"Famous, sir," said Lord Devon, who was now caressing the house as if it were a horse, casting an extraordinary smile across his shoulder at the Piggotts. You would think he loved them half to death.

There was a sharp clear click.

"There you are, madame," he said, sliding a small panel sideways. "Here's a nice place for your prayer book."

"Monsieur?"

"Un endroit parfait pour cacher un livre de prieres if you were here two hundred years ago."

"Good Lord," cried Piggott, stepping forward urgently. "Good heavens sir. Who would credit it?" He was so set on inspecting the secret cubbyhole that he would have jammed his big booby head inside, but His Majesty detained him. "Ha-ha, sir. Nice place to hide a bottle, your lordship." He wiped himself with a rag, leaving printer's ink upon his neck.

His lordship smiled so sweet, he might have been the printer's mother. "Oh there is much much more than this, Piggott," he cried. "All manner of holes and chapels contrived with no less skill and industry. They've hidden traitors in this house, Mr. Piggott. Can you imagine?"

"Good grief."

"Oh yes, Mr. Piggott, in chimneys."

"Chimneys sir?" said Piggott. "I have a lovely brandy. Let me fetch it now."

The fireplace was set and ready as it always was, and it was certainly the talk of chimneys that drew Lord Devon to inspect it. Piggott hovered at his back, a fat white presence which his lordship seemed at first put out by, but then-

"Ah yes, sir." He beamed. "A brandy would do the trick."

Piggott bobbed his head and winked his eye and tapped his nose and soon I heard him on the stairway, an unexpected direction for the brandy bottle.

His lordship nodded amiably at Mrs. Piggott. She tucked her curls inside her hat as if she might, in doing this, make herself more English.

"Printer's devil," he said to me. "Fetch back your master. Have him bring the brandy now."

I used the door through which Piggott had departed and immediately found him on the staircase which now revealed itself to be a clever hiding place. The first three steps were steps indeed, but Piggott had now lifted them like a hatch and inside was revealed the one-armed Frenchman who had reappeared last night at dinner.

Said I, to no one, "He wants his brandy, sir."

The man with one arm pushed Piggott violently. And as the stair returned to its rightful place, Piggott took me by my neck and turned me back the other way and forced me through a door and down the stone steps into the cellar. Finding what he came for, he pushed me very cruelly up the stairs and I barked my shins and cut my hands upon the stone.

On my return I found Lord Devon kneeling before the fireplace. Behind him, Mrs. Piggott wrung her hands and silently beseeched her husband please to save her, from what I did not know.

"Do you mind?" his lordship asked politely, encouraging the little flame he had begun with his flint and tinder.

"Oh no sir, please sir," cried Piggott in alarm.

"No sir?" queried his lordship who now, as his flame took hold, seemed in a very jolly frame of mind. "Please sir, no sir, is it?"

"It's a summer's day sir."

"Oh I do like getting warm," Lord Devon said, as the kindling-which had lived a lifetime in the house-fairly leaped to its own destruction.

His lordship stood, brushing down his stockinged knees.

"Now," he said. "That drink you promised."

Piggott, you will remember, was a big man with a big head and he was, even when malicious, slow as a cow in his manners. By now, however, both Piggotts were in a state they no longer could disguise. Mrs. Piggott left for the scullery; Mr. Piggott ran after her. They returned by different doors, each holding a different-shaped glass.

"Here's a riddle," said Lord Devon, considering the choice. "Bless me if I won't have them both." He clasped his hands behind his back where the fire was crackling fiercely, exploding in the way of dry pine logs, showering tiny grenades into the room.

Piggott filled the glasses with clearly trembling hands.

"Thirsty weather," said his lordship, raising both in a toast. He sipped. He giggled. Then, in sheer delight at his own wickedness, he threw the brandy on the fire which now leaped at him, licking with its yellow tongue, leaving a glowing bite upon his wig which Piggott, in his panic, attempted to pat out.

For this he was poked right in the belly.

Lord Devon removed his burning wig, astonishing me with the hard bony brightness he revealed. He patted out the damage, keeping his eye on me as if I had some news to give. But it was only the genius forger Watkins I was thinking of and I would not betray him now.

It was hot inside the dining room and no one would move away from the fire. To admit the heat, I saw, would be to confess to something worse. Lord Devon rested his gloved hand on my shoulder and carelessly jabbed his stick into the fire. The stick was handsome black oak with a silver top to it, but he used it like a common poker, jabbing it and banging it, until it was charred and glowing on the tip which he showed to the Piggotts with no nice meaning I was sure.