"Miss Addams. I – ah..."Arthur trailed off.

"Do go on," said Cecily, glacial. "I'm quite fascinated to hear what you have to say."

Arthur gulped eloquently.

Cecily arched a perfect eyebrow. "I suppose the expression 'not receiving visitors' has quite a different meaning in Edinburgh society," she remarked.

"I imagine you should call the police," said Arthur quietly, tilting his head forward but looking up at her steadily.

Cecily narrowed her eyes. She walked forward to the shelf, briefly scrutinising the array of oddities, and adjusted the staring-socketed skull. Resting her hand on its ivory dome, she looked back at Arthur. "You fear the police very much just now, do you?" she asked, her voice so even that Arthur half-felt he was imagining the tugging undertone of threat.

His heart thudded, staccato, in his chest, too deafening to let him think up a response, and he suddenly recalled with great clarity a favourite expression of his father's: 'Better to stay quiet and be thought a fool, than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.' He closed his parted lips and returned Cecily's gaze with what he hoped was a look of wry inquiry. His fingers shook to their very tips.

"This library belongs to my father." Cecily looked him dead in the eyes as she spoke. "The renowned folklorist. I suppose you've heard of him. Though you're from north of the border, are you not? Perhaps you can't be expected to be au fait with metropolitan culture." Arthur noticed that she did not mention her father's name. "After all, you're so obviously unfamiliar with the precepts of manners, privacy, and legality. Maybe you would care to leave now."

Spots of high colour burned on Cecily's cheeks, and the escaping tendrils of hair framing her brow seemed to be trembling slightly. Arthur didn't know what to do. His own cheeks were on fire. "You're right," he stammered, "I don't know a great deal about folklore. I suppose all of your ... friends and acquaintances do? They know all about your library and ... and ... collections?" He risked a glance around at the clustered objects on the shelves.

His question hit the target dead on. The contrast between the red in Cecily's cheeks and the pallor of the rest of her face deepened.

"What exactly is it that you want? Who sent you?" she asked, her voice tight and each syllable bitten off.

Arthur swallowed. "No one sent me. I don't know anyone in town except you. It's ... just ... I understand that you have your reasons for desiring privacy," he looked down at the Vampyr tome in his hands, which Cecily reached out for and snatched away, "but I wish I might go to the police about the Inglis business. It's just that ... I hear it's all ... coming out now."

The effect of these last words took Arthur by surprise. Cecily broke into a broad smile, insufficiently tinged with relief to be the least bit reassuring. "Ohhh," she breathed, flicking her gaze down, then back up to Arthur with a sparkle of inexplicable humour. "Then you aren't up to date with the news?"

"I, er, that is to say –" While Arthur stammered, Cecily's stare turned ironical. "My neighbour had a telegram saying he'd, well, heard about Mr. Inglis," he finished lamely.

"I don't doubt that he has. I expect half the town is talking about him."

"Then the police will surely be here! Have they already been?" How could Cecily look so sanguine?

"Mr. Inglis," pronounced Cecily, slowly, "has had to leave town on urgent business. He left instructions with his daughter Isabelle that he is not to be contacted under any circumstances."

Arthur goggled at Cecily. Her mouth appeared to be trying to turn up at the corners into a thoroughly out-of-place smile. His poor, befuddled mind raced. What was the proper etiquette for accusing a strange woman, into whose cultish library one had recently broken, of being a barefaced liar and conspirator to murder? It wouldn't do to use the wrong turn of phrase. Cecily would be bound to upbraid him for it.

"But... for how long will that convince people?"

Cecily blinked at him, birdlike under her arched brows. "As long as Mr. Inglis's business detains him, I should imagine. Now, Mr. Doyle, you were leaving, were you not?"

Arthur nodded miserably, utterly at a loss for what to say. "I... er... beg your pardon." He was wishing he'd had the presence of mind to remove his hat when Cecily entered, so he could now put it on and make his exit with dignity, when he realised that Cecily was staring pointedly at his feet. He had quite forgotten he'd removed his shoes to creep through the kitchen, and was standing now in stockinged feet. The embarrassed scarlet in his cheeks spread across his whole face and down the back of his neck, and, with closed eyes, he stooped forward to retrieve his discarded Oxfords from the floor and slip them back on. He tied the laces with fastidious precision, then straightened up stiffly.

"Good day to you, Mr. Doyle."

He gave Cecily a last look for as long as he could bear the embarrassment. She had mostly regained her composure and wore a small, Mona Lisa smile. He had raided the citadel and was leaving more perplexed than before. "Good day, Miss Addams." What else could he say? The detached part of his mind, which had begun laughing rather maniacally at the whole sorry business, wondered idly whether he would have to creep back out of the pantry door. As it turned out, the little Welsh maid was waiting outside the library when he made his exit, and led him wordlessly to the front porch. Cecily remained in the library, and he half thought he heard a muttering, murmuring voice from within as he made his way out.

Half an hour after first being turned away, Arthur found himself plodding once again down the austere steps of Underwood Villa, his skin red and prickling, his pulse racing, and his throat constricted. Good plan, Arthur, he thought to himself. Good plan.

Cecily Addams re-shelved Vampyr and sank into an armchair. She drummed her fingers on the arm for all of five seconds, then rose again and moved to the shelf with the skulls and crystals, taking each one down in order, turning the objects over and examining them as though searching for traces of the intruder's touch and gaze. She flitted her hands over them fitfully, fretting, chewing her lower lip in agitation and shaking her head slightly from side to side. The room around her sat impassive as ever, but she stuttered through it in a flurry of anxiety.

Peering in at the library door, Jenny, the Welsh housemaid, was round-eyed with fascination. She'd never seen the lady of the house so ill-at-ease, and she'd been in service here for -

"Jenny."

The maid's body went ramrod straight in guilty attention. She spun around, pasting on her demurest expression, and found herself face to face with the housekeeper. "Mrs. Allison! Ma'am!"

"What exactly are you supposed to be doing?" Mrs. Allison used such an affectedly proper tone when scolding, so different from Jenny's own Welsh accent; it was all the girl could do to keep from giggling.

"C-c-cleaning the... pantry..." Jenny stammered. "Ma'am."

"Cleaning the pantry, indeed. And has the pantry been relocated to the library?" asked Mrs. Allison, archly.

"N-no, ma'am."

"Then I suggest you relocate yourself!"

"Yes ma'am." Jenny dropped her head in a deferent little nod. The housekeeper nodded back, sagely, letting slip the tiniest conspiratorial smile that dissolved all the guilt in Jenny's stomach. "Mrs. Allison?" she asked, as the housekeeper turned to leave.

"Jenny?"

"I delivered the letter just as you asked, ma'am. Gave it over to Mr. Inglis's butler, like you said."

"So you told me. Several times now." Mrs. Allison examined Jenny with a slight smile.

"Yes, ma'am. 'S'just... well, I know it's... well, it's not true, is it? The things in the letter? It didn't come from Mr. Inglis at all, he's in no fit state to be writing letters, nor nothing else neither 'cept lying on the bottom of the Thames and – sorry," she checked herself, dipping her head, and peering up guiltily before continuing. "All I mean is, I know we're to keep it quiet, and course I will, 'cause it's not as though I don't have things of my own I need to keep quiet..."

"We're all quite aware of your condition, Jenny," said Mrs. Allison, stoutly.

"Yes, ma'am. Well, it's just - I know Miss Addams is protecting the vampire, but ... why is she doing it? Why not let him take the blame? What he done to Mr. Inglis, it was wrong, and anyway if it come to a fight, I reckon he could hold his own, see."

Mrs. Allison looked down caustically at Jenny. "My, you don't half ask a lot of questions!"

"Sorry, ma'am. I know it's not really... well, it's not really my business, but..."

Mrs. Allison's tight smile widened uncontrollably. "As if that ever stopped you! Still, you're discreet when you need to be, and a sight better to talk to than most of your sort." Mrs. Allison cast Jenny a worried, then apologetic look. "Not to cause offence, mind you. Now. Why is Miss Addams protecting the vampire? There's a question." There was a particular expression Mrs. Allison took on when she was going to pontificate. Her eyes turned dreamy and her mouth tweaked up more at the right corner than the left. "Deep down, Miss Addams believes in ... justice, I suppose you could call it. Setting things right by those who are dealt ... a bad hand."

Jenny raised her eyebrows sceptically. "Vampires get a bad hand? Isn't it all, well, biting folk, mostly?"

Mrs. Allison rolled her eyes. "All biting folk. Really! Vampires have to get bit themselves first, don't they? And, as far as I can make out, the ones that get bit and turned all have a couple of things in common. They're all interesting, leastwise to them as aren't interested in daylight, and they all have god-awful luck."

Jenny smiled. "Well, I suppose so."

"And they have lots of enemies, you know! Get a touch sensitive to sunlight, and all of a sudden half the world's on your back, all blazing righteous determination!" Mrs. Allison's empathy was accelerating toward indignation.

Jenny added a puzzled frown to her smile. "Yes, ma'am. But they are... well, evil, isn't it?"

Mrs. Allison snorted. "Well now, that's hardly the preserve of vampires alone, is it? Lots of evil human beings seem to have lines of well-wishers, queuing up to help them out. Anyway, it isn't as though justice is just for the good. Proper justice is ... what's the word? ... visceral. Don't you know your Bible? Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth? Usually involves an awful lot of blood, anyway." Mrs. Allison smiled brightly. "So vampires are ideal candidates, really!"

Jenny screwed up her eyes, attempting to follow Mrs. Allison's logic.

"And there's more to it than that. You don't get as committed to ... justice as Miss Addams is, unless you have a personal interest." She gave Jenny an evaluating stare. "How much do you know about Miss Addams's father?"

Jenny frowned. "The folklorist?"

Mrs. Allison snorted with laughter. "Folklorist! Is that what she told that Doyle chap?" Jenny nodded, and the housekeeper frowned suspiciously. "Girl, were you spying at the door?"

"In one of the pictures," grinned Jenny. "The Renoir."

The housekeeper shook her head, switching gradually into her most indulgent smile. "There. Just for that, be gone with you. Go and clean the pantry. You must meet me in the kitchen at three." She shook her finger at the rebellious look on Jenny's face. "Three, when you've finished with the lunch things, before you start for dinner. Then I shall tell you something about Mr. Addams and the vampires. No sulking. It's worth the wait."

"Yes, ma'am," tolled Jenny, dutifully.

"Now get along with you."

Jenny curtseyed, turned, and walked straight through the thick wood of the closed kitchen door. Mrs. Allison watched the little ghost go with a rather fond smile. Then, patting her hair, she composed her face and entered the library, to soothe her agitated mistress.