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I glanced at Charlotte, who was sitting on the sofa looking pale, her eyes moving from one to another of us. When they met mine, she quickly turned her head away.
“I simply can’t see any logic in it,” said Lady Arista.
“We’re having the story checked,” said Mr. George. “Mrs. Jenkins will track down the midwife.”
“Just out of interest, Grace, how much did you pay her?” asked Falk de Villiers. His eyes had narrowed more and more over the last minute, and now, as he turned to Mum, there was something very wolflike about him.
“I … I can’t remember,” said Mum.
Mr. de Villiers raised his eyebrows. “Well, it can’t have been a large sum. As far as I recall, your husband’s income was rather … modest.”
“How true!” said Aunt Glenda venomously.
“If you all say so, then it can’t have been much,” replied Mum. The uncertainty that had suddenly come over her disappeared just as suddenly. So had the tinge of pink in her face.
“Then why did the midwife do as you wanted?” asked Mr. de Villiers. “After all, she was falsifying an official document. That’s not a small offense.”
Mum tilted her chin. “We told her our family belonged to a satanic cult with a pathological belief in horoscopes. We said a child born on the seventh of October would be subject to severe reprisals and we’d have to give her up to the cult for use in satanic rituals. She believed us. And as she had a soft heart, and what you might call a prejudice against Satanists, she entered the wrong birth date on the certificate.”
“Satanic rituals! What impertinence!” The man by the mantelpiece hissed the words like a snake, and the little boy clung even closer to him.
Mr. de Villiers smiled appreciatively. “Not a bad story. We’ll see if the midwife tells the same tale.”
“I see little point in wasting our time checking such details,” Lady Arista remarked.
“Quite right,” said Aunt Glenda. “Charlotte could travel back in time any moment now. Then we’ll know that Grace’s story is a pack of lies devised to hold us up.”
“Why couldn’t they both have inherited the gene?” asked Mr. George. “That happened once before.”
“Ah, but Timothy and Jonathan de Villiers were identical twins,” pointed out Mr. de Villiers. “And they’d been foretold in the prophesies.”
“Yes, the chronograph contains two carnelians for them, two pipettes of blood, duplicate compartments for the twelve elements, and two cogwheels going around,” said the man by the mantelpiece. “The Ruby stands alone.”
“True,” said Mr. George. His round face suddenly became anxious.
“I should have thought it more important to look into the reason why my sister is telling these lies.” Aunt Glenda was glaring at Mum with positive hatred. “If your idea is to get Gwyneth’s blood read into the chronograph so that the device will never be of any use again, you’re more naive than I thought.”
“How can she expect us to believe a word of what she says anyway?” asked the man by the mantelpiece. I thought his way of acting as if Mum and I weren’t even in the room was very arrogant. “I have the clearest recollections of the lies Grace told to protect Lucy and Paul at that time. It was her fault they got away from us. If it hadn’t been for her, we might have been able to avert the disaster.”
“Jake!” said Mr. de Villiers.
“What disaster?” I asked. And who was Paul?
“I consider that even the presence of this person in the room with us is monstrous,” said the man by the mantelpiece.
“And who may you be?” Mum’s voice and the look she gave him were decidedly chilly. I was impressed to see she wasn’t going to be intimidated.
“That’s nothing to do with the case.” The man didn’t even deign to look at her. The little fair-haired boy peered cautiously out from behind his back and looked at me. With the freckles on his nose, he reminded me a bit of Nick when he was younger, so I smiled at him. Poor little thing—he probably had to put up with this creep for a grandfather. His eyes widening in surprise, he returned my smile and then went back into cover behind the man’s black jacket.
“This is Dr. Jacob White,” said Falk de Villiers, with an unmistakable tone of amusement in his voice. “A genius in the fields of medicine and biochemistry. He’s usually a bit more civil.”
Jacob Gray would have suited him better. Even his face was the color of dishwater.
Mr. de Villiers looked at me and then his eyes went back to Mum. “Well, one way or another, we have to come to a decision. Are we to believe you, Grace, or do you really have some ulterior motive?”
For a few seconds Mum stared at him angrily. Then she looked down and said quietly, “I’m not here to prevent you all from carrying out your wonderful, mysterious mission. I’m here to keep my daughter out of harm’s way. With the help of the chronograph, she can travel in time without danger while still leading a reasonably normal life. That’s all I want.”
“Oh, yes, of course!” said Aunt Glenda. She went over to the sofa and sat down beside Charlotte. I’d have liked to sit too. My legs were beginning to feel tired. But no one offered me a chair, so there was nothing for it but to stay on my feet.
