Page 47 of Unforeseen Affairs
Once more they were caught in a cyclone of confusion.
Miss Sedley sat up from Colin and hoisted the drooping clouds of white muslin triumphantly above her head, like Perseus wielding the head of a gorgon.
“It is not a spirit child,” she said defiantly, awkwardly pushing herself up to standing as she held the offending object high. “It is a trick, a gaff—nothing more than a mere puppet.”
To punctuate her point, she threw it onto the tabletop, which caused the last of the purple cloth to finally give up the ghost and fall completely to the floor.
Mrs. Kitson snatched the puppet and clutched it to her chest for the briefest of moments before crying out and dropping it as if it had burned her.
The group once again began speaking over one another in a frenzy, trying to make sense of it all.
“Why, it’s nothing… nothing but a doll!”
“Why bring a doll to the spirit circle? It makes no sense!”
“Perhaps the spirit manifested it?”
“My grandmother was awfully fond of dolls.”
“Mr. Bass! How could you?”
Suddenly all eyes were on Mr. Bass, who looked wildly about the room, hands upon his head in a commendable performance of perplexity.
“Yes, Mr. Bass,” Miss Sedley said, enunciating every word, her eyes fierce. “How to account for it?”
All of Colin’s earlier thoughts about Alice, then of swabbing the deck and taking first watch onboard a ship, had vanished without a trace. Miss Sedley alone now occupied his mind as she stared down Mr. Bass with proud and defiant eyes. Colin wanted to go to her. He wanted to stand proudly beside her as she gave Mr. Bass hell and then take her away from here, far away, and push her back against a wall somewhere, their faces level, their breaths catching, and…
He swallowed.
“What has happened?” Mr. Bass said in a voice so convincingly baffled that Colin almost bought it himself.
“The spirit… ’twas not a spirit!” cried Mrs. Kitson, her hands flapping before her chest. “It was… it was…”
The rotund, mustachioed man stepped forth and seized the offending puppet from the tabletop. He thrust it into Mr. Bass’s face.
“Explain this!” he harrumphed.
Miss Sedley crossed her arms and lifted her chin.
Colin wanted to kiss her.
Mr. Bass turned slowly, ominously, his face darkening until his gaze fell upon his assistant.
“Mr. Trenwith? What is the meaning of…this?” Mr. Bass practically growled the last word, pointing at the puppet—the puppet that, until a few moments earlier, had been affixed to his own foot like some kind of macabre boot.
Mr. Trenwith stared at him, stunned.
“I cannot condone this trickery! Not from my assistant!” Mr. Bass boomed.
The room fell silent.
“What? Me?” Mr. Trenwith replied, dumbfounded, hands splayed before him in a paltry defense.
“Yes,” Mr. Bass said, his voice rising in both volume and aggression. “Trenwith. How could you? I trusted you! I marked you for a true believer!”
Colin heard Charlotte scoff at that.
“Mr. Bass,” Trenwith began, his voice hollow, as if the name were both familiar and unfamiliar to him. “I have never meant to do anything but assist you, sir. Always that has been my one aim—”
