CHAPTER 24
AUDIENCE
Great-aunt Faraday, seated among the pillows in her enormous Louis XV bed, might easily have been its original owner, in her fine Brussels night bonnet and rose-coloured quilted silk jacket. She sat bolt upright, as usual, her hands folded on the linen.
Mr Campion stood before her at the foot of the bed. He had done his best to repair his appearance, but he still looked deadly tired, and there was, of course, no disguising the black eye.
‘Andrew,’ said Mrs Faraday. ‘How very remarkable. And yet, how extremely likely. Sit down, young man, and tell me all about it.’
Campion brought a little gilt chair from the other side of the room and set it so that he sat looking at the old lady over an expanse of embroidered counterpane. Mrs Faraday beckoned him closer.
‘On my l
