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I gave Veronica a drink, offered Marie a glass of something and received a look of blistering hate, and set to wait.

At 7:30, I asked Veronica if there was anyone competent to take the service, were Margery to prove not up to it. (I did not tell them that I doubted that Margery should be able to creep onto the stage, even in heavy makeup, much less draw in enough breath to make herself heard even in the front rows, particularly without the services of a doctor’s wraps and pain medications.)

“Ivy led it several times when Margery was away in December. Not preaching, of course, but hymns and readings.“ That did not advance us much, as Ivy was quite beyond the reach of mortal hymns. I asked her if there was anyone else.

“Rachel Mallory might do it.” I sent her off to alert Rachel or whomever she might find of the possibility that her services might be called upon, then turned my warning gaze back on Marie, who subsided, muttering French curses that I wish I could have overheard more clearly, for the sake of my education.

The hall clock downstairs sounded the three-quarter hour.

“She will need me to dress her,” Marie burst out.

“If she has not appeared by eight, you and I will go and see to her.” The fury of her protests would have shrivelled a toad, but I cut them off with the curt remark to the effect that if Margery were to prove incapable of walking, Marie could hardly carry her without help.

The minutes ticked past. (Forgive the drama, Holmes, but I wish the account to be complete.) At six minutes before eight, I heard a door open and voices came to us, Veronica and another. Then they were at the door, both looking worried, and the other woman, Rachel, apprehensive and confused, as well. They stood in the doorway and Veronica started to ask me something, when her words were cut off by the sound of another door closing. Rachel turned to look, and she let out a short cry, and then Veronica, and Marie bolted past me, and to my utter confusion, the three of them were babbling a polyglot of relief and curiosity. Moreover, they were answered by Margery in a light, joking voice, and I still stood in the room when she came through the door with my hat and coat in her hands and held them out to me.

“You left these in the chapel, Mary,” she said. “You’ll need them later; it’s chilly out tonight.” And with that prosaic pronouncement, she turned and left, hurrying and apologising for being late. Before the door shut on them, I heard her laugh.

Holmes, there was not a mark on her. Her skin was whole and unbruised, the proud flesh subsided; she moved with her customary easy grace and had enough lung expansion to laugh. The only sign of what I had seen was the dampness of her hair on the left side of her face.

I searched her room, of course, and found no bloodied dress, but the collar of her coat had been scrubbed wet, and pressing the light brown fabric hard with a handkerchief produced a red-brown stain. From the coals in the fireplace, I sifted nine bone buttons and several metal clasps, all that remained of her silk undergarments and the damaged dress.

Marie found me on my knees before the fire and came close to attacking me physically. She berated me, called me seven kinds of a fool, and was silenced only when I poured the still-hot buttons into her hand and left.

Margery preached absolutely normally. She moved freely, projected her voice fully, seemed, if anything, more spirited and eloquent than she customarily was. She did not even end the evening any earlier.

I have seen people in an hypnotic trance ignore pain. I have even witnessed a hypnotised person hold his hand into flame and pass through undamaged, as the fire-walkers of the South Pacific are said to do. I have never heard of hypnosis used actually to remove existing injuries.

Your basic dictum in an investigation is, if faced by the impossible, choose the merely improbable. However, what does one do when faced with a choice between two impossibilities? I saw her face, Holmes, from a distance