"Can you really see ghosts, Miss Chambers?"
"Yes." I saw no reason to lie to him, or indeed to anyone. Once upon a time I would have been considered a witch but this was an enlightened age. Society had come a long way since the days when my kind was burned at the stake.
Price rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and pressed his steepled fingers to his lips. "Interesting."
Usually at this point people ask me to demonstrate my abilities by summoning a loved one. Sometimes I oblige them but most of the time-because Celia is with me and insists upon it-I agree to come back for a séance. Price didn't ask and I didn't offer, although he undoubtedly was intrigued. He couldn't stop staring.
I tried not to let him see how unsettled his scrutiny made me. It wasn't easy.
"We've come to ask you about a Mr. Blunt from the North London School for Domestic Service," George said. He offered no preliminaries, no how-do-you-do's or idle chatter and I sensed that was the best way to deal with Price. He didn't seem like the sort of man who liked to discuss the weather. George may not be the most socially adept person but he knew enough about Price to keep to the point. Was that because they were so alike in their obsession with the Otherworld?
"Blunt?" Price turned to George and I let out a relieved breath. I'd had enough of being viewed as a museum piece. "I'm on the board of his school. What of it?"
"He told us you and he had a discussion about demons, mentioning myself as an authority on the subject." "We might have. What of it?" he asked again.
George cleared his throat. "I was burgled recently. The Complete Handbook of Shape-shifting Demons and Weres was stolen from my library."
I think Price squeezed his lips together but it was difficult to tell with his untrimmed moustache hanging over his mouth like a hedge in need of pruning. "A good general primer on the subject, suitable for a newcomer to the art of demonology."
Art? Now there was a word I'd not thought to hear in the same sentence as demonology.
"What a shame to lose it from your collection," Price went on, "but I fail to see the connection to myself or Blunt."
"I suspect it was stolen by my new maid who was sent to me from Blunt's school. I wondered if she perhaps overheard your conversation with the schoolmaster before she left. He suggested you might remember when exactly you had the conversation."