Carnacki's talk was a considerable success, with even the most obnoxious of the guests finally falling silent and listening with attention as he described one of the oddest occult experiences of his burgeoning investigative career. After some initial nerves, Carnacki's confidence grew, his voice deepened in tone and became firmer and louder. The audience listened, rapt, and Celandine watched him, her eyes glowing with pride.

Also watching with approval from the flickering shadows near the west fireplace was the Doctor, lifting the tails of his jacket to warm his hindquarters as he listened.

When Carnacki finished his account of the occult lance there was prolonged spontaneous applause. Even those sceptics in the crowd who didn't believe a word of the lecture had found themselves engrossed in an enjoyable ghost story. As the lights came up and servants circulated with trays of drinks, Celandine hurried up to Carnacki and handed him a linen handkerchief embroidered with tiny red roses. Carnacki accepted it gratefully and mopped his brow, sighing with relief; he had survived the ordeal. 'Battling the supernatural is one thing,' he told Celandine. 'Public speaking quite another.' He accepted a glass of champagne and swallowed it thirstily.

Among the servants circulating with trays of drinks was the chief butler, Elder-Main. He sidled over and joined the Doctor by the west fireplace.

'Glass of bubbly, sir? Or shall I add a spoonful of sugar and a drop of bitters to make a nice little cocktail for you?'

'Neither, thank you. Tell me, what is that structure attached to the west wing of the house?' The Doctor pointed through the windows where a tall tower could be seen, glazed with snow in the winter moonlight. It had a domed roof and a steel framework with broad panes of glass set between the metal lattices.

'The arboretum, sir. Full of tropical plants and that. Costs a small fortune to heat, especially in the winter. You should hear her ladyship go on about it. But Mr Pemberton is adamant. Cut the heat and all that greenery dies.'

'Isn't that where Roderick Upcott is buried?'

'Very much so sir. Him and his pet chimpanzee, under the spreading mango tree, as our little rhyme goes.'

'Fascinating, although Sydenham was actually a Capuchin monkey. Perhaps I could go and have a look at this grave later?'

'No doubt Mr Pemberton will be providing his guests with a guided tour at some point. It's his pride and joy. But if you want a private visit before that, I dare say something could be arranged.' The butler leaned closer to the Doctor and adopted an intimate, conspiratorial tone. 'And while on the subject of private arrangements, if you cared to spend some more time alone with that little under maid you've taken a shine to, I'm sure we can work something out.'

'Taken a shine to? Oh, you mean Zoe.'

'That's her, sir.' The butler indicated the far side of the room where Zoe was fighting to keep a large tray of champagne glasses stable and upright in the surging crowd of guests.

'I wasn't aware that anyone even knew I'd spoken to her. In fact, I thought we'd taken every possible precaution to remain discreet.'

'Oh, nothing escapes our notice in this house, sir.'

'Evidently not.'

Elder-Main grinned toothily and rubbed his finger against the side of his nose. 'New she is and snooty. But I dare say a few guineas in the right place could loosen her apron strings, so to speak.'

'I see. And you would be looking for a percentage of whatever guineas are involved?'

The butler shrugged modestly. 'Any emolument the gentleman sees fit to send my way sir.'

'Well I'm not sure quite what you mean by loosening apron strings.'

'Of course not, sir.'

'But I'd very much appreciate the chance to speak to the young lady.'

'Naturally. I'll send her over directly.'

Elder-Main was as good as his word and five minutes later Zoe joined the Doctor by the fireplace. 'I imagine you're glad to set that tray down,' he said.

'I certainly am. But whatever did you say to that appalling old butler? He gave me the most gruesome leer when he sent me over to see you.'

'It seems he's made a wild miscalculation about our relationship. But since it's to our advantage there's no point disabusing him.'

'That's what you think. If he leers at me like that again he's going to discover just how much I know about unarmed combat.'

'Tell me, what did you think of our friend Carnacki's lecture?'

'Well he may be your friend but I'm not sure he's mine. If even half of what he says is true I think he's an individual to stay well clear of.'

'Why? Because he's a magnet for strange and dangerous forces?'

Zoe looked at the Doctor, whose face was intermittently thrown into shadow and then illuminated by the red glow of the fire. 'Yes, but then he's not the only one who could be accused of that.' The Doctor's eyes gleamed at her in the flickering light, tiny fires burning in them.

Suddenly the buzz of conversation died away and the big room fell silent around them. 'What is it?' whispered Zoe. 'The next phase of the festivities,' said the Doctor.

Celandine Gilbert was standing on the Persian carpet in front of the grand piano, her eyes shut and her hands clasped in front of her face. As the last mutterings of conversation faded she opened her eyes and said, 'Perhaps some of you have heard of me. In the last few years I've acquired a modest reputation as a medium in England and abroad.'

'Too modest by far,' cried Pemberton Upcott. 'This young lady is the toast of Britain and the continent!' There was a burst of polite applause from the guests but Celandine didn't seem to welcome the interruption, fulsome as it was. She cleared her throat.

'I just wanted to preface this evening's demonstration by saying that my gift is as much a mystery to me as it is to everyone else. I can, to some extent, anticipate when it is going to manifest itself and, to a lesser extent, exert some control over it. But I can never predict exactly what form it is going to take.' She looked around the room with an expression of sober caution. 'Once we begin, anything could happen.'

Listening by the fireplace, the Doctor smiled at Zoe. 'Sounds intriguing, eh?'

'Sounds like the standard huckster's spiel to me,' said Zoe. 'Perhaps afterwards she will start selling us some of her patented snake oil.'

'I think you may have misjudged the young lady,' said the Doctor. 'If her friendship with Carnacki is anything to go by, there is every chance that she is the genuine item.'

'Doctor, come on. A genuine medium? Surely you don't subscribe to any of that spiritualist nonsense? It's the mendacious preying on the gullible.'

'Mostly, but there are some astonishing exceptions. Have you ever heard of Daniel Dunglas Home?' Zoe shook her head. 'Well I must tell you about him,' said the Doctor. 'Or perhaps we should pop in for a visit.'

'Let's just find Jamie and get out of here.'

Before the Doctor could reply, their host began speaking again, addressing Celandine Gilbert. 'Are you sure there isn't anything you need doing? Dim the lights? Have the assembled company join hands?'

'Or pass around the hat so we can fill it with bank notes?' bellowed a red faced man with a wispy tonsure of white hair on his bulging scarlet head.

'Please, Colonel Marlowe,' said Pemberton with a pained expression.

Celandine remained calm. 'No, nothing like that. In fact I prefer to work with the lights fully on.'

'Like D.D. Home,' murmured the Doctor.

'This has the added advantage that there can be no suggestion of fraud,' said Celandine. She gave the Colonel a pointed look.

'Oh, don't mind me dear,' replied the red faced man. 'On with the ectoplasm!'

Celandine ignored him and closed her eyes again. She stood there in the centre of the room, hands clasped at her waist, face pointing towards the floor, in complete silence and concentration. Everyone in the room was watching her and a definite tension was developing in the big room. For two full minutes she stood, silent and motionless, and by the third minute the guests were beginning to grow restless. There were coughs, whispers, restless shiftings and a general feeling of a terrible fiasco about to ensue.

Zoe began to feel the same terrible embarrassment that attended witnessing any live performance go horribly wrong. Across the room, Carnacki was watching Celandine with a tense, concerned look. Only the girl herself seemed unconcerned, standing there in front of the piano, pale with concentration.

Pemberton Upcott was wearing the expression of a man who was beginning to wonder if he had made a terrible mistake. He glanced around at his restive guests, came to a decision, and took a step towards Celandine.

It was at that exact moment that the piano began to play, all by itself.

Pemberton froze in mid stride. All muttering and coughing died instantly. Besides the eerie stridency of the piano, the only sound in the lounge was the crackling of the fires. And despite the heat emanating from the two huge hearths, the room suddenly seemed distinctly chilly.

The music emanating from the piano was like nothing any of the guests had ever heard before, a strange stiff-fingered syncopation that nonetheless possessed a lilting, infectious melody.

'Oh listen,' cried the Colonel, drunk and boorish and resolutely unimpressed, 'A squirrel has got into the piano. In fact, a bunch of squirrels. In fact, a bunch of tone deaf squirrels.'

'Be quiet!' hissed a woman standing next to him. 'It's the spirits!'

'Well the spirits need to loosen up their jolly old finger joints and learn some proper music instead of that ugly jungle jabbering!' bellowed the Colonel, delighted at the felicity of his own wit.

But not everyone found the music strange. Zoe had unconsciously begun swaying to the unusual rhythms. 'How odd,' said the Doctor, listening closely. 'Thelonious Monk. "Crepuscule for Nellie". There's definitely some kind of temporal displacement afoot.'

The tune came to a plangent conclusion and the piano fell silent. Throughout the incident Celandine had kept her eyes shut and shown no awareness of what was going on. Now, as hesitant applause began among the awed guests she opened her eyes briefly and gestured for silence, returning to her pose of stillness and meditation.

'Well, that was jolly,' bawled the Colonel. 'Shall we break out the port now and let those poor squirrels free?' Several people shot him irritated looks but no one said anything and his comments died strangely in the silent room. Everyone was looking at the piano, expecting it to begin playing again. But when the next incident happened, it took place somewhere else completely.

Along the north wall of the lounge, the wall facing the driveway, there stood a large teak dresser with a display of silver and crystal and a number of candelabra burning on it. It was a heavy slab of furniture and, along with the silverware on top, and presumably inside of it, it must have weighed close to half a ton.

Now the dresser began to move.

At first no one noticed. Then the people standing closest to it realised what was happening and moved hastily away. A woman shrieked. Everyone in the lounge turned to see what was happening and there was a unanimous awestruck gasp from the crowd.

The big teak dresser had risen up off the floor and was now visibly floating six inches above the floor, its stubby feet hovering over the carpet trailing tatters of dusty cobwebs.

'The cleaning staff are in for a severe reprimand,' murmured the Doctor, grinning.

Zoe was staring in shock at the dresser. 'How is she doing it, Doctor?' she whispered. The Doctor turned to her, a fierce gleam of interest on his face. 'As I said, she appears to be the genuine article.'

The dresser kept on rising and the crowd had now backed away from the north wall of the lounge, leaving a healthy distance between themselves and the floating dresser. As the press of guests neared the south wall of the room, however, they drew closer to the spot where Celandine stood by the piano and people began to look over their shoulders at the medium and draw back, also leaving a healthy space around her. No one wanted to get too close to Celandine either.

But the Doctor, characteristically, was moving against the flow of the crowd. He set off across the lounge towards the dresser, dragging a reluctant Zoe with him. 'Let's have a closer look.'

'Do we have to?'

As they approached the north wall they found one other person who also wanted to get nearer to the phenomenon. Carnacki. The Doctor smiled and nodded at him, like one connoisseur to another. 'Fascinating, isn't it?' he said. The young man nodded, his face tense.

The dresser had continued to float upwards and it was now about three feet off the floor. But its rate of rise seemed to be faster at one end than the other and the dresser was now slowly tilting, at an angle of about 15 degrees.

'All that silverware and crystal's going to come off with a horrible crash,' said Zoe, who was half wondering if she'd be the one delegated to clear up the ensuing mess.

'I doubt it,' said the Doctor. And indeed none of the objects on the dresser were showing any inclination to shift, not even the big silver plate. 'And notice the candle flames.'

'Ah yes,' breathed Carnacki, a sudden savage grin appearing on his face.

'What do you mean?' demanded Zoe.

The Doctor nodded at the dresser. 'As the candles tilt the flames should remain upright, pointing directly towards the ceiling. But as you can see instead they are tilting along with the candles, perpendicular to the top of the dresser and burning outwards at the same angle.'

'Good God, it's amazing,' said Carnacki. He had a look of triumph, as if Celandine's success was his own.

'It's as if an image of the dresser is being tilted, rather than the dresser itself.'

'Or the laws of physics are in abeyance,' said Zoe.

'Let's get a closer look,' said the Doctor.

'We're already getting a closer look,' complained Zoe. But the Doctor was already moving forward, ducking under the dresser. This was easy enough to do now since the heavy slab of furniture was a good four feet in the air. The Doctor hardly had to crouch to get under it.

'Yes, it's certainly floating,' he reported. 'No doubt about that.'

Zoe remained standing well back but Carnacki ducked under the dresser with the Doctor and took his elbow. 'Best get out from under this thing,' he said. 'It might come down with a crash.' He drew the Doctor out, rather like a parent gently attending to a child, and smiled at him. 'I've seen these demonstrations by Celandine before.'

They turned back to look at the medium, who still stood by the piano, eyes closed, a tranquil expression on her face. Led by Carnacki, they made their way through the crowd towards her. Zoe noticed that the red faced Colonel was standing near Celandine, staring at her; only he wasn't so red faced now. In fact he was looking decidedly pale.

The Doctor had also noticed the man's new demeanour. 'Well, Colonel,' he said. 'Do you think squirrels are also responsible for levitating that dresser?'

The man glanced at them, a look of genuine fear in his eyes, then turned and hurried out through the door on the east side of the fireplace. As he closed the door behind him there a sudden heavy thud on the far side of the room and everyone turned to see that the dresser had returned to earth. 'Extraordinary,' said the Doctor. 'There's not so much a quiver from a single piece of crystal on it.'

Pemberton Upcott came pressing through the crowd to stand beside Carnacki. He was wearing the oddest expression, as though he couldn't decide whether to be terrified by the irrational events he was witnessing or triumphant at the success of his social event. 'Do you think she's finished?' he asked Carnacki. 'Or is there more to come?'

Carnacki shrugged but the Doctor said, 'Oh, I should say there's a great deal more to come.'

As he spoke the windows in the north and west walls abruptly rattled in their frames as if buffeted by an enormous wind. A sharp high keening started outside the house and vast veils of snow blew past, an eerie white in the moonlight. The fires in the twin hearths checked for a moment, dropping back to the embers then rising again in lean columns as if being drawn up the chimneys by a sudden drop in pressure. Then the wind began to shriek with renewed violence and all the window panes rattled. The flow of snow subsided and the winter sky could be seen, dark and glittering with stars.

'Something's going to happen,' said the Doctor. Carnacki nodded. And then there was a guttural surge of thunder in the distance, followed by a white glittering on the far horizon, like distant artillery fire.

A moment later, the thunder came again, this time shockingly close. Then the whole horizon lit up in a band of white fire. The third burst of thunder was even closer; it sounded like a bomb exploding overhead and there were cries of alarm from the guests. Everyone looked up to see the lounge's elaborate crystal chandeliers gently swaying above them.

The next bolt of lightning came down from the sky in a forked surge and struck solidly at the north west corner of the house, striking the domed steel structure of the arboretum. The entire house echoed with the sizzling sound of the electricity and for a moment a blue-white aura surrounded the arboretum. Then it faded and the darkness of the winter night returned.

Celandine Gibson fainted and fell gracefully forward onto the Persian carpet.

Andrew Cartmel