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and a little short of breath, as if he’d run all the way. She took his arm and he took her umbrella. He smelled of beer and bad news. She gave him a look.
    “Nothing,” he said.
    “Nothing?”
    He sighed. “Dead as a dinosaur.”
    “Oh. What awful luck.”
    “Left in the lurch, rather. Perhaps your wizard friends can help.”
    “Please don’t call them that; they take themselves awfully seriously.”
    She rang the doorbell.
    A servant opened the door. Behind him stood Mrs Sedgley, in a white mutton-sleeved dress and a necklace of gold and pearls. There was the sound of a young woman singing something vaguely Celtic somewhere inside.
    Mrs Sedgley peered myopically out into the night before putting her glasses on. “Oh, good! There you are, Josephine.”
    “Good evening, Matron. This is—”
    “Arthur Shaw,” he said, bowing.
    He was rather looking forward to making Mrs Sedgley’s acquaintance. He’d never given much thought to this sort of thing before he met Josephine. A whole new world. Just what he needed.
    “Hmm. Yes. The writer. I see. Well, come in, come in, Mr Shaw; the meeting is almost ready to begin.”
    They entered the premises of the Ordo V.V. 341. Arthur paused to say good evening to a very handsome grey cat asleep on a side-table in the hall. Mrs Sedgley said that his name was Gautama, or George, if Arthur preferred.
    *   *   *
     
    The Ordo V.V. 341, though it pretended to a certain immemorial tradition, had in fact been founded not very many years ago by the late Mr Sedgley and a few friends, all of whom had previously been members of Mr Mathers and Mr Westcott’s Temple of Isis-Urania. The V.V. 341 had broken away from its parent order after a row, which—depending on whom one listened to—was either about Mr Sedgley’s scandalous discovery that the Hidden Secret Chiefs of the Temple were merely a fraud, or about an unpaid £200 loan. In any case, it involved doctrinal schism, threats of litigation, and several months of open magical warfare, during which Mr Mathers and Mr Sedgley wrote half a dozen letters each to the Occult Review and the Proceedings of the Theosophical Society describing the terrible forces they’d been forced to invoke, the unspeakable curses they’d performed. It ended with both magicians declaring themselves the victor. The Temple went on to become one of London’s most fashionable spiritual fraternities, with an illustrious membership and successful satellite temples in Paris, Edinburgh, and Bradford; while Mr Sedgley went on to considerable success as a barrister before dying of a heart attack, leaving the care of the V.V. 341 to his widow.
    This was the Order’s first meeting since the storm. They met in a room at the back of Mrs Sedgley’s house: large and comfortable, lined with bookshelves, and thick with the scents of coffee and liqueurs and cigarettes, perfume and incense and paraffin lamps. Ornamental columns in the corners were decorated with fat plaster putti , and the paintings on the wall displayed beautiful and gauzily-dressed nymphs. An imposing oak table dominated the centre of the room; Mrs Sedgley explained to Arthur that her late husband had acquired it at auction, and that it was of prehistoric druidic origin.
    “Druids,” he agreed. “By God.”
    He circled the room, shaking hands. Mr Innes (the Hegemon) seemed to have taken a liking to him. They discovered a shared fondness for Sherlock Holmes, and decided to treat it as if it were a remarkable and significant coincidence.
    Josephine sat down near the window and took out her shorthand pad.
     
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Mrs Esther Sedgley (Matron V.V. 341)
Mr James Innes, Esq. (Hegemon V.V. 300)
Mr Mortimer Frayn (Officer)
Mr John Hare, Esq. (Officer)
Mrs Lottie Hare (Officer)
Miss Florence Shale (Probationer)
Miss Roberta Blaylock (Student)
Mr T. R. Compton, Esq. (Student)
Mr Henry Park, Esq. (Treasurer)
Dr A. D. Varley (Adeptus Major)
Mrs A. D. Varley (Adeptus Minor)
Mr Martin Atwood