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I’ve seen.”
    Though I had to admit a certain desire to see one.
    ~
    I caught a glimpse of Emmeline as Lady Julia led her and the other ladies into the drawing room after dinner. She smiled wanly in my direction before a tug from Lady Julia dragged her away.
    Stapleford left soon afterwards too, citing the imminent storm and a prisoner on the loose as good reasons to head home. Apparently he lived a mile away at High Dudgeon Farm and the track home skirted the dreaded Grimdark Mire.
    The remainder of the party gathered around our end of the dining table. Sir Robert bringing a rather fine decanter of port with him and Dr Morrow breaking out the cigars.
    “How long are you planning to stay in England, Roderick?” asked Dr Morrow.
    “Not long at all,” I said. “Two weeks and I’ll be pining for the Pampas.”
    “You’re not intending to buy a house here then?”
    “No, this is but a fleeting visit.”
    “Seems an awfully long way to come for a fleeting visit,” said the doctor. “Why not stay for the summer?”
    “Capital idea!” said Henry. “You could star in your own movie. Journey to The Centre of The Diamond Quarry . I’m sure the station master at Grimdark would let us borrow a train for the concussion scene.”
    I didn’t like the sound of ‘concussion scene.’
    “You’d be in no danger,” said Dr Morrow. “We’d use a double for the actual impact.”
    “You haven’t seen the good doctor’s doubles, have you?” said Henry. “They are remarkably realistic.”
    “It’s what makes Quarrywood movies stand out from the rest,” said Sir Robert. “Other moving pictures look contrived and pedestrian compared to ours.”
    “It’s true,” said T. Everett. “The first time I saw a Quarrywood movie — The Quarry of the Apes , I think it was — I couldn’t believe my eyes. Apes were having sword fights — on horseback! — and guys were having their arms lopped off! I’ve never seen a theatre audience so enthralled. We sold more vials of smelling salts that evening than we did orange juice.”
    “Of course they weren’t real apes,” said Dr Morrow. “Or real people having their arms lopped off. They were automata and prometheans. Have you heard of prometheans, Roderick? Corpses sewn back together and reanimated?”
    “I’m on first name terms with several,” I said. “I’ve even exchanged words with Guy Fawkes.”
    “Wasn’t he reanimated in London?” said Dr Morrow. “And then incarcerated by the police. I thought this was your first visit to England, Roderick?”
    There was slight rise in the Worcester heart-rate, but a fleeting one. My little grey cells were fully lubricated by this time of the evening, steeped in fine Burgundy and the first flush of the Old Ruby.
    “Ah, you’re thinking of the gunpowder plot Guy Fawkes,” I said. “I’m talking about the Argentinean one. He has two Fs in his name. Two Gs as well, I think. Rum fellow. He was a pirate, you know? Grief-stricken when they couldn’t reanimate his parrot.”
    I think I got away with it. Dr Morrow gave me a strange look but, as a person who’d been collecting strange looks for most of his life, I found it little stranger than most.
    “They’re a lot cheaper than actors,” said Sir Robert, returning the conversation back to his beloved Quarrywood. “Prometheans. And less trouble. Tell an actor his part calls for an arm lopping and he’ll hand in his notice. Not so with these réanimé chappies.”
    “Of course, I do sew their arms back on,” said Dr Morrow. “After all, they’ve all been sewn together so many times, what’s one more?”
    “Quite,” I said. “I don’t suppose you need any real actors in your moving pictures, do you? You could use prometheans for every role.”
    “Not really,” said Henry. “They do have their limitations. If one wants someone to be stabbed, or have a tree fall on them, they have no equal. But they can’t act. One needs an expressive face for close-ups.