“But not until the next day,” said Mr. de Villiers. “The hospital records say that they did give the child a thorough examination, but her mother refused to have one. Why was that, Grace?”

Mum laughed. “I think you’d understand me better if you’d ever had a baby yourself. I was fine, I just wanted to be sure the baby was all right. What surprises me is how you got hold of a report from the hospital so quickly. I thought such details were strictly confidential.”

“You’re welcome to take the hospital to court for contravening the Data Protection Act,” said Mr. de Villiers. “Meanwhile we’ll go on looking for the midwife. I’m beginning to feel a burning interest in whatever that lady may have to tell us.”

The door opened, and Mr. George and Dr. White came in, along with Mrs. Jenkins, who was carrying a whole lot of files.

Gideon strolled into the room after them. This time I took the opportunity to look at the rest of him, not just his pretty face. I was hoping to see something I didn’t like about him, so I wouldn’t feel quite so imperfect by comparison. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a thing. He didn’t have bowlegs from playing polo, or long gorilla arms, or ears too close to the sides of his head (which Lesley claimed was a sign of a miserly man). He looked annoyingly cool leaning back against the desk, crossing his arms.

What a waste of good looks. It was a shame!

“Everything’s ready,” said Mr. George, eyes twinkling at me. “The time machine is ready to start.”

Robert, the ghost boy, waved to me shyly. I waved back.

“Well, we’re all present and correct, then,” said Mr. de Villiers. “That is to say, I’m afraid Glenda and Charlotte have had to leave us. They send warm good wishes to everyone.”

“I bet they do,” said Dr. White.

“Poor girl! Phantom symptoms for two whole days—it can’t have been much fun for her,” said Mr. George, with a sympathetic expression on his round face.

“And add a mother like that into the bargain,” muttered Dr. White, leafing through the file folders that Mrs. Jenkins had brought with her. “What a tough time the poor child’s had.”

“Mrs. Jenkins, how’s Madame Rossini getting on with Gwyneth’s wardrobe?”

“She’s just … wait, I’ll go and ask.” Mrs. Jenkins hurried out the doorway again.

Mr. George rubbed his hands, ready for action. “Then we can go!”

“But you won’t take her into danger, will you?” said Mum, turning to Mr. George. “You’ll leave her out of this business?”

“We will certainly leave her out of it,” said Gideon.

“We’ll do all we can to protect Gwyneth,” Mr. George assured Mum.

“We can’t leave her out of it, Grace,” said Mr. de Villiers. “She’s part of this business, as you put it. You ought to have realized that earlier. Before you began this stupid game of hide-and-seek.”

“With the result that, thanks to you, the girl is entirely unprepared and ignorant,” said Dr. White. “Which of course will make our mission even more difficult. But I expect that was just what you wanted.”

“What I wanted was to keep Gwyneth out of danger,” said Mum.

“I’ve gone quite a long way on my own,” said Gideon. “I can see this thing through by myself.”

“That’s just what I hoped,” said Mum.

I can see this thing through by myself. Ugh! I only just managed not to giggle. It could have been a line from one of those stupid action films where a hunk with a melancholy expression saves the world by fighting, single-handed, against a combat troop of 120 ninja warriors, a fleet of enemy spaceships, or a whole village of desperadoes armed to the teeth.

“We’ll see what kinds of tasks she may be suitable for,” said Mr. de Villiers.

“We have her blood,” said Gideon. “That’s all we need from her. She can come here and elapse every day as far as I’m concerned, and then everyone will be happy.”

What was that he said? Elapse? It sounded like one of those difficult words Mr. Whitman used to confuse us with in English lessons. “In principle not a bad effort at elapsorating the crux, Gordon, but try for a little more elaboration next time, please.” Or had it been elucidating the crux? Well, anyway, neither Gordon nor I nor anyone else in the class had ever heard of it. Except, of course, for Charlotte.

Mr. George saw how baffled I was looking. “By elapse we mean deliberately tapping your time-travel quota by setting the chronograph to take you back into the past for a couple of hours. That prevents uncontrolled travel.” He turned to the others. “I’m sure that after a little while Gwyneth will surprise us all with her potential. She is—”

“She’s a child!” Gideon interrupted him. “She has no idea about anything.”

I blushed scarlet. What a nerve he had! And the scornful way he was looking at me! That stupid, conceited … polo player!

“That’s not true,” I said. I was not a child! I was sixteen and a half. Exactly the same as Charlotte. At my age, Marie-Antoinette had been married for years. (So I didn’t know that from history lessons, but I knew it from the film with Kirsten Dunst.) And Joan of Arc was only fifteen when she—

“Oh, no?” Gideon’s voice was heavily sarcastic. “Then what, for instance, do you know about history?”

“Enough!” I said. Hadn’t I just gotten an A on a history test?

“Really? Who came to the throne after George I?”

I hadn’t the faintest. “George II?” I said, guessing.

Aha! He looked disappointed. I seemed to have guessed right.

“And which royal house replaced the Stuarts in 1702 and why?”

Dammit. “Er … we haven’t got to that yet,” I said.

“So I see.” Gideon turned to the others. “She doesn’t know anything about history. She can’t even speak appropriately. Wherever we go, she’d stick out like a sore thumb. And she has no idea what’s at stake. She wouldn’t just be totally useless, she’d endanger the entire mission!”

I ask you! So I couldn’t even speak appropriately? Well, I could think of several highly appropriate names I’d have liked to call him.

“I think you’ve made your opinion quite clear, Gideon,” said Mr. de Villiers. “At this point, it would be interesting to find out what the count thinks of these developments.”

“You can’t do that to her!” Mum interrupted. Her voice suddenly sounded all choked up.

“The count will be delighted to meet you, Gwyneth,” said Mr. George, brushing Mum’s concerns aside. “The Ruby, the twelfth, the last in the Circle. It will be a solemn moment when the two of you come face-to-face.”

“No!” said Mum.

Everyone looked at her.

“Grace!” said my grandmother. “Not again!”

“No,” repeated Mum. “Please! There’s no need for him to meet her. Surely it will be enough for him to know that her blood makes the Circle complete.”

“Would have made the Circle complete,” said Dr. White, who was still looking through those files. “If we hadn’t had to start all over again after the theft.”

“Be that as it may, I don’t want Gwyneth meeting him,” said Mum. “Those are my conditions. Gideon can do it by himself.”

“It’s not up to you to decide,” said Mr. de Villiers, and Dr. White snapped, “Conditions! So now she’s making conditions!”

“But she’s right! It won’t do anyone any good for us to drag the girl into this too,” said Gideon. “I’ll explain what happened, and I’m sure the count will agree with me.”

“He’s going to want to see her, anyway, to get an idea of her for himself,” said Falk de Villiers. “There’s no danger for her. She won’t even have to leave this house.”

“Mrs. Shepherd, I assure you, nothing will happen to Gwyneth,” said Mr. George. “I imagine your opinion of the count is based on prejudices that we’ll all be very happy to dispel.”

“I’m afraid you won’t be able to do that.”

“I am sure, dear Grace,” said Mr. de Villiers, “that you’d like to tell us on what grounds you feel such a dislike for the count—a man you’ve never met.”

Mum pursed her lips firmly.

“We’re listening!” said Mr. de Villiers.

Mum said nothing. At last she whispered, “It’s just … just a kind of feeling.”

Mr. de Villiers’s lips curled in a cynical smile. “I can’t help it, Grace—I do get the impression that you’re keeping something from us. What are you afraid of?”

“Who is this count anyway, and why aren’t I supposed to meet him?” I asked.

“Because your mother has a kind of feeling,” said Dr. White, straightening his jacket. “The man has been dead for over two hundred years, Mrs. Shepherd.”

“And that’s the way I’d like him to stay,” muttered Mum.

“Count Saint-Germain is the fifth of the twelve time travelers, Gwyneth,” said Mr. George. “You saw his portrait in the documents room just now. He was the one who first understood the way the chronograph works and decoded the old manuscripts. He not only found out how he could travel with its aid to any year he liked, on any day he liked, he also discovered the secret behind the secret. The Secret of the Twelve. With the help of the chronograph, he succeeded in tracing the four time travelers in the Circle born before him and initiating them into the mystery. The count sought and gained support from the most brilliant minds of his time, mathematicians, alchemists, magicians, philosophers—they were all fascinated by his work. Together, they deciphered the Ancient Writings and worked out the birth dates of the seven time travelers yet to be born before the Circle could be closed. In the year 1745, the count founded the Society of the Guardians here in London, the Secret Lodge of Count Saint-Germain.”

“The count had scientists, philosophers, and scholars such as Raimundus Lullus, Agrippa von Nettesheim, John Colet, Simon Forman, Samuel Hartlib, Sir Kenelm Digby, and John Wallis to thank for the decoding of the Ancient Writings,” said Mr. de Villiers.

None of those names rang a bell anywhere in my head.

“None of those names rings a bell anywhere in her head,” said Gideon sarcastically.

Could he really read thoughts? Just in case he could, I gave him a nasty look and thought, with all my might, You … stupid … show-off!

He looked away.

* * *

“I THOUGHT Sir Isaac Newton was one of the Guardians?” I asked.

“Indeed he was!” Mr. George replied.

“But Newton died in 1727.” I surprised myself by coming up with that fact. Lesley had told me when she phoned yesterday, and for some unfathomable reason, it had stuck in my mind. I wasn’t as stupid as this Gideon said after all.