lip and hard jaw. There was a small scar, high on his cheekbone, that I had not noticed before, an old one that I only saw now because it was thrown into relief by the firelight. It was shaped like a crescent moon. I wondered how he had gotten it.
He looked up sharply and I felt my face grow hot.
“This looks to be sent by the same hand as the others.”
“Looks to be? Can you not be certain?”
He shrugged. “I have not seen the notes in a year, my lady. But the evening of Sir Edward’s collapse, he told me that he had received another. He planned to show it to me that night. He was rather agitated about it. I suspect he put it into his desk and died before he had the chance to retrieve it. The typeface from the scissored bit seems to match what I remember of the earlier notes.”
He handed it back and I waved it away with a shudder. “I do not want it. What do we do now?”
His expression was incredulous. “We? Now? You will return to Grey House and I will get on with my experiment. Unless you would care for some tea. I am sure Mrs. Lawson would be only too happy—”
“About that!” I interjected, pointing to the note. “What do we do about that?”
He shrugged again, a peculiarly Gallic gesture that, coupled with his dark colouring, made me wonder if he was entirely English. Perhaps Portia’s speculations about his parentage were not so preposterous after all. Naturally I did not credit the story of imperial Bonaparte blood, but there was a foreignness to him that I could not identify.
“There is nothing to be done. Sir Edward is dead, the certificate says by natural causes, and you were content to let him rest in peace a year ago. Let him do so now.”
I stared at him. “But surely you can see that there has been some injustice done here. You were the one who urged me to have his death investigated. You were the one who first raised the question of murder.”
The table at his elbow was layered with objects, a small stack of books, some marked with playing cards to hold his place, a bowl that looked like a solid piece of amber, full of coins and pen nibs and a knot of faded calico. There was a Chinese cricket cage, empty but for a tiny stone statue, and a basket of apples, surprisingly bright and crisp for this time of year. He picked an apple from the basket and began to twist the stem. “It was relevant a year ago, my lady, to an investigation upon which I was engaged. My client died, his widow did not wish to pursue the matter, ergo the case is closed.”
The stem snapped and so did my fraying temper. “Ergo the case is not closed. You were the one who preached to me of integrity and probity last year. What was it you said? Something about justice being meted out to the guilty?”
He took a healthy bite out of the apple, chewing it thoughtfully. “My lady, what is justice at this point? The trail is cold, clues will have been destroyed or thrown out. You yourself nearly consigned this to the wastepaper basket,” he reminded me, flourishing the note. “What do you expect me to do now?”
“I expect you to find my husband’s murderer.”
He shook his dark head, tumbling his hair further. “Be reasonable, my lady. There was a chance a year ago. Now it is little better than hopeless.”
“Little better, but not entirely,” I said, rising and taking up my muff and gloves. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Brisbane.”
He rose as well, still holding his apple. “What do you mean to do?”
I faced him squarely. “I mean to find Edward’s murderer.” I think I would have struck him if he smiled, but he did not. His expression was curiously grave. “Alone?”
“If needs be. I was wrong not to believe you last year. I wasted a valuable opportunity, and I am sorry for that. But I learn from my mistakes, Mr. Brisbane.” I took the note from his fingers. “I will not make another.”
I crossed to the door, but he moved quickly, reaching it before I did. His features were set in resignation. “Very well. I will do what I can.”
I looked up at him. “Why?”
He leaned a little closer and I felt his breath against my face, smelling sweetly of apple. His eyes, wide and deeply black, were fixed on mine, and I could see myself reflected in them. My breath came quite quickly and I was conscious of how very large he was and that I was alone with a man for the first time in a year. I thought wildly that he might try to kiss me and I knew that I would not stop him. In fact, I think my lips may have parted as he leaned closer still.
“Because I am a professional, my lady. And I will not have an amateur bungling about in one of my cases.”
He smiled and bit firmly into his apple.
THE EIGHTH CHAPTER
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek That now are wild, and do not remember That sometime they put themselves in danger.
—Sir Thomas Wyatt
“Remembrance”
“Blast,” I muttered as I returned to the coach, settling myself with an irritable thump against the cushions. Henry closed the door smartly behind me. I gave him a second to reach his perch behind the coach, then rapped at the roof. Diggory sprang the horses toward home.
I stared out of the window and tried to compose myself. I had only met Nicholas Brisbane three times, but each of those occasions had left me entirely unsettled. He had an uncanny ability to raise my temper, an ability I did not fully understand.
Perhaps most irritating was his arrogant insistence upon handling the investigation entirely on his own, his derisive use of the word amateur. In the end he had said he would make a few inquiries and promised to send along a report in a few days’ time. He had not been optimistic, and as he had ushered me out of his rooms, I had become convinced that he was simply agreeing to this much to placate me. He had no expectation of finding Edward’s murderer, and I firmly believed that without an expectation of success, one is rarely successful.
In view of this, I decided to undertake my own investigation. The trouble was, I had no idea of how to begin. What questions did a professional ask? What steps did he follow? What came first? Suspects? Motives? It seemed like a Gordian knot of the worst sort, but if my memory of mythology served, the only way out of such a puzzle is directly through it. Cleave a path straight across and the devil take trying to unwind the wool.
But unlike Alexander, I didn’t even have a sword. I cursed Brisbane thoroughly over the next few days, leaving me to make polite chat with my relatives and manage my household while he got to bound about London on my behalf, asking interesting questions and chasing down clues that might provide the answer to our mystery. I imagined him pursuing bandits into the fetid Docklands where Chinamen smoked their pipes and kept their secrets, dashing headlong into a brawl with a gang of cutthroat ruffians, sidling into a midnight crypt to keep a rendezvous with a veiled lady who held the key to the entire case ….
Of course, Brisbane was doing nothing of the sort. While I liked to imagine him as the lead character of my most outlandish detective fantasies, he was in fact behaving as any very ordinary inquiry agent might. Instead of making gallant charges against masked villains, he was writing letters to clerks and busying himself in the offices of newspapers and solicitors, patiently searching through dusty files.
According to his report, what he learned was prosaic in the extreme. Sir Edward Grey had died of natural causes due to an hereditary heart ailment at the age of thirty-one. His title and country estate were entailed upon his cousin, Simon Grey; the residue of his estate devolved upon his relict, Lady Julia Grey, youngest daughter and ninth child of the twelfth Earl March. Sir Edward gave quietly to several worthy causes, enjoyed horseracing and was an amateur oenophile with more enthusiasm than skill. He had no enemies, but was widely known at his club as a great prankster and generous friend who could always be relied upon for a jape or a