“Lady Glover certainly bears a grudge against society,” Jeremy said once we’d stepped back into Park Lane and turned towards my house. “Do you think she could be our villain?”
“I like her for it,” I said. “She’s got the right sort of spirit, though I can’t imagine her murdering Mr. Dillman.”
“If it is her, I’ll be even more angry if I don’t get some red of my own,” he said. “I’d never forgive her.”
“It’s not funny, Jeremy,” I said. “My heart breaks for Polly, and Lady Merton—I’ve heard her husband has refused to speak to her ever again—but aren’t these situations to be expected in our kind of society?”
“Indeed they are. We value discretion above all else and—” He stopped. Cordelia Dalton, her hair flowing wildly down her back, was running up my front steps and banging on the door.
I started toward her.
She could hardly catch her breath. Davis opened the door, his countenance not altering in the slightest at the sight he beheld. Tears soaked Cordelia’s face and the sleeve of her dress was torn. He looked straight past her to me.
“Welcome home, madam,” he said, not missing a beat. “Port in the library?”
“Dear Davis, what would I do without you?” I said, putting my arm around Cordelia and ushering her inside.
Jeremy hung back on the front steps. “I’d best leave you to it, Em,” he said. “I don’t do well with crying ladies.” He tipped his hat, gave me an uncomfortable half smile, and took his leave.
“Tell me what’s happened,” I said, once I’d installed Cordelia in the library’s most comfortable chair.
“They think I have something, and I don’t—I swear I don’t … I don’t even know where to look. But I can’t convince them. They’ll never believe me. I don’t know a thing about Michael’s work. How could they think I would?”
“Slow now, Cordelia. I need to know more,” I said. “Who are ‘they’?”
“The ones who sent the letter.” With a shaking hand, she pulled a crumpled envelope from her reticule.
I read the missive twice, then inspected the envelope, but found no features on either that might identify the sender. “Have you any idea to what this letter refers?” I asked.
“None at all,” Cordelia said.
Davis entered with port and two glasses. “Is my husband home?” I asked.
“He is, madam. Working chess problems in his study.”
“Bring him to us, Davis. And his whisky as well.”
6
“Do your parents know you’ve come to us?” I asked. Cordelia, still too upset to speak coherently, shook her head. I rose and went to my desk, pulled out a sheet of paper, and started to write a note to the girl’s parents. “You can’t hide this from them,” I said, scribbling words across the page before shoving it in an envelope and ringing for Davis to have it delivered. Cordelia sunk lower in her chair and sobbed.
“What’s all this?” Colin asked, entering the room. I handed him the letter. He read it and then, his face grave, he sat next to Cordelia.
“You’re quite certain you’ve no idea what these people want, Miss Dalton?” he asked.
“None at all,” she said, her voice thin and choking.
“Emily, take her upstairs and get her cleaned up. Have you summoned her parents?”
“I’ve asked her father to come,” I said.
“Well done,” Colin said.
“Am I in danger, Mr. Hargreaves?” Cordelia asked.
“I’m afraid so,” he said. “But I’ll do everything I can to make sure no harm comes your way.”
Mr. Dalton listened, his countenance growing darker as Colin briefed him on Cordelia’s situation. He balked at my husband’s suggestion that they go abroad until the situation was sorted, confident there was nowhere in the world safer than England. Because his daughter was in mourning, he said, it would be easy enough to keep her under close watch at home. I understood the desire to stay on familiar ground, and hoped it was the best choice.
Cordelia insisted again she had received nothing from Mr. Dillman that could be significant to the case, but I persuaded her to let me accompany her home and to examine everything he’d given her. In the meantime, Colin would arrange for the Daltons’ house to be kept under watch by Scotland Yard. Mr. Dalton, ready to be as careful as necessary, stationed a footman outside Cordelia’s bedroom as she and I made our way to the polished wooden case where she stored her most-treasured possessions.
“I swear, Lady Emily, he always looked after me with the most tender care. He never gave me anything these people would want,” she said, her voice choked with tears. “He wouldn’t have done that to me. Not if he thought it could have endangered me.”
I squeezed her hand. “Of course not. But he may not have realized there would be this sort of danger.”
Cordelia clutched the case to her chest and sat on the edge of her bed, tears streaming down her face. “I miss him so very much.”
I longed to be able to erase her pain.
She set down the box, ran her hand over its smooth top, the surface of which was inlaid with an elaborate pattern of mother-of-pearl, and then unlocked it with a slim key. It opened with a click and she pushed up the lid. Inside were several small boxes and a bundle of letters. The boxes contained items she’d collected while on walks with her fiancé: brittle pressed flowers, a dried leaf that hadn’t lost its bright autumnal red, and a soft, white feather. She didn’t meet my eyes when she reached for the letters.
“Do you need to read them?” Her cheeks flushed red.
“I don’t want to,” I said, frowning. “It doesn’t feel right. But it would be worse if we missed something.”
With a sigh, she passed them to me.
“I promise you I shall keep these absolutely private,” I said.
“Unless you discover something that matters.”
“If we discover something of significance, I shall copy out only the pertinent information. It can’t be anything obvious, or you would have already noticed it. No one should have to see the actual letters.”
“Just the decoding of a code?” she asked.
“If we’re lucky enough to find one.”
We were not so lucky. Mr. Dillman’s letters revealed him to have a kind heart, an occasional ear for poetry, and a touching affection for his fiancée, but nothing suggested he had embedded mysterious messages in them. One of them I read repeatedly, as its postscript implored his fiancée to keep it always, but I could pull nothing useful from it. I asked Cordelia if anything about it stood out to her, but she only sighed and shook her head. The other item left in the box was a slim guide to objects in the British Museum.
“Did you go there together?” I asked, holding up the volume. The museum was one of my favorite places on earth. As a little girl, wandering through the galleries with my father, I used to wish I could run away and live
