Page 109
“To the principal rooms?”
“To the conversations.”
Judith followed his gaze towards the wall and understood. There was unlimited possibility there. “We need to catch them in the act.”
CHAPTER 15
By half past nine, Baines had acquired a headache, an intimate knowledge of Blackthorn’s meat consumption, and a growing conviction that Judith Finch could have defeated Napoleon with her management skills.
She sat opposite him at the scarred oak table in the muniment room, surrounded by ledgers in various stages of dissection. Morning sunlight entered through the tall window behind her, illuminating the loose strands of brown hair at her temples to bronze. She had abandoned the hideous cap again, a development Baines regarded as one of the few unequivocal successes of his present assignment, although he had wisely refrained from saying so.
He had also refrained from kissing her, which required considerably greater discipline, whilst remaining continuously aware that Judith Finch had said, I rather wish you had.
The words had returned when Judith had bent across the table twenty minutes earlier and reached past him for a ledger, bringing with her the faint scent of lavender and soap. Baines had begun to suspect she had said them deliberately in order to destroy his usefulness to the Crown.
“Are you listening?”
He looked up. “Devotedly.”
“You have not heard a word I have said.”
“On the contrary, you were explaining that Lord Cranford’s valet consumed an unreasonable quantity of mutton in November.”
Judith regarded him over the ledger. “Mr. Mallory did not consume it personally.”
“Then your records are dangerously ambiguous.”
“They record the servants’ table.”
“A pity. For a moment I thought we had found our man. Anyone capable of eating four pounds of mutton at a sitting should certainly be investigated.”
Judith lowered her eyes to the page, but he caught the movement at one corner of her mouth.
Baines smiled. There were victories a man learned to appreciate.
The muniment room had become their headquarters almost by accident. It was less comfortable than the library and considerably less attractive than any room intended for human occupation, but it possessed two invaluable qualities: very few guests voluntarily entered it, and Judith knew where everything was.
Old account books lined shelves from floor to ceiling. Estate maps stood rolled in a tall wicker basket beside the hearth. Bills, correspondence and household journals occupied labelled boxes with a precision Baines found both admirable and faintly alarming. The fire had burned down, leaving the room cool enough that Judith had drawn a dark green shawl over her shoulders.
Upon the table lay the results of their morning’s work.
The previous gatherings at Blackthorn did not share a single obvious guest, nor did they share a single visiting valet, groom, maid or coachman. They did, however, reveal patterns of movement that Baines had previously ignored. Servants arrived and departed before their employers. Grooms visited inns. Coachmen carried packages. Tradesmen entered by one door and departed through another. Blackthorn’s guests imagined themselves surrounded by privacy because the people providing that privacy had been trained to appear invisible.
This morning, he and Judith had proved that at least one such invisible person had been using the old west passage. The scrap of paper rested inside Baines’ pocket.
Western road. Cavalry—
Three words, and enough to alter the entire investigation.
Judith turned another page. “Lady Beckenham’s former maid appears twice, but not in September.”
“And Bosworth’s man?”
“January and March only.”
“Pembroke?”
“His valet attended the September gathering but remained in Hertfordshire in January. Mr. Pembroke apparently managed to dress himself for six days and survived the ordeal.”
