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Baines pressed his lips together.
Stuart pointed at him. “Do not.”
“I have said nothing.”
“You were about to.”
“I was merely reflecting upon the quality of His Majesty’s Intelligence Services.”
Renforth’s mouth twitched.
Judith looked from Stuart to Baines. “He is one of your men?”
“One of Renforth’s, technically. None of us admits to belonging to one another unless absolutely necessary.”
Stuart accepted his defeat with reasonable grace. “In my defence, Miss Finch, most people at the Black Lion are considerably less interested in strangers than you appear to be.”
“Most people do not have someone passing military intelligence through their home.”
“That is a fair point,” Stuart conceded.
Baines’s amusement faded as another possibility occurred to him. “If Stuart is here, who else did you bring?” he asked, turning to his commander.
Renforth unfolded the map. “Fielding is in Newcastle, watching printers, coaching offices, carriers and the post routes. If anything leaves Blackthorn in that direction, he has instructions to follow it rather than intercept it. Cholmely is farther north, near Berwick. He has been absent from London long enough that no one is likely to connect him with you, and his business concerning the Singleton estate provides a credible reason for travelling.”
“And Manners?”
“He is staying with Lord Harcourt, nine miles west of here.”
Baines laughed. “To be sure he is.”
Judith glanced at him. “Why is that amusing?”
“Manners is uniquely qualified to conduct an investigation from a well-appointed drawing room. Lord Harcourt will believe him an ordinary guest, and Manners will spend the next several days eating excellent dinners while claiming it is dangerous work.”
“He also has access to the sort of men who would never speak freely before Baines at a village inn,” Renforth said. “Between the four of them, every principal route away from Blackthorn is covered.”
Baines looked down at the map, and something inside him eased. He had not realized until that moment how accustomed he had become to carrying the investigation alone. Now Fielding was in Newcastle, Chum watched the northern road, Manners occupied the neighbouring drawing rooms and Stuart sat in the Black Lion, pretending, apparently with limited success, to purchase horses. His troop was around him again.
Judith had moved to the opposite side of the table. “Then you do not intend merely to discover who possesses the information. You mean to follow it.”
Renforth nodded. “Baines has spent the past week watching the people inside Blackthorn. We shall watch what leaves it.”
“That may be more difficult than it sounds.”
“Why?”
“Because you are assuming the information leaves in a manner which looks like information. I do not believe the culprit is leaving the estate.”
Renforth narrowed his gaze.
Judith rested one hand upon the edge of the map. “Blackthorn has deliveries nearly every day. Servants visit families in the village, grooms carry messages, tradesmen come and go, laundry is sent out, parcels arrive from Newcastle and guests send all manner of things away for repair. A person who has been doing this successfully for months would be foolish to depend upon an obvious courier.”
Baines watched Renforth consider her argument.
“She is right,” Stuart said. “A groom carrying a folded letter is worth following. A groom carrying a saddle to be repaired is not, unless we know to watch the saddle.”
“Nor is there need for the person carrying it know what he carries,” Judith added. “A servant could be entirely innocent. If a lady gives her maid a necklace to take to a jeweller, the maid has no reason to examine the clasp.”
