“How very kind of him.” Sir Grenville sneered. He waved the doctor out of the room, backing away with his linen cloth and silver cup. “So it’s Lopez.”

“Presumably.”

“And no doubt the bitch of a girl is already in Amsterdam.”

Ebenezer shrugged. “Presumably.”

“Presumably! Presumably! What do those watermen say?”

The men who had rowed Campion from the Tower had been found. Their story, elicited from them in terror, had not helped. Ebenezer limped to a chair. “They took them to a coach at Bear Wharf.”

“And then?”

“Nothing.” Ebenezer seemed unmoved by the tale of failure.

“And the coach presumably took them to a ship at another wharf.” Sir Grenville rubbed his upper arm, his fat, white face scowling at the pain. “That whoreson Jew! We should have killed them all, not expelled them! Damn him!”

Ebenezer brushed dust from his black sleeve. “Be grateful it was only the Jew. From what you tell me, Aretine would have made a worse enemy.”

For five days Sir Grenville had lived in terror that Kit Aretine had come back from the dead. Cottjens’s apologies had lifted that cloud, though Sir Grenville still surrounded himself with guards and travelled infrequently about London’s streets. The frog-like face looked at Ebenezer.

“Make sure your damned house is well guarded.”

“It is.” Ebenezer, with money from the Covenant, had purchased a large riverside house in the village of Chelsea. Sir Grenville, who had made the young man his heir, did not like it, but had granted Ebenezer his independence.

Sir Grenville pushed away papers that his secretary had put on the desk. “So what do we do now?”

Ebenezer smiled. “There were at least four men in the rescue. One of them might be found.”

“In Amsterdam?” Sir Grenville asked scornfully.

“I was thinking of posting a reward. Two hundred pounds for any real information about her escape.”

“And what good will that do?” Sir Grenville was in a terrible mood, foul-tempered because of the bubbling pain in his stomach.

Ebenezer shrugged, “It might lead us to her. And then we kill her.” His dark eyes looked at Sir Grenville. “You should have let me do it before. We were too fanciful.”

Sir Grenville grunted. “The next time I’ll kill her myself. I’ll pull her damned heart out.” He nodded. “Post your reward. You’ll be swamped by fools trying to lie their way into two hundred pounds.”

Ebenezer smiled. “I can deal with fools.”

“True.” Sir Grenville twisted about in his splayed, padded chair and looked at the two armed men who were in his garden. “We have four years, Ebenezer, before that bitch bastard is twenty-five. Four years!”

“It’s enough.”

“To find her and kill her.” Sir Grenville twisted back, his bulging eyes coming to Ebenezer. “Because no one will get these seals. No one!”

Which was true, Ebenezer reflected. No one could get close to Sir Grenville without passing one or more of the twelve armed guards who were permanently inside the house. Not even Ebenezer could carry a weapon into Sir Grenville’s presence. The seals were safe, Ebenezer knew, for he had dreamed of stealing impressions from the Seal of St. Mark. He had waited for his moment, but it had never come.