A man, a Mr. James Mortimer, is slumped on the bench, his panting exhalations creating small puffs of smoke in the freezing air. He is dying, and James Mortimer is not his real name. It is the name he assumed when he befriended Lord Denford’s son at the races, when he offered him good tips that led to fair-to-middling wins, when he coaxed and flattered and listened his way into Clive Denford’s trust. It is a name that leads nowhere.

In his lap lies a small tin, its two halves prized apart. Later they will test the tin for poison but find instead gelignite. Mortimer took it for his heart. He is looking down sadly into the empty case, panting as he dies.

“It would have been all right, I suppose, if it wasn’t for the snow.”

Mortimer doesn’t look up. You would think that it would be better to die looking up at the sky than down at your knees.

“There was an accomplice, wasn’t there? They were supposed to come and spirit you away. Except it started snowing and it didn’t stop.”

A bubble forms on his lips and bursts. Behind us the house is quiet. There are seventeen souls inside: the four family members, six servants (the four who sleep in and two who have accompanied their employers), and the seven weekend guests, the men there to shoot, the women to gossip and play cards. There are four more hours until the stable boy and scullery maids get up, seven more till Sir Thomas Denford and his weekend guests have their tea taken up, and Lady Mary Ashton realizes her diamond necklace, her famous diamond necklace, is missing, its velvet-lined case empty and the door to her room—which she swears she locked from the inside—open, the key missing.

“Where’s the necklace?” I ask. “Where did you put it? We looked everywhere. Em always said it was in the lake.”

I sit down and reach over to tilt Mortimer’s chin up so that he gets a view of the night sky. There’s no moon, but the night is aflame in blue and white.

He’s not going to speak to me. He never speaks to me, not even to tell me his real name.

Mortimer has stopped panting now. He seems to have given up exhaling. Instead he takes a series of tiny in-breaths while his eyes scan the heavens left to right as though reading a book. I try one last time:

“Where is it, James? Where’s the necklace?”

But it’s useless. He’s leaving, taking his secrets with him.