“Excellent!” It was Matthew’s turn to grimace, and it was far from being a smile. “Am I supposed to let him in to see all this mess?” Matthew had already noted that the washstand was in the bedroom, and it had occurred to him on the edge of sleep that the fine service given to guests in the Grand Suite meant hot water was going to be delivered after daybreak.

“Tell him the bedroom is full of sleeping beauties, we need no hot water until they awaken, and when that occurs we’ll summon with the bellpull.” Julian paused just short of the door. “I told the night manager that Count Pellegar will be paying double for the room. I doubt anyone will be coming up to check for damages, with that kind of promise. There’s no reason for anyone to believe anything but what I said, that Count Pellegar suffers from night fits.”

“The same as you?” Matthew asked, the question delivered as sharply as a dagger’s strike.

“I’ll return,” said Julian, “when I return. Best latch the door behind me.”

“Oh, I thought I’d leave it wide open for the Turlentorts to wander in for breakfast!”

Without another word Julian unlatched the door and left. Matthew immediately crossed the room and relatched it, thinking how if he turned around and the corpses of Pellegar and Brux were shambling toward him he was going right out the window.

He considered returning to bed. Though he knew his mind and body needed further rest, it was impossible to turn off the mental scenes of the count and the baron being murdered. Those … and that constant ticking … ticking … of time going past, and Berry still under the drug’s power in Y Beautiful Bedd, and this shred of an idea that Pellegar and Brux’s visit to London had something to do with the book of potions. They could be here for any number of other reasons, and for that matter it wasn’t a sure thing that the house on Endsleigh Park Road was inhabited by the same man who’d partnered with Cardinal Black; the book could be on its way to another country by now, or being deciphered by some mad chemist in a cellar somewhere in preparation to poison the entire Parliament.

“Stop it,” Matthew told himself, aloud, for he realized he was careening about in a dangerous circle that could only weaken his resolve. For the moment the impersonation of Pellegar and Brux—however insane that idea was—had to be done, and done well; it was all he and Julian had, and God help them in two ways: if they got into that house and discovered this had nothing to do with the book, and if they got into that house and discovered this had everything to do with the book.