Mr. Oliver was not a happy man. Round of face and body, sparse of hair, he kept looking at his wife with an expression of strained forbearance. Minerva sat with her across from him at the dining room table at their house, untying the thin package she had brought.

“Miss Hepplestone, my wife should have never wasted your time.”

“Hepplewhite. I think that in a few minutes you will be most grateful she did.”

“Unlikely. Women have no head for business nor any ability to conduct it. That is why I do not tolerate their interference.”

“It was not interference as such,” Mrs. Oliver said.

“What do you call it then?” he snapped.

“Your wife noticed something was amiss,” Minerva said. “She asked me as a friend to confirm what she suspected. I do not seek to interfere any more than she did. If you would prefer to be robbed and have your affairs compromised, just say so and I will take my leave.”

Robbed raised an expression of alarm in him. Compromised brought forth a deep frown. He did not tell her to leave.

She described what she had learned in Brighton. She laid out the lace cuffs she had bought from Mr. Seymour’s shop. She explained how she was told that they came from a town in the Loire Valley, and that the owner of the shop was well aware that he sold something that in the past had been available exclusively at a competitor.

“Quite smug he was,” she said. “Furthermore, he had already sold out his stock and was getting more.” She lifted one of the cuffs. “I arranged to be there when he did, and I saw your agent enter his building. A half hour later, I procured these cuffs. I thought this one unusually fine.”

He snatched it out of her hand. He put on his spectacles and bent low over it. “Hell and damnation.” He looked up with a chagrined smile. “My apologies. Only this is new. Not one of mine.”

“He was very proud of that one. He anticipated much profit from it.”

He rested back in his chair, fingering the cuff. “The thief,” he muttered. “Who knows what else he’s done.”

Minerva stood. “I will indeed take my leave now.”

“I will see you to the door,” Mrs. Oliver said.

At the door Mrs. Oliver leaned in and whispered. “Well done. Write and let me know what I owe you for today.”

“You owe nothing. This is part of my report.” She looked toward the dining room. “He is not the sort to somehow turn this around to blame you, is he?”

“In two days my role will be forgotten, and the entire discovery will be his doing.”

Of course. What other choice did he have? Admit that his wife had been right to involve herself?

* * *

“Hand delivery,” Beth called. “A big one.”