Grey’s shirt was soaked through by now, but he was no longer anxious. He felt an odd sort of calm, in fact, as though matters had been taken quite out of his own control. What happened next lay in the hands of Fate, or God—or Hubert Bowles, whoever in God’s name he was.

Stapleton was plainly in the employ of Mr. Bowles’s office—whatever nameless office that might be—and Grey’s second thought, after the shock of seeing him, had been that Stapleton had gone to Lavender House as an agent of Bowles.

But Stapleton had been terrified by Grey’s sudden appearance; that meant that Stapleton thought Bowles to be in ignorance of his own nature. Why else that silent plea?

That being so, Stapleton would never have mentioned Grey’s presence at Lavender House; he could not do so without incriminating himself. And that in turn meant that his presence there had been purely personal. Given room to think for a moment, Grey realized—with the stomach-dropping relief of one stepping back from the trap of a scaffold—that Mr. Bowles was not in fact inquiring into his own behavior, save as it pertained to the O’Connell affair. And with an obvious reason for his presence at Lavender House given . . .

“I b-beg your pardon, sir?” he stammered, realizing belatedly that Bowles had said something to him.

“I asked whether you were convinced that these Irish were conspicuously involved, Major? The Scanlons?”

“I think that they are,” he replied cautiously. “But that is an impression only, sir. I have said to Colonel Quarry that it might be useful to question them more officially, though—and not only the Scanlons, but Miss Iphigenia Stokes and her family.”

“Ah, Miss Stokes.” The pendulous cheeks quivered faintly. “No, we are familiar with the Stokes family. Petty smugglers, to a man, but nothing whatever in the political line. Nor have they any connexion to the . . . persons at Lavender House.”

Persons. That, Grey realized, almost certainly meant Dickie Caswell. For Bowles to know about O’Connell’s presence at Lavender House, someone there must have told him. The obvious conclusion was that Caswell was the “source” who had provided the information regarding O’Connell—which in turn implied that Caswell was a regular source of information for Mr. Bowles and his shadowy office. That was rather worrying, but there was no time to think of such things just now.

“You said that Mr. O’Connell visited Lavender House upon the Friday,” Grey said, taking a fresh grip on the conversation. “Do you know whom he spoke with there?”

“No.” Bowles’s lips thinned to nothing. “He went to the back door of the establishment, and when asked his errand, replied that he was looking for a gentleman named Meyer, or something of the sort. The servant who saw him told him to wait and went away to inquire; when he returned, O’Connell had gone.”