“They are both gone, certainly. He, some days ago, she, sometime in the night—no one saw. Or so these servants say.” Here he turned to bend a hard eye on the butler, who flinched.

“Ask them about the doctor, if you please,” Grey said, glancing from face to face.

“Doctor? You are unwell again?” Von Namtzen snapped his fingers and pointed at a stout woman in an apron, who must be the cook. “You—more eggs!”

“No, no! I am quite well, I thank you. The chambermaids said that Mrs. Mayrhofer was ill this week, and that a doctor had come. I wish to know if any of them saw him.”

“Ah?” Von Namtzen looked interested at this, and at once began peppering the ranks before him with questions. Grey leaned inconspicuously on a bookshelf, affecting an air of keen attention, while the next bout of dizziness spent itself.

The butler and the lady’s maid had seen the doctor, von Namtzen reported, turning to interpret his results to Grey. He had come several times to attend Frau Mayrhofer.

Grey swallowed. Perhaps he should have drunk the last batch of egg whites; they could not taste half so foul as the copper tang in his mouth.

“Did the doctor give his name?” he asked.

No, he had not. He did not dress quite like a doctor, the butler offered, but had seemed confident in his manner.

“Did not dress like a doctor? What does he mean by that?” Grey asked, straightening up.

More interrogation, answered by helpless shrugs from the butler. He did not wear a black suit, was the essential answer, but rather a rough blue coat and homespun breeches. The butler knit his brow, trying to recall further details.

“He did not smell of blood!” von Namtzen reported. “He smelled instead of . . . plants? Can that be correct?”

Grey closed his eyes briefly, and saw bunches of dried herbs hanging from darkened rafters, the fragrant gold dust drifting down from their leaves in answer to footsteps on the floor above.

“Was the doctor Irish?” he asked, opening his eyes.

Now even von Namtzen looked slightly puzzled.

“How would they tell the difference between an Irishman and an Englishman?” he said. “It is the same language.”

Grey drew a deep breath, but rather than attempt to explain the obvious, changed tack and gave a brief description of Finbar Scanlon. This, translated, resulted in immediate nods of recognition from butler and maid.

“This is important?” von Namtzen asked, watching Grey’s face.

“Very.” Grey folded his hands into fists, trying to think. “It is of the greatest importance that we discover where Frau Mayrhofer is. This ‘doctor’ is very likely a spy, in the Mayrhofers’ employ, and I very much suspect that the lady is in possession of something that His Majesty would strongly prefer to have back.”