Well, that explained where O’Connell had been keeping his booty, if not where it was now. Grey took a bite of cold toast and reached for the second note, sporting Harry Quarry’s bold black scrawl. This one was still more brief.

Meet me at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, tomorrow at six o’clock, it read, the signature rendered merely as a large, slapdash “Q . . .” P.S. wear old uniform.

He was still frowning at this terse communication when Tom Byrd’s round head poked into the room, looking apologetic.

“Me lord? Sorry, sir, but you did say as how if a big Scotchman was to come—”

Grey was already on his feet, leaving Olivia open-mouthed behind him.

Rab the chairman was tall and solid, with a stupid, sullen face that barely brightened into dourness at Grey’s greeting.

“Agnes said ye’d pay for a word,” he muttered, not quite able to keep from staring at the bronze orrery that stood upon the table by the library window, its graceful arms and swooping orbs catching the morning sun.

“I will,” Grey said promptly, wanting to dispose of the man before his mother should come downstairs and start asking questions. “What is the word?”

Rab’s bloodshot eyes met his, displaying a bit more intelligence than did the rest of his countenance.

“Ye dinna want to know the price first?”

“Very well. How much do you want?” He could hear the Countess’s voice upstairs, raised in song.

The man’s thick tongue poked out, touching his upper lip in contemplation.

“Two pound?” he said, trying to sound indifferently truculent, but unable to conceal the tentative note in his voice. Obviously, two pounds was a nearly unthinkable fortune; he had no faith that it might actually be forthcoming, but was willing to hazard the chance.

“How much of that does Agnes get?” Grey asked pointedly. “I shall see her again, mind, and I’ll ask to make certain that she’s had her share.”

“Oh. Ah . . .” Rab struggled with the problem of division for a moment, then he shrugged. “Half, then.”

Grey was surprised at this generosity—and surprised further that Rab was able to discern his response.

“I mean to marry her,” the chairman said gruffly, fixing him with a stare and narrowing one eye as though daring him to make something of this statement. “When she’s bought free of her contract, aye?”

Grey bit his tongue to forestall an incautious response to this startling revelation, merely nodding as he dug into his pocketbook. He laid the silver on the desk, but kept his hand over it.

“What are you to tell me, then?”

“A house called ‘Lavender,’ in Barbican Street. Near to Lincoln’s Inn. Big place—not so much to look at from outside, but verra rich within.”

Grey felt a sudden cold weight in the pit of his stomach, as though he had swallowed lead shot.

“You have been inside?”