“Mrs. Poole was up at Top Withens that summer, and we know she is a cruel woman,” Charlotte said. “Could it have been her, taking out her anger on a boy? And without the shelter of the orphanage to hide her sin somehow, she concealed his remains in the chimney?”

“Cruel, yes, and duplicitous,” Emily said, “but this madness, the rituals—it feels beyond her banal acts of barbarity. And besides, if Mrs. Poole had carved those runes, it would be as a deception, but Lizzy Goode says that whoever made them meant them, had studied them, even though they were blended with other elements. Do we think Mrs. Poole has the imagination for that?”

“I do not,” Anne said. “It seemed to me that Mrs. Poole feels perfectly secure in her situation, and not likely to resort to the acts of a madwoman.”

“Mr. Barraclough, then,” Charlotte suggested. “A member of the order of Freemasons, which is closed and secretive, full of ritual and theatre: there are elements of both those in this mystery. And he was at Ponden just before Emily found the book that seemed to be left out for us. He installed a rare longcase clock at Top Withens in that same year that Mrs. Bradshaw died. Agnes, who came down from Top Withens to his employ, seems wary of him.”

Their brother entered the room, a little unsteady and smelling like a brewery, but otherwise in possession of his faculties.

“Branwell, was Eamon well, when you left him?” Charlotte asked.

“Bruised, and he will be stiff tomorrow, but well enough,” Branwell told her. At least it seemed that he was a good deal more sober now.

“What do you think, Branwell? Of Barraclough—you know him better than we do. Could his interest in ritual have turned into something more sinister?’’

“It’s been some time since I was at the lodge,” Branwell said, “but Zerubabbel always seemed to me to be honest and plainspoken, if a little terse. Is it possible he could hide such derangement? Well, he is a very private man—I suppose it is possible.”

“I am almost certain that it was he who left the books for us,” Emily said. “But as friend or as foe? I cannot be sure.”

“Then let us return to the most likely suspect. We know it was Clifton Bradshaw himself who paid for the use of the Crossed Keys boys—a deal done with Mrs. Poole,” Charlotte said. “We know that the only certain link between these crimes is the medallion: an identical one connected with each certain crime, each with a year engraved upon it. The only person we can link both to John Rafferty and to Tom is Mrs. Poole, so . . .”