By the time the cab found its way to Great Maurice Street she’d cooled off a little, taking time to collect her thoughts and begin to work out what she needed to do and say. She also made sure her right glove was pulled down around her wrist, and the sleeve of her blouse was bunched up toward the elbow. Not that it was the ideal way to make an exit—indeed, it would wreck her plans completely if she had to escape by means of the temporary tattoo of a certain intricate knot—but if Erasmus had decided to sell her out to the constabulary, he’d be sorry.

Great Maurice Street was a curving cobblestoned boulevard hemmed in on either side by expensive stone town houses. Little stone bridges leapt from sidewalk to broad front doors across a trench which held two levels of subterranean windows. The street and sidewalks had been swept free of snow, although huge piles stood at regular intervals in the road to await collection. Miriam stepped down from the cab, paid the driver, and marched along the sidewalk until she identified number 54. “Charteris, Bates and Charteris,” she muttered to herself. “Sounds legal.” She advanced on the door and pulled the bell-rope.

A short, irritated-looking clerk opened the door. “Who are you?” he demanded.

Miriam stared down her nose at him. “I’m here to see Mr. Bates,” she said.

“Who did you say you were?” He raised a hand to cup his ear and Miriam realized he was half-deaf.

“Mrs. Fletcher, to see Mr. Bates,” she replied loudly.

“Oh. Come in, then, I’ll tell someone you’re here.”

Lawyers’ offices didn’t differ much between here and her own world, Miriam realized. There was a big, black, ancient-looking electric typewriter with a keyboard like a church organ that had shrunk in the wash, and there was an archaic telephone with a separate speaking horn, but otherwise the only differences were the clothes. Which, for a legal secretary in this place and time—male, thin, harried-looking—included a powdered wig, knee breeches, and a cutaway coat. “Please be seated—ah, no,” said the secretary, looking bemused as a tall fellow dressed entirely in black opened the door of an inner office and waggled a finger at Miriam: “This is His Honor Mr. Bates,” he explained. “You are…?”

“I’m Mrs. Fletcher,” Miriam repeated patiently. “I’m supposed to be seeing Mr. Bates. Is that right?”

“Ah, yes.” Bates nodded congenially at her. “If you’d like to come this way, please?”

The differences from her own world became vanishingly small inside his office, perhaps because so many lawyers back home aimed for a traditional feel to their furnishings. Miriam glanced round. “Burgeson isn’t here yet,” she observed disapprovingly.

“He’s been detained,” said Bates. “If you’d care to take a seat?”

“Yes.” Miriam sat down. “How much has Erasmus told you?”