“Something of the kind.” Instead of coming back directly from the Battery that morning, Abigail had taken a long detour to the North End again, and had stood for some time on Prince’s Street, studying the bland brick frontage of Pentyre’s handsome house. Of the original dwelling, only the lintel over the door remained unchanged: ANTONINUS SELLARS—1697. The stylish slate roof with its numerous tiny dormers towered above the older gables of its neighbors, but of the half-dozen chimneys, only one—probably that of the kitchen—vented a drift of smoke.

Abigail wondered if Lisette Droux still remained in residence, or whether she had gone on, to feather her nest elsewhere. Now you ask me to speculate on the contents of a man’s heart . . .

A short walk took her thence to Hull Street, and a few inquiries among the neighbors had identified the residence of Mrs. Belle-Isle, likewise closed. Unlike the immense Pentyre house, the modest two-story dwelling—set back, like Rebecca’s and Mrs. Fishwire’s, behind a larger building, but infinitely more snug and stylish—bore the appearance of complete desertion. A young woman crossing the yard from the bigger house to what appeared to be a small hen-coop affirmed that indeed Mrs. Belle-Isle had taken her servant girl with her when she’d left.

“It may be a complete coincidence, that he left his mistress’s house not long before his straying spouse was due to arrive at the home of his enemy’s wife,” Abigail went on as she laid the dinner dishes beside the basin, dipped up a little soft-soap onto her rag. “As it may be mere happenstance, that he arranged with his friends—and fellow tea consignees—the Hutchinson boys, to swear that he was playing cards with them until three thirty in the morning, which is when he returned to his house. If that be the case—and his quite natural grief for a wife he was betraying is genuine—I would not scrape salt into his wounds by accusing him of doing such a deed himself.

“And indeed,” she added thoughtfully, and set out the washed cups on a towel on the opposite side of the basin, “there’s no reason that Richard Pentyre has to have done the killing himself. He’s a wealthy man. He could have hired someone . . . As I suppose you could have found another Son of Liberty to do the murder while you were at Purley’s Tavern—”

“Always supposing I—or Richard Pentyre—didn’t mind paying blackmail for the rest of our lives,” snapped John.