“I would not have believed it.” John held out his hands to the kitchen fire, rubbing them as if he’d never get his fingers warm again. Most of the household was abed. For an hour Abigail had waited up by the kitchen fire, listening to the monotonous tolling of the church bells that penetrated even the thick walls of the brick house. “Shall I write Pamela’s author a letter of apology?” He raised an eyebrow, which Abigail answered with a wry half smile as she brought up the bowl of bean soup that had been waiting for him on the hob.

“According to Shim—by way of poor little Hap—the south attic, whose window looks onto the alley, was unoccupied and used for storage until Thursday the twenty-fifth. The house was in an uproar that day, of course, with Coldstone and his henchmen questioning Mrs. Tillet, who returned with the luggage at about ten. Hap says, he thinks Mr. Tillet came in later, but he isn’t sure because everything was at sixes and sevens, but at about eleven Mr. Tillet suddenly came downstairs and asked what the commotion was.”

“Came downstairs?”

“As you say,” murmured Abigail. “Hap had just come into the front hall and saw his master come down the stairs and walk straight into the parlor, still in his travel clothes, cloak, and hat. He said, ‘See here, what’s going on?’ and said that he’d just then returned.”

“Whereas in fact he’d returned and gone upstairs—for how long, we don’t know.”

“The following day—the day that you and I spent most of kicking our heels outside Colonel Leslie’s door at Castle William—Hap was in the south wing of the house, where Mr. Tillet has his study, and heard what he thought were footfalls in the attic above. He’d just left both Tillet and Queenie downstairs, and of course being only a little boy—he’s nine, and young for his age I think—he immediately thought it was a ghost. He tiptoed up the attic stairs and found the door locked, which it wasn’t usually up until that time. But from that day the entire attic floor has been kept locked, with only Queenie keeping the key.”

“At least your blameless imbecile Pamela was permitted to go about Mr. B’s house.” Despite his jocular tone, in the firelight John’s eyes were grave. He set the empty soup bowl on the hearth beside him, stared for a time into the low-burning flame. “Madness of a different sort,” he murmured after a time. “And one more difficult to prove, than the kind that carves people up with knives.”