It was perfidious. Chicanery. What did a female carry in such things? He did not know. Had bought one once, an expensive one, for Verity without the faintest notion as to what she might keep in there. A handkerchief, he had assumed. And his wife—twenty years his wife!—had never once offered to show him the contents of her reticule until that evening eight days ago when she had pulled out a crumpled envelope and waved it in his face, crying triumphantly, I have the letter you wrote to her, arranging your tawdry little liaison. Where was that letter now? Was its existence a figment of her imagination, as the crazed story of the baby was, or had someone really sent it to her?

Who?

He flung himself out of the room and up the staircase and into his wife’s room. He went directly to the writing desk and pulled at the drawer, exclaiming aloud when he found it locked. It seemed further evidence of her perfidiousness. Her chicanery. He scrabbled about among her things for the key but did not find it. He exclaimed again, stood in the centre of the room, curious bolts of energy shooting the length of his arms and back up again so that he could not stand motionless a moment longer. He grabbed the handle of the drawer, took up the paperknife that lay, as though awaiting him, on the desk, and attacked the lock, pulling and twisting until finally it gave with a dull snap. The drawer shot out of its slot with such force he almost fell backwards.

Inside was a journal.

Did Eleanor keep a journal? He’d had no idea. Well, he was certainly not going to waste his time browsing her various thoughts and observations on himself. He thrust it aside and here, nestling underneath, was a letter. Just the one. It occurred to him, only at that moment, that he would find letters from Drummond-Smith.

He pulled back his hand as though he had found a funnel web lurking there, overcome by an aversion to finding any such letters.

Extraordinary, how this felled him—utterly—for a time.

He shook off the feeling and took up the letter. There were no others, just this one in a plain envelope, cream in colour and of good quality and addressed in blue ink in a workmanlike hand to his wife here at their home.

Whose hand? He did not know. A man’s or a woman’s? He could not even guess. The single sheet of notepaper contained within was the missing note he had scrawled to Verity three weeks ago arranging his visit.

He let out a shout of laughter. He shook his head, held the note at arm’s length, turned it over as though it might divulge its secrets, provide some clue.