I glanced up, to make sure he’d followed all that, but Gilroy was not looking at the certificate. His gaze was fixed on me, the telltale eyebrow raised.

Hiding my satisfaction, I carried on, “Furthermore, if you look at Walter Browne’s signature, here, it’s an exact match to the way he forms his letters in his copy book. I’ve marked some samples for you.” I slid the open copy book across the writing surface, so that he could make a close comparison if he so chose. “And the same with Mrs. Graeme’s.”

Sitting back, I watched while he leaned forward and inspected the certificate and signatures himself.

I said, “I think you’re wrong. I think it’s genuine.”

He lifted one shoulder. “At best, all you’ve proven is that it was signed by two people who came from a house of known criminals.” Still, he studied the copy books carefully. “I will allow that, if she did forge Walter Browne’s signature, she is indeed very talented. It is, as you say, exact.”

Had I known him better, I’d have sworn aloud, but as it was I kept the swearing silent and said only, “Are you always this pigheaded?”

“When I’m right, aye. I’ve an instinct about Mrs. Graeme. Do you never have instincts about people?”

“Sometimes.” I dragged my gaze from his before my current instinct led me to an action I’d regret.

Gilroy cocked his head. “Did you hear something?”

“It’s probably MacDougall. He does like to listen at the door. He is convinced that I am trying to advance myself at the expense of my friend Turnbull.”

There was a short pause, then, “This is a most impressive cabinet,” Gilroy said. He meant the scrutore. Standing, he reached for the edge of the long strip of molding that ran across the top of the cabinet above the pigeonholes, exposing the same “secret” drawer that I’d pulled out for Helen when she had first shown me this chamber.

“More than meets the eye,” said Gilroy. “Like many people.”

I could not tell if he intended that to provoke or to pacify. I waited.

He asked, “Is the book of law Turnbull’s, or yours?”

My chin lifted a fraction. “Mine.”

He nodded but said nothing for a moment. Then he said, “I will admit my friend the stabler only said the girl was the best forger, but he did not say which girl, and there were two who lived within that house. We never did ask Henry Browne what happened to the bairn who came to live with them.”

Colonel Graeme’s nephew’s daughter. Little Maggie Graeme, who’d been born the summer that the Jacobites had won their bitter victory at Killiecrankie, and whose mother—Barbara’s sister—had been dead before that winter’s end.

Gilroy told me, “Perhaps you could follow up on that, when you return the copy books.”

I looked at him. “When I return them?”

“Aye. I’ll not be here the next few days. My niece is being wed up in Dundee.”