CHAPTER THIRTEEN THE PRICE OF HER NAME #3
Hargreaves inclined his head. She took the transcription.
The passage described women entrusted with ritual funds during a seasonal festival.
Several lines had been damaged, but the metre preserved the number of missing syllables.
A later masculine copyist altered one ending, though the surrounding verbs remained feminine.
Eleanor translated each line aloud. She explained the dialect.
The metre. The manuscript variation. She reconstructed the missing word and offered two possible readings before showing why one better fit the ritual context. The hall became completely silent.
No one whispered. No editor’s pencil moved. For the first time, Eleanor spoke before scholars who could not pretend she was merely assisting someone else. When she finished, Thomas Hales stood from the third row.
“Her reading is correct.”
Professor Latham shifted beside him.
Hales continued, “Miss Finch made the same observation regarding the Larissa inventories last evening while disguised as Mr. Fenwick. Professor Latham praised it.”
Every gaze moved to Latham. The professor flushed. After a long hesitation, he rose.
“I did.”
The words came reluctantly but publicly.
“Did Miss Finch’s interpretation depend upon Dr. Finch’s notes?” Hales asked.
“No.”
“Did she demonstrate independent knowledge?”
“Yes.”
The room changed. It did not become friendly. Institutions did not surrender prejudice in a single moment. But doubt moved from Eleanor to her father. That was enough. Beatrice and Sophia brought the first evidence box to the stage. Eleanor opened it.
“This is my original translation of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, written six years before the published edition bearing Dr. Finch’s name.”
She held up the first page.
“My handwriting has been examined by three independent witnesses. The ink dates to the year recorded. The paper was purchased by Dr. Finch’s household before the published translation was prepared.”
Quinn stood.
“I received the corrected proofs from Miss Finch.”
Dr. Finch gripped the lectern.
“An employee’s statement proves nothing.”
“I wasn’t your employee,” Quinn said. “You never paid the account.”
A ripple of laughter passed through the room. Eleanor opened the published volume beside her manuscript.
“Here is my correction of the disputed verb. Here is the same correction in the printed edition.”
She turned the next page.
“Here is my note identifying the feminine construction. My father removed the explanation but retained the conclusion.”
Another.
“Here is the Thessalian commentary submitted beneath his name. My first draft predates it by two years.”
Clara distributed printed comparisons through the front rows.
Scholars leaned together over them. The evidence multiplied.
Letters from printers. Dated notes. Pages upon which Dr. Finch’s handwriting inserted coded phrases Eleanor’s original drafts did not contain.
Payment receipts corresponding to each publication.
Her father attempted to interrupt. Eleanor did not yield the room.
“These records show payments made through Mercury Club intermediaries to Dr. Finch and Harcourt’s publishing office.
The first followed threats to expose the true authorship.
Later correspondence shows Dr. Finch negotiating for greater compensation and a European appointment in exchange for my unpublished work. ”
Dr. Finch left the lectern.
“You do not understand those letters.”
“Then explain the salary corrections.”
His face became dark with anger.
“I preserved your work.”
“You sold it.”
“I made it influential.”
“You made it yours.”
“You benefited from my reputation.”
Eleanor looked at him across the evidence.
“No,” she said. “Your reputation benefited from me.”
The sentence travelled through the hall.
An editor in the second row began writing again.
Then another. Dr. Finch saw. Panic entered his face.
At the side of the stage, Lord Peregrine moved.
Gabriel noticed first. Peregrine had remained near the scholars’ entrance, wearing the expression of a respectable patron unfortunately witnessing a family dispute.
As attention fixed upon Eleanor and her father, he slipped behind the curtain toward the manuscript table. Gabriel followed.
Eleanor saw them disappear but continued speaking.
That was the plan. She trusted him to handle the danger without requiring her silence.
Peregrine reached the leather case containing the original Thessalian draft.
Gabriel caught the lid before it closed.
The two men faced one another behind the curtain, partly visible to the nearest audience members.
“Release it,” Peregrine said.
Gabriel smiled. Not the practised smile of a rake. Something colder.
“This manuscript is evidence in a government investigation.”
The words carried beyond the curtain. Several politicians turned.
Peregrine’s expression sharpened. “You possess no authority.”
Gabriel drew a folded warrant from inside his coat.
“Under Sir Malcolm Hargreaves’s order, I possess authority to detain any person attempting to remove material connected to Mercury payments, the Vesper correspondence or the Blackthorn archive.”
The room stilled. No ordinary rake would have known those names. No frivolous earl would have spoken the government cipher phrase printed along the warrant’s edge. Gabriel continued publicly, each word cutting another thread from the identity that had protected his work for years.
“Lord Peregrine Vale, intermediary designation Apollo. You transferred payments through Whitmore Press, Harcourt Publishing and the Vienna appointment fund. Your Paris debts were purchased by a Mercury account eleven months ago. You conveyed instructions to Dr. Finch using altered passages from the Hymn to Hermes.”
Peregrine looked toward the audience. Recognition spread. Not of his guilt alone. Of Gabriel. Whispers began.
“Intelligence.”
“Hargreaves.”
“Government agent.”
“Ashcombe?”
Gabriel heard them. Eleanor watched his face.
He did not retreat into charm. He had sacrificed the mask he spent a decade constructing because keeping it would allow Peregrine to leave with her work.
Her chest tightened. Peregrine seized the leather case.
Gabriel pulled back. The clasp broke. Papers scattered across the stage.
Peregrine caught the original manuscript by its binding and lunged toward the brazier.
Eleanor moved before anyone shouted. She reached him as he thrust the first pages toward the flame.
Her hand closed around the manuscript. Heat scorched her glove.
Peregrine jerked the papers. The upper page caught fire at one corner.
Eleanor struck the burning edge against the stone hearth, smothering the flame beneath her palm.
Pain flashed through her hand. Gabriel drove his shoulder into Peregrine.
Both men crashed against the manuscript table.
The audience erupted. Chairs overturned.
Editors rushed toward the aisle. Society officers shouted for order while Hargreaves called to the guards positioned outside.
Peregrine struck Gabriel across the jaw.
Gabriel staggered. Then he hit him back.
There was nothing elegant in the fight. No gentlemanly fencing or theatrical exchange.
Peregrine clawed for the manuscript, while Gabriel used his weight to drive him away from Eleanor.
Eleanor gathered the scorched pages against her chest. Dr. Finch reached for the coded Blackthorn letter lying among the exhibits. She saw him.
“Father.”
He froze. For one second, their eyes met. Then he took the letter and ran toward the side exit. Beatrice stepped into his path. She wore pale gold silk and held no visible weapon. Dr. Finch attempted to move around her. Sophia emerged from behind the curtain and closed the door.
“You cannot detain me,” he said.
Beatrice opened her fan.
“No?”
“I am Eleanor’s father.”
“That defence has become less effective.”
“Move.”
Beatrice smiled. Julian appeared behind him. Dr. Finch stopped. Across the stage, Gabriel and Peregrine collided with the brazier stand. Hot coals spilled over the stone floor. Flames caught the lower curtain. Frances seized a vase of flowers and threw the water over it. The curtain smoked.
“So little appreciation,” she said.
Peregrine reached inside his coat. Gabriel caught his wrist. A narrow pistol appeared between them.
Eleanor’s breath stopped. Gabriel twisted.
The weapon fired into the ceiling. Plaster rained over the stage.
Hargreaves’s men entered. Two seized Peregrine.
Another kicked the pistol away. Gabriel remained standing over him, breathing hard, one side of his mouth bloodied and his formal coat torn at the shoulder.
He looked toward Eleanor first. Always Eleanor.
She held up the manuscript. Safe. The tension left part of his body. Peregrine struggled beneath the guards.
“You have exposed yourself for nothing,” he said. “Vesper is beyond your reach.”
Gabriel wiped blood from his mouth.
“Then I shall enjoy the exercise.”
Hargreaves presented the arrest order to the Society officers.
This time, the statutory force had arrived.
Lord Peregrine Vale was removed through the main hall beneath the gaze of every politician, patron and editor present.
Dr. Finch remained near the side exit with Julian behind him and Beatrice before him.
No guard seized him. Not yet. His payments proved collaboration but not every crime Hargreaves intended to charge.
More importantly, his public collapse had become evidence no immediate arrest could improve. He looked at the audience.