Seventeen
Jonathan’s brow furrowed as he set aside a notebook and stood. “Please, come and sit.” His gaze landed on her uncle’s journal when she didn’t move. “Evangeline?”
She blinked, warmth flooding her cheeks as she looked around his private chambers.
He met her in the middle of the room and showed her to a plush chair, the most comfortable one upholstered in ivory silk. “Would you like tea? Coffee?”
She shook her head and hugged the journal tighter. It was highly inappropriate to be in his personal space, but she didn’t know where else to turn. Someone was hunting Uncle Charles—someone who sent a shiver down her spine.
Jonathan grabbed a ladder-back chair, pulling it close so he could sit near her. “You’re pale and still shaken. Should I send for Dr. Li?”
“N-no, I…” She drew in a deep breath and released it slowly. “I think my uncle is in trouble. I need to find him.”
His eyebrows twitched the slightest bit upward, but he didn’t interrupt.
“We— I wasn’t honest with you when we arrived, and I’m terribly sorry.” She dropped her gaze to the terracotta tiles. The lines between them were so orderly, much like her life had been a few hours ago.
“Fanny Flibberquick is not our aunt,” she said.
He didn’t make a sound. When she glanced up, his expression was unchanged. He appeared concerned, leaning toward her as if to offer comfort should she need it. Her stomach pitched at the thought of revealing the whole truth.
“Fanny was a fictitious character Uncle Charles created. I do not fully understand the circumstances, but he was pretending to be her when he took a room at Mrs. Bellini’s boarding house.”
“I trust he had a compelling reason,” Jonathan said, his gaze still fixed on hers.
Perhaps he was waiting for her to supply that reason, but she wasn’t ready to talk about the man at the market.
She closed her eyes and smelled the man’s rancid breath sweeping across her cheek.
His breadth and height crowding her, making her shake as he leered down at her. Then there was the crush of bodies—
Jonathan called her name.
She jolted upright, back in the sitting room.
“You asked for help,” he said softly. “How may I be of assistance?”
“I want to ask you a question.” She gingerly placed her uncle’s journal on her lap, resting her hands on the cover. The prospect that she could be correct carried a whiff of embarrassment. He regarded her as a colleague, but perhaps he would see her as an outsider now.
“My uncle’s journal entries…” She opened to the first page. “They appear to be written in code, and I— I wondered if there is a secret society of antiquarians to which I’m not privy.”
He leaned back in the chair, the wood creaking with the shift of weight. “If there is, I know nothing about it either. Perhaps only the dullest ones are invited to join, excluding your uncle, of course. I imagine they had a quota to meet. One interesting fellow to seven bores?”
She chuckled, her posture softening. “That would explain why neither of us knows about it.”
“Indeed.” He held out his hand. “May I? I know about codes, enough to determine what type it is. Do you think the journal will tell you where your uncle is?”
“I hope so,” she said as she passed it to him.
He flipped through the pages, nodding to himself. “It appears to be written in le chiffre indéchiffrable.”
“The indecipherable cipher,” she said. “It’s a polyalphabetic substitution method. I remember reading about it in one of Uncle Charles’s books.”
He smiled. “You are brilliant, Evangeline. I should have guessed you were familiar with the method.”
She warmed at his praise, pride swelling beneath her breastbone. “I also know the reason it is considered nearly impossible to decipher. Without the key word, there is no way of knowing what letters to substitute.”
“True,” he said, nodding thoughtfully. “You know your uncle best. Are there any words he might use? Perhaps Flibberquick?”
“Oh! Now look who is brilliant. Should we give it a go?”
“Let’s move to the desk.” He offered her a hand up, and they hurried to the slim desk beneath the window. He retrieved a sheet of paper from a leather box and insisted she sit in the chair while he bent over her shoulder. “Start with a grid of the alphabet.”
Evangeline took care drawing straight lines down the page and crisscrossing lines across the width. Each square was filled with a letter of the alphabet.
“Excellent.” Jonathan placed the journal on the desk. “Now, we must write Flibberquick repeatedly above the first entry in your uncle's journal before consulting the grid.”
Evangeline nodded, carefully copying the first line of cipher from the journal. Beneath it, she wrote out the word Flibberquick over and over until it matched the length of the coded message.
Together, they checked the grid for the corresponding letter. The first “F” was actually an “A”, the second an “M”, and so on. It was a tedious process, but her heart beat faster as they worked in unison.
After several minutes, she frowned at the resulting letters: X K M T P V Q Z H O. "It’s still gibberish.”
"The key must be something else," Jonathan said, straightening and stretching his arms overhead. “What should we try next?”
Evangeline tapped the quill against her lip. “Maybe Egypt? He used to send weekly letters to my mother detailing his adventures. She was always eager for the post delivery, and so was I.”
Egypt produced the same results. As did Wedmore House, the name of the family seat, Aunt Beatrice, her name, and her sisters’ names. She even tried Cupid, her aunt’s naughty miniature poodle.
After an hour, Evangeline had to admit defeat—at least temporarily. She closed Uncle Charles’s journal and sighed. “I wish Sophia was here. She is good with puzzles, and her memory is excellent. She would guess the word in no time.”
He cocked his head. “Did I hear she is participating in the marriage mart?”
“Yes, and watching over our great-aunt. Auntie can be a handful, which worries Regina. I’ve tried to reassure her all is well with Margrave looking after both of them.”
“Lord Margrave? How do you know the viscount?”
“Crispin is an old family friend,” Evangeline said. “Uncle Charles is his godfather. How do you know him?”
A flash of red brushed his cheeks. “We are in the same club. Joined around the same time.”
“It’s not that silly club Lord Seabrook founded, is it? That amateur-sleuths secret society?”
He chuckled. “No, nothing of the sort. It’s uh… We belong to the same gentlemen’s club.”
“Ah, the Corinthian Club.”
“Yes, that is the one.”
“Tell me, Sir Jonathan. What is it men get up to at these clubs? I’ve always wondered.”
He shrugged. “I never get around to it.”
“A member on paper only, I see.” She gathered Uncle Charles’s journal and stood. “I should visit the kitchen to see if the broth is ready and look in on Regina.”
“What about your mother’s name?” Jonathan asked. “We’ve not tried it yet.”
“Her name was Isabelle.”
“Leave the journal, and I will try it. We can reconvene after supper to review the results.”
She hesitated but handed over her uncle’s journal. Jonathan had saved her from the crowds. He could be trusted.