Chapter Eight The Duplicate Ledger #2
Documents were moved from Lady Theodosia’s study to three different hidden places: one behind a loose panel in the accounts room, one inside an old tea chest in Mrs Finch’s locked pantry, one beneath false books on the top shelf of the blue parlour.
Duplicate copies were made and separated.
Servants were assigned new routes. The side door signal was altered from two knocks and a pause to one, three, one.
The rear passage key was removed from its accustomed hook and placed on Mrs Finch’s person, where Marianne privately suspected even an army would fail to retrieve it.
Tom spoke to the Halgrave guards and then returned dissatisfied but better informed.
Bess admitted she had told the kitchen maid at the posting inn where Miss Vale’s room lay, but only after being asked for linens; this produced anxiety until it was remembered that Bess had not travelled with them.
Mrs Alderley confessed that she had declared, in the inn passage, that any villain looking for papers would do well to examine Mrs Alderley’s shawls because “they contain more secrets than most marriages,” which caused a general silence until she added that she had made the remark after the papers had been moved.
“That may be why they set the fire below the first place,” Marianne said. “They had older information.”
“Or they lack appreciation for shawls,” Mrs Alderley said.
“Both may be true,” Clara replied.
Through all this, Sebastian remained at Lantern House, not as commander but participant.
He sent notes to Halgrave House for records.
He dispatched a discreet man to learn whether Mrs Pike could be moved safely from the Blue Hart if she chose.
He wrote to an acquaintance connected with Bow Street, but after a long argument with Marianne, phrased the inquiry as a request concerning suspicious fires near coaching inns, not Mrs Pike, Lantern House, Evangeline, or the statement.
He objected to omissions. Marianne objected to naming vulnerable women to institutions that might contain men already in Blackwood’s pocket.
This led, by early afternoon, to a debate in Lady Theodosia’s study that neither of them won because both were partly right.
“You cannot investigate every crime outside the law,” Sebastian said.
“No,” Marianne replied. “Nor can you assume the law has remained untouched by those wealthy enough to purchase signatures.”
“If a magistrate is honest, delay insults him.”
“If he is not, confidence warns him.”
“Then how do you decide?”
“You do not begin by handing him the names of frightened witnesses.”
He paced once from hearth to window. “And if Blackwood moves faster because we refuse the formal routes?”
“They are already moving.”
“All the more reason to use lawful authority.”
“Authority is not magic merely because men write it on paper.”
His eyes flashed. “Nor is caution virtue merely because women have been forced to practise it.”
The words silenced them both.
It was the closest he had come to speaking truly against her assumptions rather than from within his own.
Marianne stood with one hand on Mrs Pike’s statement. “No. It is not.”
He turned from the window, surprised perhaps that she had not returned the blow harder.
She continued, “Caution can become fear dressed as wisdom. I know that. Lantern House knows that. But what you call lawful authority has been used against women like Mrs Pike, Miss Harlowe, Lady Evangeline, and half the women under this roof. So if I hesitate to carry their names into rooms full of men who may know the price of silence better than the value of truth, it is not because I mistake caution for virtue. It is because I am tired of seeing women delivered into the hands of people who ask for proof of injury while holding the weapon.”
Sebastian’s expression changed.
For a long moment, the only sound was the rainwater still dripping from eaves outside.
Then he said, “I do not want to be another man asking you to trust a system that has already failed.”
The sentence, because it was said without ornament, entered the room more gently than argument had.
Marianne looked at him. “And I do not want to become so distrustful that every door looks like a trap.”
“Then we compromise.”
“How?”
“I use my name to open what must be opened. You decide what names remain unwritten until necessary.”
Marianne considered him. “That is not a small concession for you.”
“No.”
“Why make it?”
His gaze held hers. “Because you are not wrong.”
The answer warmed and troubled her in equal measure.
Helena entered then, saving Marianne from the need to reply. “If you have finished discovering mutual reason, I have found something.”
She carried an old receipt between two fingers, its paper softened with age. Behind her came Clara with a directory and Beatrice with an expression of triumph badly disguised as helpfulness.
“Lady Theodosia’s storage receipts?” Marianne asked.
“One of them.” Helena placed it on the desk. “You remember the note in my aunt’s papers: lamp oil and locked storage, Blackfriars?”
“Yes.”
“I thought it another disguised payment. Clara searched the directory. Beatrice searched the old household expense box because she was specifically told not to search people and therefore turned her energy upon paper.”
“It was very satisfying,” Beatrice said.
Helena gave her a look, then pointed to the receipt. “Three years before her death, my aunt paid for a locked storage room in Blackfriars under the heading of lamp oil. The receipt is from a warehouse near Lincoln’s Inn, not far from Mordaunt’s old chambers. The name on the receipt is not hers.”
Marianne leaned closer.
The receipt read:
Paid in full for storage of two legal boxes and one travelling trunk.Mrs L. Grey.Room Twelve.Blackfriars Depository, Crane Court.
Sebastian said, “Mrs L. Grey?”
Helena’s mouth tightened. “My aunt used Grey when she wanted to go unrecognised.”
“Why lamp oil?” Beatrice asked.
Marianne answered without looking up. “Because lamps reveal what darkness hides. Lady Theodosia enjoyed jokes no one else understood.”
Sebastian’s gaze moved briefly to her, then back to the receipt. “You believe she tracked Mordaunt’s storage.”
“I believe she found something she did not yet know how to retrieve safely,” Helena said. “Or retrieved part and left part hidden.”
“Room Twelve,” Marianne murmured. “Two legal boxes and one travelling trunk.”
Sebastian was already reaching for his hat.
Marianne looked at him. “You cannot simply storm a depository.”
“I can enter one.”
“And demand boxes under a false name? That will attract attention.”
“Then what do you propose? We wait another day while Cale or Ashmont empties it?”
“No. We go carefully.”
“Carefully has become your word for walking slowly toward danger.”
“Whereas your method is to arrive before danger has finished dressing and introduce yourself.”
“Occasionally effective.”
“Frequently loud.”
Helena raised one hand. “Enough. You will both go.”
Mrs Finch, who had appeared in the doorway as if summoned by the scent of impending bad judgement, said, “No.”
Helena looked at her. “Mrs Finch.”
“The last time they both went somewhere, there was a carriage incident. The time after that, a horse reared and a room caught fire. I am a reasonable woman, Miss Helena, but pattern is pattern.”
Sebastian looked as though he might agree with her, which alarmed Marianne.
Helena said, “They will not go alone. Tom will accompany them. His Grace’s groom will remain outside. They will go to a public depository in daylight.”
“It is already half past two,” Mrs Finch said.
“Then we had better not delay.”
Mrs Finch’s expression suggested that if Lady Theodosia were not already dead, she would have killed her for founding a house where such reasoning could flourish.
The debate over legality lasted the whole journey to Crane Court.
Sebastian wanted a magistrate’s authority, if not a warrant, then at least a clerk empowered to demand access to Mordaunt’s stored papers.
Marianne argued that a request through official channels would require names, and names would travel faster than carriages.
Sebastian said unlawful seizure would compromise the evidence if ever brought to court.
Marianne replied that evidence destroyed before reaching court possessed no purity worth preserving.
Sebastian countered that if they opened boxes under another person’s name, any adversary could accuse Lantern House of theft.
Marianne said any adversary already had.
Tom, riding outside, was spared the details. The coachman was not.
By the time they reached Blackfriars, they had arrived at an uneasy plan.
Sebastian would present himself truthfully as the Duke of Halgrave seeking information concerning property believed connected to his family papers.
Marianne would produce Lady Theodosia’s receipt and the written authority Helena had hastily composed as Lady Theodosia’s heir, permitting examination of items stored under an alias used by her aunt.
They would not remove documents unless they could establish ownership, but they would copy what could be copied and inspect what might otherwise vanish.
Sebastian disliked the ambiguity. Marianne disliked the risk.
Both recognised it was the only compromise likely to survive contact with a locked door.
The Blackfriars Depository stood down a narrow court paved in uneven stone, its brick walls dark with damp and soot.
It was not a place designed for beauty. Iron grilles guarded the lower windows.
A sign hung above the entrance, weathered but legible: Secure Storage for Legal Papers, Household Effects, Commercial Records and Valuables.
The door was thick oak strapped with iron.
Inside, the air smelled of dust, damp rope, old leather and secrets left too long in the cold.