Chapter 9
The sealing wax cracked before it cooled.
Margaret looked at the broken edge, set the first packet aside, and reached for the stick again.
Rain moved against the office windows in fine diagonal lines, too light to drum and too steady to be ignored.
The room smelled of wet wool, old ledgers, and the red wax Samuel Dyer had been melting over the candle for the better part of an hour.
“The impression failed because the paper beneath it shifted,” Dyer said. “Not because the evidence has acquired an objection to custody.”
“The evidence has spent thirty years objecting to custody.”
“It was well kept.”
“It was kept above a counting house beneath three generations of obsolete correspondence and a portrait of the founder’s second wife.”
Dyer adjusted the stack before him. “Mrs. Penrose was considered a woman of exact habits.”
“She was hung crookedly.”
“That may have occurred after death.”
Margaret held the wax over the flame until the lower edge softened. The rain dimmed the last daylight, leaving the office lamps to shine upon three identical inventories, three linen wrappers, and the certified copies brought back from the bank that afternoon.
The old originals remained where they belonged.
The banking partnership’s daybook had not left the record room.
Neither had the later cash ledger, the paid order bearing Edmund Vale’s name, or the parish copyist’s endorsed receipt.
The present senior partner and the retired clerk who had remembered the blue portfolio had supervised the copying.
Each sheet carried the bank’s certification, the date of inspection, and the signatures of the two men who had compared it with the original.
Dyer had added his own memorandum recording everyone present.
Margaret had read every line before allowing the first fold.
The older entry recorded the cost of sending the blue leather portfolio from London with papers relating to Henry’s parents’ licence and marriage. The disputed chaise, messenger’s fee, and return journey appeared separately, just as Lady Georgiana and Henry had remembered.
That record strengthened the lawful history of the marriage. It did not settle the claim by itself.
The later entries were uglier.
They showed Edmund Vale, formerly employed by Croft, drawing money shortly before Christopher’s solicitor produced the disputed parish copy.
A corresponding payment had gone to the parish copyist whose hand appeared upon the certified extract.
The sum was greater than an ordinary copying fee and had been recorded under an account with no apparent connection to parish business.
It established contact, money, and time.
It did not establish that the original register had been altered, that Christopher knew of any alteration, or that Croft had directed Vale to purchase anything more unlawful than a convenient copy.
Dyer had repeated those limitations until Margaret could have recited them while asleep.
She lowered the wax onto the first packet. Dyer pressed his seal into it, waited, and lifted the matrix cleanly.
“This set goes to Mr. Harcourt’s independent counsel?” Margaret asked.
“To Mr. Latham, who has no connection to the Rothbury estate, the trust, Christopher Blackwood, or my chambers.” Dyer checked the inventory number against his memorandum. “My clerk will carry it directly to his residence and obtain a signed receipt tonight.”
“Not to his chambers in the morning.”
“No. There has been enough time for interested gentlemen to discover where papers sleep.”
Margaret placed the sealed packet in the leather dispatch case waiting beside Dyer’s chair. His clerk stood outside the office with Sarah and had been instructed to take neither refreshment nor conversation before departure.
The second set would remain with Dyer.
The third lay before Margaret.
She folded the linen wrapper over it and drew the string tight. Her fingers were steady. They had remained steady while the retired banker identified the old entries, while the current partner compared signatures, and while the paid order bearing Vale’s name passed beneath three pairs of eyes.
They had not been steady during the carriage journey home, when Henry’s ungloved left hand rested upon the seat between them without touching hers.
He had asked once whether she was tired.
She had answered with the number of documents still requiring inventory.
Margaret sealed the final knot.
Dyer watched her press her own small matrix beside his.
The impression showed the plain interlocking letters she had used before marriage.
Her settlement permitted their continued use for personal and trust business, a provision Dyer had drafted after Margaret refused to accept a seal that made her legal identity look like an ornamental branch of Henry’s.
“The House copy will remain in the deed chest,” she said.
“Yes. Your key and mine are required for the inner compartment.”
“And if Croft demands inspection?”
“He may request it through the trust’s solicitor. He may not enter the office and improve his understanding by force.”
“Christopher?”
“The same answer, with fewer courtesies.”
Margaret waited while Dyer entered the three seal impressions in his custody list. He sanded the ink, tipped the excess back into its box, and signed beneath her name.
“No single sheet proves the register false,” she said.
“No.”
“No entry proves Croft ordered Vale to pay the copyist.”
“No.”
“The old marriage expense proves only that papers travelled from London and that the bank charged Henry’s grandfather.”
“It also corroborates two independent memories and identifies where further correspondence may have passed,” Dyer said. “But no, Your Grace, it does not by itself conclude the claim.”
Margaret had never disliked him for accuracy. She disliked only the necessity of continuing after accuracy had been achieved.
“We have enough to prevent Christopher presenting the copied entry as an innocent discovery,” she said.
“We have enough to ask questions he cannot answer comfortably. We have enough to seek lawful inspection of the original parish register. We have enough to make destruction or concealment more dangerous.”
“But not impossible.”
“Nothing useful becomes impossible merely because a solicitor has tied string around it.”
Dyer closed the inventory book. “The purpose of custody is not to make wickedness impossible. It is to ensure wickedness must leave another mark.”
Margaret looked at the three packets, one already in the case, one beside Dyer’s hand, and one waiting for the iron chest. That was more protection than the soot-blackened ledger scrap had possessed. It was also less certainty than she wanted.
Wanting certainty was a habit with no supplier.
She rose, carried the House packet to the deed chest, and knelt before the lower cabinet. The outer lock yielded to her key. The inner compartment required Dyer’s. He turned it, withdrew, and allowed her to place the packet inside.
She shut both doors, tested them, and entered the location in the office register.
Only then did Dyer permit his clerk to depart.
The young man accepted the dispatch case, repeated Mr. Latham’s address, and left beneath Sarah’s supervision. They heard the front door open, the exchange with the night porter, and the quick departure of boots across wet stone.
Dyer collected his hat and gloves. “I shall take my set to the strong room in my chambers. No detours.”
“You have not dined.”
“I have a wife who considers punctual hunger a moral failure. She has instructed my cook to retain a plate when documentary emergencies interfere with marriage.”
“That appears efficient.”
“It is chiefly loud.” Dyer put on one glove, then paused. “The bank evidence improves our position. It does not make tomorrow safe.”
“I had not planned to become careless before breakfast.”
“No. Carelessness would require an alteration of character more dramatic than any court is likely to grant.”
He bowed and left.
Sarah remained in the office doorway after the front door had closed behind him. Her silver-brown hair had escaped one pin near her temple, and the keys at her waist were arranged in the severe order that meant she had spent the past hour rearranging other people.
“Mr. Dyer’s clerk is away,” she said. “Joseph has seen the night porter lock the front door. The west stair is quiet.”
Margaret checked the office clock. “What of the late linen round?”
“Moved to the east passage. Mrs. Bell can collect the chamber sheets from the press room in the morning without suffering permanent injury.”
“And residents who need you?”
“Thomas knows where I shall be. Mr. Langley is expected at six. Until then, the bell beside the west stair reaches my room.”
Margaret smoothed the inventory page though it was already flat. “I require privacy in my bedchamber.”
Sarah’s expression did not change. “Yes.”
“His Grace may remain there.”
“Yes.”
“No servant is to be dismissed from necessary work merely to guard a corridor.”
“I have not enlisted a regiment. I have moved two baskets, changed one lamp route, and informed the night porter that the upper west passage is closed for repairs.”
“There are no repairs.”
“There will be if anyone ignores the instruction.”
Margaret looked at her.
Sarah’s mouth altered by less than a smile. “The chamber fire has been banked. Hot water is in the covered ewer, and clean linen has been aired with lavender. No one will enter unless you ring twice. One ring will bring me only as far as the outer door.”
“You have arranged a code.”
“I have managed sickrooms, officers, and married people. They all believe privacy was invented for their particular emergency.”
Heat touched Margaret’s face, which was unreasonable after the legal language she had endured without visible reaction. “This is not an emergency.”
“That is why I had time to warm the linen.”