Chapter 13: Fennwick's Terrible Deduction Proves Entirely Correct

Fennwick had chosen the back parlour of the Gay Street lodgings for the presentation, which told Petra something before he had opened his mouth. The front room looked onto the street. The back parlour looked onto a narrow garden wall and offered, in addition to its privacy, the advantage of having only one door.

He had laid everything out on the central table before they arrived: three genealogical charts, two of them annotated in his characteristic system of color and symbol, the third simply covered in the small, urgent handwriting he employed when he was thinking faster than he could organize; six sheets of cross-referenced vault access records that Miss Chase had obtained by means she had not explained and Fennwick had apparently decided not to ask about; and one sheet placed slightly apart from the rest, face down, in the manner of a document whose author has not yet fully committed to showing it.

Miss Chase arrived first, which was not surprising. Lord Stormcroft arrived thirty seconds later, which was. Petra came last, having spent rather longer than usual at her window watching the street below and finding she could not have said what she was watching for.