“Thank you.” Simon tapped on the door.
No answer.
He took a hall chair, as if he intended to wait for the man, but as soon as the housemaid disappeared, he entered the study instead.
The room was large and impressive, complete with a coromandel desk, a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, and more than one framed painting of nude women.
Setting his valise on the edge of the desk, its hazel- and black-striped wood creating a pleasing pattern, Simon brushed through the stack of open letters, reading over the names between wary glances at the door.
Most were women. A few were names Simon had heard mentioned in talk of Parliament. None of them significant—
Mingay.
Below the stack of letters, the name jumped out at Simon from an unfolded sheet of paper. When he lifted it, a banknote slipped out too.“For all your services to me,”the letter read.
Signed Mr. Oswald.
To Captain Mingay.
The name mentioned between Mr. Brownlow the morning he disappeared and the stranger who took him away. Simon’s heart sped. Was this the link he had been looking for? The evidence that tied—
“If you are going to rummage through the contents of my study, you might as well sit down and do it.” Mr. Oswald strode into the room, unruffled, it seemed, by the intrusion into his privacy. He motioned to the cellarette. “A drink?”
“No.”
“You do not mind if I have one, I am certain.” Mr. Oswald poured from a decanter of port, but when he turned back around with the glass to his lips, a distinct grin played in his eyes. “Find anything of interest, Mr. Fancourt?”
Simon handed over the letter and banknote. “You tell me.”
“I rarely tell anyone anything.” Mr. Oswald folded the letter and tossed it back to the desk, as if it was of little importance. “Especially upon demand.”
“It was you that night.”
“What night?”
“At Patrick Brownlow’s town house.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Liar.”
Mr. Oswald shrugged, took another sip of his port. “Now that is something I can readily admit to. I am not only a liar; I am a habitual one.”
“I was here the day of the picnic. You had words with Brownlow in the corridor.” Simon stepped around the desk. “He was blackmailing you.”
“For?”
“Releasing his brother, along with eighteen others, from prison.”
“A fantastical story.”
“A true one.”
“And that letter there”—Mr. Oswald smirked and motioned to the folded sheet—“proves my involvement in such a scheme.”
“When you were tired of paying Brownlow’s fee for silence, you had him kidnapped and shipped out of country by Mingay. I have a witness.”
“Amusing.”
