She found Jane in the kitchen. “Is the dining room going to be ready by this evening?” she asked.

“No, ma’am.” Jane shrugged. “It is a mess. They broke two chairs and scratched the dining table!”

“Well, at least nobody was hurt. Piece of luck, sending you away, wasn’t it?” Miriam shook her head. She’d forgotten about the dining room. The windows were boarded up, but the furniture—“I think I’m going to have to hire a butler, Jane.”

“Oh good,” Jane said, startling Miriam.

“Well, indeed.” Miriam left the kitchen and was about to climb the staircase when a bell began to jangle from the hall. It was the household telephone. She stalked over and picked up the earpiece, then leaned close to the condenser and said, “Hello?”

“Fletcher residence?” The switchboard operator’s voice was tinny but audible. “Call from 87492, do you want to accept?”

“Yes,” said Miriam. Who can it be? she wondered.

“Hello?” asked a laid back, slightly jovial man’s voice. “Is Mrs. Fletcher available?”

“Speaking.”

“Oh I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting you so soon. Durant here. Are you well, I hope? I read about your little unpleasantness.”

“I’m quite alright,” Miriam managed through gritted teeth. Suddenly her heart was right up at the base of her throat, threatening to fly away. “The burglars damaged some furniture, then they appear to have fallen out among themselves. It is all most extraordinarily distressing, and a very good thing for me that I was visiting my sister up in New London at the weekend. But I’m bearing up.”

“Oh, good for you. I trust the thief-takers are offering you all possible assistance? If you have any trouble at all I can put in a word with the magistrate-in-chief—”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary, but I’m very grateful,” Miriam said warmly. “But can we talk about something else, please?”

“Certainly, certainly. I was telephoning to say—ah, this is such a spontaneous, erratic medium!—that I’ve been reviewing your proposal carefully. And I’d like to proceed.”

Miriam blinked, then carefully sat down on the stool next to the telephone. Her head was swimming.

“You want to go ahead?” she said.

“Yes, yes. That’s what I said. My chaps have been looking at the brake assembly you sent them and they say it’s quite remarkable. When the other three are available we’ll fit them to a Mark IV carriage for testing, but they say they’re in no doubt that it’s a vast step forward. However did you come up with it, may I ask?”

“Feminine intuition,” Miriam stonewalled. Oh wow, she thought. So close to success… “How do you want to proceed?”

“Well,” said Durant, and paused.

“Royalty basis or outright purchase of rights? Exclusive or nonexclusive?”

He whistled quietly past the condenser. “I believe a royalty basis would do the job,” he said. “I’ll want exclusive rights for the first few years. But I’ll tell you what else. I should like to invest in your business if you’re open to the idea. What do you say to that?”

“I say—” she bit the tip of her tongue carefully, considering: “I think we ought to discuss this later. I will not say yes, definitely, but in principle I am receptive to the idea. How large an investment were you thinking of?”

“Oh, a hundred thousand pounds or so,” Sir Durant said airily. Miriam did the conversion in her head, came up with a figure, double-checked it in disbelief. That’s thirty million dollars in real money!

“I want to retain control of my company,” she said.

“That can be arranged.” He sounded amused. “May I invite you to dine with me at, let’s say, the Brighton’s Hanover Room, a week on Friday? We can exchange letters of interest in the meantime.”

“That would be perfect,” Miriam said with feeling.

They made small talk for a minute, then Durant politely excused himself. Miriam sat on the telephone stool for several minutes in stunned surprise, before she managed to get a grip on herself. “He really said it,” she realized. “He’s really going to buy it!” Back home, in another life, this was the kind of story she’d have covered for The Weatherman. Bright new three-month-old start-up gets multimillion-dollar cash injection, signs rights deal with major corporation. I’m not covering the news anymore, I’m making it. She stood up and slowly climbed the stairs to her bedroom. Two more days to go, she remembered. I wonder how Olga and Brill are doing?

The next morning Miriam telephoned her lawyer. “I’m going to be away for a week from tomorrow,” she warned Bates. “In the meantime, I need someone to handle the payroll and necessary expenditures. Can you recommend a clerk who I can leave things with?”

“Certainly.” Bates muttered something, then added, “I can have my man Williams sit in for you if you want. Will that do?”

“Yes, as long as he’s reliable.” They haggled over a price, then agreed that Williams would show up on that afternoon for her to hand him the reins.

Later in the morning, a post boy knocked on the door. “Parcel for Fletcher?” he piped to Jane, who accepted it and carried it to Miriam, then waited for her to open the thing.

“Curiosity,” Miriam said pointedly, “is not what I pay you for.” Jane left, and Miriam stared at her retreating back before she reached for a paper knife from her desk and slit the string. If I’ve got to have servants around, I need ones who can keep their mouths shut, she thought gloomily. It wasn’t like this with Brill and Kara. The parcel opened up before her to reveal a leatherbound and clearly very old book. Miriam opened the flyleaf. A True and Accurate History of the Settlement of New Britain, it said, by some author whose name didn’t ring any bells. A card was slipped into the pages. She pulled it out and saw the name on it, blinked back sudden tears of relief. “You’re alright,” she mumbled. “They couldn’t pin anything on you.” Suddenly it was immensely important to her to know that Burgeson was safe and out of the claws of the political police. A sense of warm relief filled her. For a moment, all was right with the world.

The doorbell rang yet again at lunchtime. “Oh, ma’am, it’ll be a salesman,” said Jane, hurrying from the kitchen to pass Miriam, who sat alone in the dining room, toying with a bowl of soup and reading the book Erasmus had sent, her thoughts miles away. “I’ll send him—”

Footsteps. “Miriam?”

Miriam dropped her spoon in the soup and stood up. “Olga?”

It was indeed Olga, wearing the green outfit she’d bought from Burgeson by way of disguise. She smiled broadly as she entered the dining room and Miriam met her halfway in a hug. “Are you alright?” Olga asked.

“Yes. Have you eaten?”

“No.” Olga rubbed her forehead.

“Jane, another place setting for my cousin! How good of you to call.” As Jane hurried to the kitchen, Miriam added, “We can talk upstairs while she’s washing up.” Louder, “I was just preparing for my trip to New London tomorrow. Are you tied down here, or do you fancy the ride?”

“That’s why I came,” said Olga, sitting down and leaning back as the harried maid planted a place setting before her. “You didn’t think I’d let you go there all on your own, did you, cuz?” Jane rushed out, and Olga winked at Miriam. “You’re not getting out of it so easily! What did you say to put the Iron Duke in such a mood?”

“It’s going to be such a party tomorrow night!” Miriam said enthusiastically, then waited for Jane to place a bowl before Olga and withdraw to the scullery. Quietly, “I told him his little shell game was up. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?” Olga paused, blowing on a spoon full of hot broth.

“That Angbard had planted you on me. As a bodyguard.”

“A what?” Olga shook her head. “This is intelligence of a rare and fantastic nature. Not me, Helge, not me.” She grinned. “Who’s been spinning you these tales?”