Nevinson shook his head. “Do you know, sir, who you’ve brought in?”

“’Course not. Told you, never laid eyes on him before.”

“His is name is Edmund Douglas. Sound familiar?”

“Good Lord, I’ve been had by my tailor!”

“No!” Nevinson cried. He took a deep breath and swallowed a mouthful of his own tea. “That man is your wife’s uncle.”

“That’s not possible. My wife’s uncle is at Holloway.”

“He was found missing from Holloway.”

“He was?”

“That’s why he wanted you. Not because you are a random rich bloke, sir, but because you are his nephew-in-law.”

“Then why didn’t he introduce himself?”

Nevinson bit hard into a rock biscuit.

“Well, in any case,” said the chief inspector, “you’ve brought him in, my lord, and saved everyone from a prolonged manhunt. I, for one, think this calls for more than tea. A bit of whiskey, perhaps, Detective?”

“Please,” said Nevinson fervently.

A police sergeant rushed into the chief inspector’s office. “Sorry to disturb you, sir, but the man his lordship just brought in, he’s dead.”

Nevinson gasped. Vere jumped up, knocking over his chair. “I didn’t kill him.”

“Of course you didn’t kill him,” Nevinson said impatiently. “What happened, Sergeant?”

“We aren’t sure, sir. He was perfectly fine. Then he asked for some water. Constable Brown gave him the water. Five minutes later, when Constable Brown went to get the mug back, he was lying in his cot, dead.”

They all rushed out to Douglas’s cell. Douglas lay on his side, seemingly asleep, but entirely without a pulse.

“How did this happen?” Vere cried. “Did he just drop dead?”

“This looks like either cyanide or strychnine.” Nevinson patted Douglas’s person. “Nothing on him but a bit of money and a watch.”

“Do you think he kept his cyanide pills in his watch?” Vere asked, eyes wide.

“That’s lud—” Nevinson stopped. He fiddled with the watch; the face slid open to reveal a secret compartment. “You are right: There are more pills. Enough to kill three people—if these are cyanide pills.”

A chill shot down Vere’s spine. Perhaps Douglas had envisioned poisoning his wife along with himself. Or perhaps they’d all been meant for Mrs. Douglas, his long-delayed, ultimate vengeance.

And perhaps there was enough to do in Elissande as well. Vere’s blood turned cold, even though the danger was now well past.

“I suppose he knew that this time there would be no more escaping,” said Nevinson. “We have enough evidence; he was headed for the gallows.”

For a man who sought to master his fate through whatever means necessary, the thought of having his death imposed upon him must have been unbearable. At least he could never again hurt Elissande or her mother.

A thought that did not bring nearly the relief Vere had hoped. For the damages Douglas had wrought this day—and over the entirety of his worthless life—he should have suffered every last agony the human body could comprehend before dying in public ignominy.

“And look.” Nevinson set the watch on the floor and showed them a tiny pouch. “There are still two diamonds inside. That’s how he must have bribed the prison guards to make his escape.”

While the detective and the chief inspector examined the diamonds, Vere took the watch in hand and unobtrusively fiddled with it some more. There, a second hidden compartment, and inside, another tiny key.

He pocketed the key and handed the watch back to Nevinson. “Really, he didn’t need to kill himself. I would have said a word to the judge for leniency. Rich men are tempting targets. And he’s my uncle, after all.”

Suddenly Elissande could not breathe.

She had inhaled and exhaled tolerably on the journey home. She’d not lacked for air as she put her mother to bed. Even when she was at last by herself, reclined on the chaise longue in the parlor, a compress on her face, another waiting in a basin of water made cold by a block of ice from the ice cellar, her lungs had expanded and contracted as they ought to.

But now she bolted upright, throwing the compress to the floor. Now she yanked at her collar. Now her uncle’s hands were clenched about her throat again, pitilessly, inexorably closing her airway.

She panted and gasped. She opened her mouth wide and gulped down what little oxygen remained in the room.

But she was still not getting enough air. Her head spun; her fingers were numb; her lips tingled strangely. She breathed ever faster, deeper. Her chest hurt. Her vision dotted with points of light.

Sounds came from outside. Was it a carriage? Was that someone opening the front door? She could not make sense of anything. She could only bend over and tuck her head between her knees, fighting not to lose consciousness.

Footsteps—she was no longer alone.

“Slow your breathing, Elissande,” he instructed, sitting next to her. “You must control your breathing.”

He stroked her hair, the warmth of his touch as lovely as that of a cashmere scarf. But his words made no sense—she needed air.

“Inhale slowly, and not too deep. Same when you exhale.” His hand was now on her back, a subtle pressure that calmed her.

She did as he asked. Soon it became apparent that he was right. Controlling her intake of air, a course of action that ran entirely counter to her intuition, soothed her nerves. The numbness and tingling went away; the tightness in her chest dissipated, as did the wobbliness in her head.

He helped her sit straight. Her eyes still hurt slightly at the corners, but she no longer saw dancing spots—only him. He looked worn, his expression a slight frown, but his gaze was steady and kind.

“Better?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you.”

His fingers barely touching her, he turned her face to inspect it. “The bruises will be ugly. You should be in bed—it’s been a very long day.”

Was it only this morning she’d awakened full of boundless optimism for the future, certain that every piece of her life had at last fallen into place? How could so much be destroyed in so little time?

“I’m all right,” she muttered mechanically.

“Are you?”

She could not hold his gaze. Her eyes dropped to her own hands. “Is he back in custody?”

“He was.”

Her chin jerked up. “Was?”

He hesitated.

Her hand gripped the scroll arm of the chaise longue. “Has he escaped again? Please tell me he has not escaped again!”

Her husband glanced away briefly. When he looked back at her, there was a certain emptiness to his eyes. “He is dead, Elissande. He committed suicide at the police station. Some sort of poison pills—cyanide, most likely. We’ll have to wait for the coroner’s report to know exactly what he died of.”

Her jaw dropped. Her breaths once more turned wild and uneven.

“Slowly,” he had to tell her, his hand on her arm. “Or you might get dizzy again.”

She counted as she breathed. She could force her diaphragm to obey, but inside her rib cage, her heart pounded away in shock.

“You are—you are sure it was not a ruse?”

“I was there in person. He is as dead as any of his murder victims.”

She rose; she could no longer remain seated. “So he couldn’t bear to face the consequences of his own actions,” she said, her voice sounding infinitely bitter in her own ears.

“No, he couldn’t. He was a coward in every way.”

She pressed two fingers to the place between her brows—hard. It hurt. But nothing hurt as much as the truth. “And he was my father.”

Everything she believed of herself had been turned on its head.

Something was pressed into her hands—a generously filled glass of whiskey. She wanted to laugh: Had Vere forgotten her limited capacity for liquor? Instead she had to bite her lip to force back tears.

“He abused Andrew and Charlotte Edgerton to me every chance he had. I understood that even were the two judged kindly, most people would still see Charlotte Edgerton as loose and her husband foolish. Yet—”