Lavinia saw for the first time that the area around Maggie’s eyes was badly discolored and bruised. “Dear God, he struck you?”

“Aye.” Maggie gulped some gin and put down the glass. “A girl has to be flexible in this business, but there’s some things I won’t put up with and that’s a fact. No man who raises his fists to me is allowed back in this room, I don’t care how fine a gennelman he is.”

Tobias had turned away from the window. He watched Maggie with a riveted expression, eyes narrowed and cold. “When did Pelling strike you?”

“The last time he came to see me.” She screwed up her face with the effort of trying to remember. “Think it was Wednesday last. No, it was Thursday. He’d behaved himself right enough on his first few visits. A little rough, but nothin’ out of the ordinary. But that last time he had himself a rare fit of rage.”

“A fit?” Lavinia repeated carefully.

“Aye. I thought he’d gone mad. And all because I teased him a bit.” Maggie poured more gin into the glass.

“Why did you tease him?” Tobias asked.

“Well, he’d come here later than usual, ye see. Almost dawn, it was. I’d just gone to bed. I looked out the window when he knocked and I could tell straightaway that he was in a foul temper. Almost didn’t let him in. But he’d been a good client. Always payin’ a little extra by way of a thank you. Rich as a nabob, he is.”

She paused to swallow more gin.

“You said you teased him,” Lavinia reminded her gently.

“Just tryin’ to put him in a better temper. But it only made things worse. He beat me somethin’ dreadful, he did. And all the while, he kept saying all sorts of terrible things about women. How they had snakes in their hair and how they turned men to stone with their eyes.” Maggie shuddered. “Like I said, he went mad. Don’t know what would have happened to me if my friend upstairs hadn’t come down to see what all the commotion was about. When she pounded on the door, he stopped hitting me.”

Lavinia recalled the terrifying ordeals Pelling’s wife, Jessica, had revealed while in a trance. “Thank God your friend came downstairs when she did.”

“Aye. The bastard like to have killed me.”

“What did Pelling do after your friend interrupted the beating?” Tobias asked.

“Just turned and walked out the door as casual as ye please. Like he’d done nothing more than have some of the usual sport. To tell ye the truth, he seemed in a better mood afterward. Not cheerful, but more calm. Hasn’t come back since, thank the Lord.”

Tobias looked thoughtful. “You didn’t say exactly what you teased him about.”

“It was nothin’, y’know? Just a little thing.” Maggie wrinkled her nose. “Still can’t understand why it set him off.”

“What was the little thing?” Lavinia asked.

“His cravat,” Maggie said.

Lavinia felt her blood run cold in her veins.

At the window, Tobias did not move. She sensed the hunter in him catching the scent of the quarry.

“What about Pelling’s cravat?” he asked very softly.

“Well, he wasn’t wearin’ it that last time, y’see,” Maggie said in her gin-thickened voice. “Properly dressed, he was, like he’d just come from his club or a fancy ball, but no cravat.”

Lavinia met Tobias’s eyes. Impossible, she thought.

“It looked odd,” Maggie said. “Like his valet hadn’t dressed him properly. So I teased him about being so eager to visit me that he had started to undress before he arrived. Asked him if he’d lost his bloody neckcloth somewhere along the way. That’s when he went mad with his rage.”

“I KNEW THERE HAD TO BE A CONNECTION.”

Tobias pulled himself up into the hackney behind Lavinia and slammed the door. “There had to be a link between Hudson and Pelling. It was just too much of a coincidence that both men linked to you showed up in London at the same time.”

The fierce, hawklike anticipation in his eyes was unsettling. It was at times like this that she was most keenly aware of the dangerous edge that was always just beneath the surface of the man. She did not fear him at these moments; she feared for his safety. When his blood was up he was inclined to take risks.

The new revelations called for logic, she thought. Not immediate action.

“We must proceed slowly and carefully,” she said. “I admit that the fact that Pelling lost his cravat the night that Celeste was strangled with one is an exceedingly strange coincidence. But what possible connection could there be between Pelling and Celeste?”

“I suspect that for some reason Pelling, too, is after the Medusa bracelet. It would appear that he hired the Hudsons to steal it for him. Perhaps he became Celeste’s lover. Regardless, she went to meet him that night and he murdered her, either because they quarreled or because he believed that he no longer needed her to help him get the bracelet.”

“And realized too late that she had hidden the artifact before she met him at the warehouse?”

“The logic holds,” Tobias said with satisfaction.

She held up her hand. “Not entirely. Only think for a moment, Tobias. If Howard knew about Pelling’s involvement, then he must know that Pelling is the killer. Why would he hire us to find Celeste’s murderer if he already knew his identity?”

“Because Hudson is after the bracelet, not justice for his dead wife. He must have realized the fact that Pelling doesn’t have it, so he set us on the trail, hoping that if we turn over enough rocks, we’ll find the bloody antiquity before Pelling does.”

She spread her hands. “But why would Pelling want the bracelet in the first place?”

“Is he a collector?”

She thought back to the handful of conversations she’d had with Jessica Pelling. “To be honest, I do not know. The subject never arose. All I can say with any certainty is that he is wealthy enough to afford to collect rare antiquities.”

“I think I know someone who can answer the question for us.”

Twenty minutes later, Vale and Joan Dove walked out of the mansion onto the terrace where Tobias and Lavinia waited together with Emeline and Anthony. Emeline had fetched Lavinia’s cloak a few minutes earlier and brought it out to her.

Vale took in Tobias’s disheveled appearance in a single cool glance. His brows climbed. “Anthony informed me that you wished to consult with me but that you were in no condition to enter the ballroom. I see what he meant. Do you mind if I ask what happened?”

“It’s a long and somewhat boring story,” Tobias said.

Lavinia gripped his arm very tightly. “Actually, two men tried to murder him.”

“Obviously they did not succeed,” Vale said. “My congratulations, sir.”

Tobias glanced at Lavinia. “I had some help from my partner.”

Vale inclined his head. “The two of you clearly make an excellent team.”

“Indeed,” Lavinia said firmly.

Vale turned back to Tobias. “What can I do for you?”

“Tell me if you know whether or not Pelling is a collector of antiquities,” Tobias said.

Vale did not answer immediately. Lavinia got the impression that he was running through some private logic of his own.

“Not to my knowledge,” he finally said very slowly. “It is possible, of course. I certainly do not claim to be acquainted with every serious collector in England. But I am not aware of Pelling having a scholarly interest in relics. He has made no bid to join the Connoisseurs.”

Lavinia’s spirits plummeted. She realized that she had been holding her breath. So much for Tobias’s brilliant theory, she thought. She glanced at him to see how he was taking the bad news.

To her surprise, he appeared undaunted.

“Hudson wants the Medusa bracelet for reasons that have nothing to do with a scholarly interest in antiquities,” Tobias said. “Perhaps Pelling is also obsessed with it for some unknown reason.”