“But you did not find it.”

“No. I found a safe in the floor, but it was empty. I decided to wait for Pierce. I intended to try to force him to tell me the location of the letter. I hid in the wardrobe. When he arrived, I could hear him breathing hard and I knew at once that something had happened. I watched through the crack in the door and saw him unlock a second hidden safe. That was all I needed. When he opened the door of the wardrobe, I shot him, took the letter, and left.”

The old man was slumped heavily against the banister, still struggling to breathe. The shadows in the hall shifted again. Lavinia saw Tobias emerge and move toward the foot of the staircase. He held a pistol in his hand.

“You made a couple of mistakes along the way, Aspasia,” he said.

“Tobias.” Aspasia turned slightly, eyes widening in shock. “How did you-”

What happened next occurred in the wink of an eye. The old man straightened with the speed of a striking viper. He lashed out with the walking stick in a short, brutal arc that caught Aspasia at the back of her head with a sickening thud.

She toppled forward in a curiously slowed motion. The pistol in her hand exploded harmlessly, filling the hall with thunder, smoke, and the smell of burning gunpowder. She fell headfirst down the staircase, thumping horribly against each step. Tobias had to put his back to the wall to avoid being struck by her.

Lavinia was so transfixed by the sight of Aspasia’s hurtling body that she did not even notice the old man climbing swiftly up the staircase until he reached the landing and paused beside her.

“You, Mrs. Lake, are the stuff of dreams.” He smiled. “If I were even thirty years younger, I assure you that this matter would end in an entirely different fashion.”

She stared at him, speechless.

The old man glanced back at Tobias, who was coming up the staircase, pistol in hand.

“Or perhaps not,” the old man said dryly. Your Mr. March is worthy of you. Indeed, I only wish that I’d had the opportunity to take him on as an apprentice years ago. He would have made a fine heir to my business.” He tipped his hat. “Good day to you, madam. I trust you will remember our discussion of dreams from time to time.”

He went quickly past her, opened the door that led to the back stairs, and disappeared.

To Lavinia’s surprise and enormous relief, Tobias did not give chase. When he reached the top of the stairs, he halted beside her and slowly lowered the pistol.

Together they stood gazing down the hallway at the place where the old man had vanished.

“Are you all right?” he asked quietly.

“Yes.” She pulled herself together. “Aspasia?”

“Dead. I suspect her neck was broken before she took that tumble down those stairs.”

Lavinia swallowed heavily, thinking about the speed and power of the blow that had felled Aspasia.

“Tobias, surely that was not who I think it was,” she whispered.

Tobias reached past her to pick up a tiny object sitting on the railing behind her. He held the little ring between thumb and forefinger. A grinning death’s-head worked in gold caught the light.

“I think we may congratulate ourselves, my love,” he said quietly. I believe that we have both just encountered the legendary Memento-Mori Man and lived to tell the tale.”

They gathered in Joan’s elegant yellow, green, and gilt drawing room. Tobias and Vale lounged against the walls near the windows. Lavinia sat on the sofa across from their hostess.

“My condolences on the loss of your client,” Vale said to Tobias. “I assume that under the circumstances, you will be unable to collect your fee.”

Tobias’s face was set in grim lines. “Unfortunately, that is indeed the situation. We shall miss our fee, but at least I am not also missing a partner.”

Lavinia pretended not to hear the remark. Since the events of yesterday afternoon, Tobias had not overlooked any opportunity to make pointed comments about her close brush with disaster.

“There are one or two things that I do not yet fully comprehend.” Joan handed a cup of tea to Lavinia. “Tell me more about the wigs.”

“We will never know where Pierce got the blond wig he used in the course of the murder at Beaumont Castle,” Lavinia said. “I warned Tobias at the outset that it might be difficult to track down that particular purchase. Personally, I’m inclined to think that Pierce acquired it in Paris. He mentioned to Emeline and Priscilla that he had studied his hairdressing art there. All we know is that he did use one. And Aspasia knew that also because we told her. Upon returning to London, she concluded immediately that I was a nuisance she could do without. She purchased a blond wig of her own and went into the stews to hire a footpad to frighten me off the case.”

“She made certain that Sweet Ned noticed her hair, hoping that if he was caught, we would conclude that it was the Memento-Mori Man who had employed him,” Tobias said.

“What of the events at Swaine’s wig shop?” Vale asked.

“I finally managed to make sense of things yesterday when I went through the wig-maker’s journal of accounts a second time,” Tobias said. “I was searching for an earlier purchase of a yellow-haired wig, assuming that the killer must have bought his before leaving for Beaumont Castle. But I came across two other transactions that were extremely interesting. One for a blond wig purchased two days after the murder.”

“And the other?” Joan prompted.

“A black-haired wig purchased the day of the house party,” Tobias said softly. “The wig-maker had noted it in his records as a black wig in the Egyptian style.”

“Tobias realized that Aspasia had been in the shop on at least one prior occasion,” Lavinia said.

Vale’s brows rose. “That was enough to make you suspect that she was a murderess?”

“The fact that she had purchased her Cleopatra wig from the one and only wig-maker who died under mysterious circumstances in the course of this investigation struck me as something other than a mere coincidence, yes.”

Vale smiled. “When you put it like that, I can certainly see your point.”

“The sale of a blond wig two days later suddenly took on a new significance,” Tobias said. “As did the fact that a summons from Aspasia was what had lured Lavinia to the cemetery. I also somewhat belatedly recalled that Pierce was left-handed. Anthony and Dominic Hood confirmed that memory. Given that the pistol with which Pierce had supposedly shot himself was found in his right hand, I was strongly inclined toward the conclusion that there was another killer hanging about.”

“Tobias reasoned that Aspasia was the one person involved in this affair who not only had strong links to what happened three years ago but who also knew we had concluded that the hairdresser was the new Memento-Mori Man.”

“When I added those details to one other odd fact, the pieces of the puzzle slipped into place,” Tobias said.

Vale looked interested. “What was that fact?”

“I never understood fully why the killer had sent that first death’s-head ring to Aspasia. I comprehended well enough that he might wish to challenge me. He seemed obsessed with emulating Elland, and I thought it possible that he blamed me for the fact that Zachary had been driven to take his own life. But why would he bother to taunt Aspasia? She claimed that it was because she had once been Elland’s lover. Granted, one cannot expect sound reasoning from a killer, but somehow that did not seem to make great sense to me.”

“Indeed.” Vale studied him. “He was clearly fixed on you as his opponent. Why would he concern himself with his brother’s lover unless there was some profit in it?”

“He did have a reason for sending that ring to her,” Lavinia said. “It was his way of assuring her that he knew her secrets when he informed her he had a certain letter that he planned to use to blackmail her.”