Sebastian laid down the rifle and helped Sir Owain to lift Evangeline to a sitting position. She was dazed and seemed not to know where she was.

“Who did this?” Stephen Reed said, torn between the fascinating sight of the mutilated chauffeur and concern for Evangeline.

Sebastian was about to speak, but Sir Owain spoke first.

“I did,” he said, and a peculiar little smile played about his lips.

He said, “I slew the beast.”

IT WAS A BRIGHT SPRING DAY IN LONDON AND STEPHEN REED was walking up Bell Yard from Fleet Street, behind the Royal Courts of Justice on his way to the chambers where Evangeline Bancroft worked. They’d arranged, by letter, to meet that day during the half hour she had for lunch. But Stephen had taken a room in a boardinghouse off the Strand and was intending to spend several of his leave days in town. He was hoping that she might consent to allowing him to spend some of that time in her company.

He had much to tell her. The tinker had been freed, without apology. A billhook in Thomas Arnot’s workshop had been matched to the broken piece held in evidence. With Arnot gone, piecing his story and his motives together proved difficult. He had become public property, with one person’s theory as good as any other’s. A number of learned men, some of them from distant parts of Europe and all eager to dissect the psychology of this very twentieth-century phenomenon, had descended upon the resort and been thoroughly fleeced of their cash in return for interviews and information. Some of the information fed to them was even based in fact. One of the few conclusions that could be agreed upon was that it must have been as a child that Arnot had first noticed Grace; barely out of childhood himself, he’d watched her when her father and his own had done some dealing in horses.

A search of his living quarters above the former stables had revealed accommodations that were both squalid and austere, as if a monk had elected to live in a pigsty. A small collection of well-thumbed French postcards had been found hidden above a beam and, behind the laths of the wall, items of children’s clothing. They suggested other assaults and disappearances of which the police had known nothing.

Despite knowing of Arnot’s guilt from the day of her own assault, Grace had not given him up. Such was her nature. She never gave anything to the authorities, her lifelong enemies. Whatever knowledge Grace had, she hoarded for her own advantage. When the time was right, it appeared that she had blackmailed Arnot. Unable to make a living in a dying trade, she’d set out to supplement her income from his.

In her own mind, there was probably a certain aptness to this. He’d done her harm, and now it was his time to pay, with money he earned by the machines that were wiping out her livelihood. Little matter that the evidence she could threaten him with—nothing more than her own word and a livery button from his uniform—was so insubstantial. It had been enough to compel him.

The rest was guesswork. The most credible theory was that when Sir Owain’s fortunes declined to the point where he could no longer pay wages, Arnot was trapped. Grace cared nothing for his difficulty—it was his problem, not hers. Let him steal if he had to. Evangeline spoke of “poor Grace,” but inside poor Grace was a heart of flint. Only such a heart could let more children suffer, knowing what she knew. She had survived; so must they. And if they did not … such were the laws of the human jungle.

Unable to pay, unable to preserve himself by any other means, Arnot had silenced Grace and searched for the evidence she’d claimed to hold.

Stephen Reed now reached the Inns of Court. He asked for directions of one of the servants of the Inn, and quickly found Evangeline’s building.

He was early. As he waited in the square, watching the benchers pass and the workers in the boiler rooms of justice going about their secret business, he rehearsed the speech that he intended to follow.

He meant to offer himself to Evangeline, if she would have him.

And if she would not, he could wait.

AT AROUND THE same time, in a belowground passage built some thirty years before to serve temporary exhibition grounds in South Kensington, Sebastian was heading for an appointment of his own. He, too, was thinking of Evangeline May Bancroft, and the lightless shaft under the Thames where he had once done his best to sustain the young woman’s spirits. This tunnel was wide and spacious, with a faint breeze drawing through.

Sir Owain Lancaster had been tried for the manslaughter of Hubert Sibley. He had insisted on representing himself in court, which had all but guaranteed the trial’s outcome. After Sir James Crichton-Browne spoke on his mental condition, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity, and Sir Owain was detained indefinitely by order of the Crown. The Arnside estate and his remaining assets were placed under the control of a Master of Lunacy appointed by the Lord Chancellor’s office. His late wife’s family petitioned for control over what remained of his dwindling wealth, but their petition was denied.

Sir Owain had applied to his administrators to be allowed to make a cash gift to Sebastian, as a sign of gratitude. He hoped that it might enable Sebastian to move his family into more suitable housing. The Master of Lunacy had forbidden the gift, deeming it improper, but Sir James had felt moved to raise Sebastian’s pay in consequence. For the moment, Sebastian remained in Southwark.

As far as Sebastian was aware, Sir Owain had adjusted to his lot, rediscovered his faith, and spent his days in the serene anticipation of an eventual reunion with his loved ones. For his own part, Sebastian suffered occasionally from vivid and emotional memories in which he relived the involuntary delirium that Sir Owain had inflicted upon him. But these episodes were always brief and had begun to diminish.

He ascended the stairs to leave the passageway at its newly opened entrance before the natural history museum, the so-called Cathedral of Nature dedicated mostly to the display and worship of bones and taxidermy. Its iron galleries and terra-cotta detailing made for a unique blend of industry and Byzantium. He’d been here several times, mostly at weekends, since Robert had made his first visit with Dr. Percival.

Today was different, and somewhat special. Percival Langdon Down had arranged an interview for Robert with the Keeper of Paleontology. Despite the boy’s lack of formal training, Langdon Down had persuaded the Keeper that his depth of interest and effortless power of analysis might fit him for employment here. As a boy attendant to begin with, perhaps moving on to become a junior assistant in the Department of Geology. He surely had the necessary ability. Robert even had the Latin, entirely self-taught.

Sebastian was to meet the three of them in the Great Hall, but only Frances was waiting there. She had her best coat and bonnet on.

He said, “Am I late? I didn’t think I was.”

“You’re not late,” Frances said. “The Keeper sent a message down and Robert went up early.”

“Shouldn’t we be there?”

“No, Sebastian,” Frances said. “He isn’t a child. He went off perfectly happy with Doctor Percival. He doesn’t need us.”

She noted his discomfort, and it made her smile.

“It’ll soon be over,” she said. “And I’m sure he’ll do well. Let’s walk for a while. Take your mind away from it.”

They walked out of the Great Hall past Huxley’s statue, down the gallery of the East Wing. Pier cases of specimens made a series of alcoves to either side, from early man to the mastodon. For once, they didn’t have to stop every few paces while Robert picked out some fossil and launched into an eager lecture. They passed the exhibits by, their thoughts elsewhere.