The questioning proceeded in this tedious fashion for some time, but Grey succeeded in eliciting only a few helpful pieces of information, most of these negative in nature.

No, they did not think their mistress owned a green velvet gown, though of course she might have ordered one made; her personal maid would know. No, the mistress really wasn’t at home today, or at least they didn’t think so. No, they did not know for sure when she had left the house—but yes, she was here yesterday, and last night, yes. Had she been in the house on Tuesday last? They thought so, but could not really remember.

“Has a gentleman by the name of Joseph Trevelyan ever visited the house?” he asked. The girls exchanged shrugs and looked at him, baffled. How would they know? Their work was all abovestairs; they would seldom see any visitors to the house, save those who stayed overnight.

“Your mistress—you say that she was at home last night. When is the last time you saw her?”

The girls frowned, as one. Annie glanced at Tab; Tab made a small moue of puzzlement at Annie. Both shrugged.

“Well . . . I don’t rightly know, my lord,” Annie said. “She’s been poorly, the mistress. She’s been a-staying in her room all day, with trays brought up. I go in to change the linens regular, to be sure, but she’d be in her boudoir, or the privy closet. I suppose I haven’t seen her proper since—well, maybe since . . . Monday?” She raised her brows at Tab, who shrugged.

“Poorly,” Grey repeated. “She was ill?”

“Yes, sir,” Tab said, taking heart from having an actual piece of information to impart. “The doctor came, and all.”

He inquired further, but to no avail. Neither, it seemed, had actually seen the doctor, nor heard anything regarding their mistress’s ailment; they had only heard of it from Cook . . . or was it from Ilse, the mistress’s lady’s maid?

Abandoning this line of questioning, Grey was inspired by the mention of gossip to inquire further about their master.

“You would not know this from personal experience, of course,” he said, altering his smile to one of courteous apology, “but perhaps Herr Mayrhofer’s valet might have let something drop. . . . I am wondering whether your master has any particular marks or oddities? Upon his body, I mean.”

Both girls’ faces went completely blank, and then suffused with blood, so rapidly that they were transformed within seconds into a pair of tomatoes, ripe to bursting point. They exchanged brief glances, and Annie let out a high-pitched squeak that might have been a strangled giggle.

He hardly needed further confirmation at this point, but the girls—with many stifled half-shrieks and muffling of their mouths with their hands—did eventually confess that, well, yes, the valet, Herr Waldemar, hadexplained to Hilde the parlor maid exactly why he required so much shaving soap. . . .

He dismissed the girls, who went out giggling, and sank down for a moment’s respite on the brocaded chair by the desk, resting his head on his folded arms as he waited for his heart to cease pounding quite so hard.

So, the identity of the corpse was established, at least. And a connexion of some sort between Reinhardt Mayrhofer, the brothel in Meacham Street—and Joseph Trevelyan. But that connexion rested solely on a whore’s word, and on his own identification of the green velvet gown, he reminded himself.

What if Nessie was wrong, and the man who left the brothel dressed in green was not Trevelyan? But it was, he reminded himself. Richard Caswell had admitted it. And now a rich Austrian had turned up dead, dressed in what certainly appeared to be the same green gown worn by Magda, the madam of Meacham Street—which was in turn presumably the same gown worn by Trevelyan. And Mayrhofer was an Austrian who left his home on frequent mysterious journeys.

Grey was reasonably sure that he had discovered Mr. Bowles’s unknown shark. And if Reinhardt Mayrhofer was indeed a spymaster . . . then the solution to the death of Tim O’Connell most likely lay in the black realm of statecraft and treachery, rather than the blood-red one of lust and revenge.

But the Scanlons were gone, he reminded himself. And what part, in the name of God, did Joseph Trevelyan play in all this?

His heart was slowing again; he swallowed the metallic taste in his mouth and raised his head, to find himself looking at what he had half-seen but not consciously registered before: a large painting that hung above the desk, erotic in nature, mediocre in craftsmanship—and with the initials “RM” worked cunningly into a bunch of flowers in the corner.

He rose, wiping sweaty palms on the skirt of his coat, and glanced quickly round the room. There were two more of the same nature, indisputably by the same hand as the paintings that decorated Magda’s boudoir. All signed “RM.”

It was additional evidence of Mayrhofer’s connexions, were any needed. But it caused him also to wonder afresh about Trevelyan. He had only Caswell’s word for it that Trevelyan’s inamoratawas a woman—otherwise, he would be sure that the Cornishman’s rendezvous were kept with Mayrhofer . . . for whatever purpose.

“And the day you trust Dickie Caswell’s word about anything, you foolish sod . . .” he muttered, pushing himself up from the chair. On his way out the door, he spotted the dish of congealing egg whites, and took a moment to thrust it hastily into the drawer of the desk.

Von Namtzen had herded the rest of the servants into the library for further inquisition. Hearing Grey come in, he turned to greet him.

“They are both gone, certainly. He, some days ago, she, sometime in the night—no one saw. Or so these servants say.” Here he turned to bend a hard eye on the butler, who flinched.

“Ask them about the doctor, if you please,” Grey said, glancing from face to face.

“Doctor? You are unwell again?” Von Namtzen snapped his fingers and pointed at a stout woman in an apron, who must be the cook. “You—more eggs!”

“No, no! I am quite well, I thank you. The chambermaids said that Mrs. Mayrhofer was ill this week, and that a doctor had come. I wish to know if any of them saw him.”

“Ah?” Von Namtzen looked interested at this, and at once began peppering the ranks before him with questions. Grey leaned inconspicuously on a bookshelf, affecting an air of keen attention, while the next bout of dizziness spent itself.

The butler and the lady’s maid had seen the doctor, von Namtzen reported, turning to interpret his results to Grey. He had come several times to attend Frau Mayrhofer.

Grey swallowed. Perhaps he should have drunk the last batch of egg whites; they could not taste half so foul as the copper tang in his mouth.

“Did the doctor give his name?” he asked.

No, he had not. He did not dress quite like a doctor, the butler offered, but had seemed confident in his manner.

“Did not dress like a doctor? What does he mean by that?” Grey asked, straightening up.

More interrogation, answered by helpless shrugs from the butler. He did not wear a black suit, was the essential answer, but rather a rough blue coat and homespun breeches. The butler knit his brow, trying to recall further details.

“He did not smell of blood!” von Namtzen reported. “He smelled instead of . . . plants? Can that be correct?”

Grey closed his eyes briefly, and saw bunches of dried herbs hanging from darkened rafters, the fragrant gold dust drifting down from their leaves in answer to footsteps on the floor above.

“Was the doctor Irish?” he asked, opening his eyes.

Now even von Namtzen looked slightly puzzled.

“How would they tell the difference between an Irishman and an Englishman?” he said. “It is the same language.”

Grey drew a deep breath, but rather than attempt to explain the obvious, changed tack and gave a brief description of Finbar Scanlon. This, translated, resulted in immediate nods of recognition from butler and maid.