The boy’s face cleared. “There’s his old chariot, and the missus’s tilbury, what he lets out with Nelly betimes.”

“Very good, my lad,” Lord Harold said, and tossed him tuppence.

The Llandoger Trow was a noble old pile, its casement windows secured against the draughts and a roaring fire in the massive hearth. I welcomed the tide of warmth, and its concomitant odours of roasting fowl and bubbling stew, and followed a woman I assumed to be Mrs. Twinkling into a private parlour at the broad building’s front. A scattering of local townsfolk held place in the public room, their tankards clattering noisily on oaken tables; but here, all was quiet and removed, with a faint scent of beeswax that was not unpleasing.

“You’ll be wanting a nuncheon, I expect,” the woman said kindly. “Half frozen you must be, miss, coming all that way and the sun not half so warm as it should be. A toddy, perhaps, or some wine punch?”

“Tea would suit me exceedingly,” I replied gratefully. “Are you Mrs. Twinkling?”

“These thirty year or more, miss. You’re a stranger to Bristol?”

“Yes.” I drew off my bonnet and gloves and set them on a chair. “Though our acquaintance have often praised the city — and the Llandoger Trow in particular — most handsomely. The Earl of Swithin was recently your lodger, I believe?”

“And has been, off and on, a year and more. He’s a great one for the theatre, is the Earl.”

“Indeed! We are speaking of the same Lord Swithin, I collect — a well-made, fair-haired gentleman with a commanding aspect, and a very fine coach-and-four, with the device of a tiger on its door?”

“Aye, and he weren’t half put out when his axle broke and old Twinkling couldn’t set it to rights on Monday,” she replied with energy. “Fair shouted the eaves of the house down around us, he did, with all his oaths about needing to be on the road as soon as may be.”

“Mrs. Twinkling,” Lord Harold said with a nod from the doorway. “Your excellent husband thought I should find you here. We should be greatly obliged if you could manage some victuals.”

“I’ve bread and cheese and half a cold ham just waiting in the larder,” she said, beaming, and left us with a curtsey.

“That was most unfortunate,” I told Lord Harold crossly, “for she was on the point of revealing our Swithin’s history. She remembered him in an instant, and said he was most put out by an injury to his equipage.”

“Do not trouble yourself, madam.” Lord Harold drew a chair to the fire and warmed his hands. “I have had the whole from our host Twinkling himself. It would not do to have us both appear interested to a fault. Lord Swithin was present, from late Sunday until early Wednesday morning, when he sped like hell-fire — excuse me, my dear, a thousand pardons for the liberty — to Bath itself.”

“And the carriage?”

“A curious mishap, indeed; for the axle was unbroken upon his arrival, and appears to have acquired its injury while lodged in the carriage house itself. Mr. Twinkling suspects a band of local boys, who delight in the destruction of transient property. Though we might conjecture a more deliberate cause. The Earl should not have wished to drive his own equipage under Her Grace’s window for the purpose of receiving a murderer.”

“This is most illuminating.”

“The necessity of repairs required our Lord Swithin to hire the missus’s tilbury, about the conduct of some business on Tuesday.”

“—When no doubt he sped like hell-fire to Bath,” I finished absently, “about the stabbing of poor Mr. Portal.”

“Perhaps. Although Mr. Twinkling believed his direction then to have been Portsmouth.”

“Portsmouth! But what could possibly have occasioned so sudden a journey?”

“The Earl received news of a ship Monday — a homebound Indiaman, expected in Portsmouth the following day.”[65]

“Good heavens!”

“Whether it was one of Swithin’s vessels, miraculously returned, or merely another that brought news of his ships’ fate, Twinkling could not tell me. Perhaps he lacked the particulars.”

“Or perhaps Swithin never went to Portsmouth at all.”

“In any case, the Earl returned to the Llandoger Trow in the wee hours of Wednesday, and departed for Bath later that morning in his repaired equipage.”

“If so much is true, it is unlikely that his lordship broke his pressing return from Portsmouth to parade in Laura Place bearded and disguised as Pierrot,” I mused.

“Unlikely — but not impossible. As you say, we cannot know whether he travelled to Portsmouth at all.”

I sighed with vexation. “I must observe, my lord, that we possess an abundance of miscreants, all clamouring for attention, in this sorry business! There is Miss Conyngham, who probably discarded the tiger in the passage; Mr. Smythe, who is a proficient in tumbling, and might have jumped from the open window; and Lord Swithin, who hired a carriage — possibly intended for Portsmouth, or possibly so that he might halt it in argument beneath the Dowager Duchess’s window in Bath.”

“But unfortunately we have no proof of the latter,” Lord Harold retorted, “and that is the one thing Mr. Wilberforce Elliot will undoubtedly require.”

On the heels of this dampening remark, the parlour door swung open, and Mrs. Twinkling appeared with flushed cheeks and a tray of victuals held high. Behind her, to our extreme surprise and no little delight, stood Mr. Elliot himself.

“Lord Harold,” he said, with a bow and a creaking of his considerable weight, “and the little Shepherdess.”

“Miss Austen,” I supplied.

“Imagine my surprise at finding you come to Bristol to greet me! I should not have looked for such a courtesy for all the world. How d’ye do? How d’ye do? And a fine, bright day for a pleasure drive it is!”

“Indeed,” his lordship replied, with a speaking look in Mrs. Twinkling’s direction. The magistrate winked, stood aside to allow her passage, and then eased himself into the little parlour.

“Would you require some fortification against the hard miles remaining to Bath?” Lord Harold enquired, with ironic solicitude, “or perhaps a seat in my carriage?”

“Thanking you kindly, my lord, but I’ve fortified myself already, and your lordship’s funds have been so good as to supply a suitable conveyance.”

“That is very well — for had you accepted, either Miss Austen or myself should have been obliged to remain behind.”

Mr. Elliot laughed. “And isn’t that just like a lord! No politeness is too great, even if it comes at a loss. I’m infinitely obliged, my lord — but just you tuck into the victuals while I bend your ear, as the saying goes, and we’ll suit each other famously. I find you on the trail of a certain Earl, I expect?”

“As no doubt you are yourself.”

Mr. Elliot settled himself on a stout wooden chair, thrust his toes towards the fire, and nodded at me affably. “The cold has brought roses to your cheeks, ma’am, and a picture you do look. I must suppose you are in his lordship’s confidence?”

“You must,” Lord Harold replied. “There is no one whose penetration I value more than Miss Austen’s.”

“And when am I to wish you joy, my lord?” Mr. Elliot enquired with an innocent air.

I coloured despite myself.

“When you have freed my nephew from his unfortunate predicament,” Lord Harold concluded smoothly. He took up a spoon and attacked an admirable Stilton. “Tell us how you fared in London, Elliot. We are all agog for the news.”

“I began my enquiries in Laura Place, as you were so good to suggest. When presented with the interesting tiger pin, the Earl of Swithin frowned — looked amazed— and unfortunately recovered his composure. He assured me he had never seen the thing before, and could only imagine that some sprig of fashion had adopted his device, from a misplaced desire to ape his lordship’s style.”