“You are lost in reverie, Jane,” Lord Harold remarked as we descended the final curve of road towards Miller’s Dale. “You are hardly attending to what I have said.”

“I freely confess that I have heard not a word,” I admitted, “though you speak so well and so knowledge-ably, my lord, on every subject. It is one of your talents, is it not? The judicious employment of silence and volubility. It is an aspect of your character that must make you a friend to every salon. I have an idea of the scene: Lord Harold enters upon a fashionable rout; he takes the measure of his company, and determines in an instant whether the taciturn or the feckless is most suited to the occasion.”

Lord Harold drew up his horses not far from the miller’s cottage. “I appear to have misjudged the present instance lamentably.”

“Not at all,” I protested. “Your voice gave the perfect foil to thought — so insinuating, so low, so charming in every respect. I have been gazing upon the beauties of the Peaks, and considering of Andrew Danforth’s bed.”

“Jane!”

“Do not Jane me! Everyone is always doing it — particularly my cousin Mr. Cooper, who seems to feel himself my moral arbiter now my father is gone to rest. The presumption is most trying, I do assure you.”

“You have the advantage of me, dear lady,” Lord Harold replied, as he swung himself down from our hired curricle; “for I have never considered of Andrew Danforth’s bed in the whole course of our acquaintance.”

“A palpable falsehood. It was first brought to my notice by your own communications.”

He looked up, and offered his hand. “You would mean the fact of Tess Arnold’s having been discovered in it?”

“Exactly.” I stepped lightly from the curricle and smoothed the creases from my rose-coloured gown. “The housekeeper claims the maid was dismissed for an indiscretion. Sir James would have it that the indiscretion was Andrew Danforth’s. The gentleman, I may add, does not seem unduly grieved by Tess Arnold’s death, so there cannot have been much affection in the case — at least on Andrew Danforth’s side.”

“But we know nothing of the maidservant’s heart. She may have allowed herself to regard anything as possible. She may have aspired even to becoming Mrs. Andrew Danforth. He is, after all, only a younger son.”

“And must therefore make his fortune through marriage! It has been my experience, my lord, that the habits of younger sons run to considerable expense. Andrew Danforth intends to have a Duke’s daughter, and all of Parliament at his feet; and with such ambitions, Tess Arnold must prove a shameful impediment.”

“Lady Harriot and her role in Danforth’s brilliant career may have been utterly unknown to the stillroom maid,” Lord Harold objected.

“I very much doubt that there was anything toward in the Peaks that Tess Arnold did not know. From what I hear of her character, she was a woman to regard intelligence as gold.”

“Very well. Proceed with the fruits of reverie, Jane. I expect to be amply repaid for my wasted chatter along the road.”

“George Hemming confessed to having called Tess Arnold out on Monday night, with the intention of murdering her,” I declared, “and yet, she is known to have been dismissed. Did she quit Penfolds Hall that evening at the housekeeper’s injunction? Or George Hemming’s?”

“That is the first of many flaws in the solicitor’s story.”

“And one reason I do not believe it — entirely.”

Lord Harold looked at me swiftly. “Then you credit some part of the tale?”

“I have observed, Lord Harold, that when a man would plausibly lie — as George Hemming has done — he is inclined to present a patchwork, not a tale made of whole cloth. I believe him when he says that the girl would blackmail him — that she had blackmailed him, for years together. So much of his confession bears the ring of truth.”

“Then we must consider what the maidservant might be in a position to learn,” Lord Harold mused, “and turn to profitable account.”

“She was a stillroom maid. She was everywhere regarded as a sort of country apothecary — the compounder of draughts, of ointments, of remedies for common ills. Therein lay her knowledge and her power. We must find the cause of Hemming’s grievance among the herbs and simples of Tess Arnold’s storeroom. I know, for example, that he lost his wife in childbed nearly a decade ago.”

Lord Harold surveyed my countenance. “If the lady’s death was due to any error of the maid’s, it should rather be Hemming’s case to blackmail her.”

“True. I doubt, however, that Tess Arnold was in attendance upon Mrs. Hemming. She would have been only fifteen or so at the time. But perhaps Betty Arnold may recall the circumstances.”

“How may the revival of such a grievance further our purpose, Jane? For you would have it that Hemming is innocent of the maid’s death. You have declared him incapable of the act.”

“And so I believe him to be. But in the patches of truth Mr. Hemming has tossed us, we may learn much of Tess Arnold’s life and purpose.”

“For example — why she left Penfolds Hall Monday in the dead of night.”

“We cannot be certain that she did,” I objected. “We know only that she was dismissed from service sometime during the course of Monday, and met her death a mile from Penfolds Hall late that night. I do not imagine Mr. Tivey’s estimation of the hour of the murder to be exact; and Mrs. Haskell was prevented, by her timely swoon, from outlining the facts of the maid’s disgrace.”

“But if Tess was dismissed for a dalliance with her employer’s brother,” Lord Harold observed, “then we may certainly set the earliest limit of her departure. Andrew Danforth is known to have quitted Penfolds for Chatsworth at roughly five o’clock. If the maid was turned away, her infraction must have been discovered before that hour.”

“Did Danforth come on horseback?” I enquired curiously.

“He did,” Lord Harold replied, “and an impressive animal it was. However varied his taste in young women, Andrew Danforth has a superior eye for horseflesh. The gelding could not have done less than twelve, and not more than sixteen miles an hour over the fields between Penfolds Hall and Chatsworth; and the distance to be traversed is no more than six or eight miles. I should judge that Danforth was perhaps half an hour upon his road — three-quarters, if he took the horse at a trot.”

“And when did he appear?”

“I cannot swear to the hour. I was dressing at the time.”

The admission shocked me. Lord Harold was always so perfectly turned-out, I had grown to believe he was somehow beyond the common human endeavour of dressing. The idea of the Gentleman Rogue in smallclothes, before his valet and his mirror, brought a bubble of laughter to my lips. I averted my gaze, lest he espy it. “I believe Sir James was told that Danforth arrived at six o’clock. There might be time enough, I suppose, to beat a hasty course into the hills, slay the maid, and turn the horse towards Chatsworth before dinner.”

“So early as half-past five? In August, when the light does not fade until after nine o’clock? Why run the risk of such exposure?”

“Very well. Then let us consider his opportunity along the road home. At what time did the Chatsworth party break up?”

“Dinner was served at seven o’clock — the Duke keeps the hours of Town, even in Derbyshire — and between the demands of cards, conversation, and Lady Harriot’s instrument, Danforth cannot have called for his mount until after one o’clock.”

“What dreadful habits of dissipation! But he may have made his way, under a fitful moon, to the hills above Miller’s Dale no later than two o’clock.”

“I understood that was the hour he is said to have arrived at home.” Lord Harold studied my countenance with interest. “You believe the maid to have been waiting at the place of her death, at Danforth’s instruction? It seems a tedious business, and little to the point. If he wished to be considered as beyond suspicion, due to his engagement at Chatsworth, then he should take care to fix the hour of Tess’s death during the period he was known to be safely away.”