“Now, Rose,” the coroner said gently, “you have lost your sister in the cruelest manner, and that is a dreadful thing. Be a good girl, and tell us what you know.”

“Just that Flora went to that monster, and he were the death of her! I told her not to go — I told her she didn’t ought to meet with strange gentlemen like a coming straw damsel; but she thought to make her fortune, Flora did — and it were her ruin!”

A sigh escaped me — brutal and despairing. What in God’s name had Flora Bastable wanted with Lord Harold, in all those visits to the Dolphin?

And then it came to me. Flora Bastable had never learned her letters. She required someone to write her notes of blackmail to Mrs. Challoner. But why Lord Harold?

“Your sister’s name was Flora Bastable?” Mr. Crowse continued.

Rose nodded from the depths of a crumpled cambric handkerchief. “Sixteen she would’ve been, this January. She were in service at Netley Lodge as housemaid.”

“A boarder?”

“Aye — but Sunday night she come home, dismissed for failing to satisfy. Mrs. Challoner’s a strange woman, and Flora had some tales to tell. She thought the lady might pay for her silence — but the idea weren’t Flora’s own. She’d had it from his lordship.”

“How can you be certain?” Mr. Crowse enquired, leaning forward avidly.

“After dinner that night, Flora told me privatelike as how she had a call to pay in Southampton, on a high-and-mighty lord from Town, and that she thought to make her fortune by it. ‘We’ll never have to fetch and carry again, Rose,’ she said, ‘when I’ve struck my bargain.’ ”

Several ejaculations from the crowd met this declaration.

“Miss Bastable, did you accompany your sister to her meeting with Lord Harold?”

She shook her head.

“Was your sister... a good girl, Miss Bastable?”

“She were an angel,” Rose declared pathetically, “and certainly not the sort to act as she shouldn’t, if she were properly looked after. But some devils will stop at nothing, sir! I begged her not to go back, when the note come from his lordship Thursday!”

I straightened in my chair. Had he written to the child? That must look very bad — Mr. Crowse was frowning at the weeping Rose.

“Pray collect yourself, Miss Bastable. Your sister received a note from Lord Harold Trowbridge?”

“That she did, sir. I read it myself. Asked her, bold as brass, to wait upon his pleasure at Butlock Common just after cock-crow yesterday.”

The public reaction to this intelligence was of an alarming turn. One man actually rose from his seat and cried, “The scoundrel! Hanging’s too good for ’im!”

I whispered agitatedly in Frank’s ear. “The note must be the grossest fabrication! Lord Harold, to my knowledge, had no notion of Flora Bastable’s direction — any more than I did myself!”

“Did your sister keep this letter?” Mr. Crowse demanded of Rose.

“I saw her throw it on the fire. She was afraid, I suppose, that if my mother saw it, she would be forbidden to go.”

“Would that her mother had,” the coroner said heavily. “She might be yet alive today.”

At this, the wilting Rose — who was hardly more than a child herself — cast her face into her hands and wailed aloud. One could not help but feel the deepest pity; and Mr. Crowse, with an air of benevolence quite unsuited to his relative youth, commanded that the proceeding should be adjourned for a period, to allow the young woman to collect her faculties.

Every person in the Coach & Horses, I am sure, must regard such an interlude as unbearable in its suspense. We rose, and watched the panel of twelve directed to an antechamber, where they should be safe from any untoward suasion of gossip or commentary. More than one cast a look of indignation at Lord Harold before quitting the room.

“Jane,” my brother whispered anxiously, “I do not like the complexion of this affair. Lord Harold could well hang!”

“We must speak to him, Frank.”

I forced my way against the current of Southampton folk intent upon procuring a tankard of ale from the publican before the proceedings should recommence — and saw that a wide berth had been left about the position of Lord Harold and his man. The former rose, and bowed to me courteously.

“Have you gone mad?” I demanded. “Are you determined to place your neck in a noose? Sophia Challoner is not worth such circumspection!”

“No, my dear,” he said with acid precision, “but she has managed my fate with admirable skill. Whoever killed that girl — and I cannot doubt it was one of the Netley party — the outcome must be the same. The duel is prevented, Mr. Ord is safe — and Sophia’s chief enemy, Harold Trowbridge, is consigned to oblivion!”

“And so her despatching of French agents may proceed unimpeded,” I said thoughtfully. “It is a masterful stroke, to be sure. But, my lord—”

“Orlando — pray go in search of refreshment, there’s a good fellow. I am perishing of thirst.”

The valet turned without a word and thrust his small frame into the surging knot of humanity.

“My lord—”

“While I cool my heels in the Southampton gaol,”

he continued in a goaded tone, “yet another port town shall be set alight. The thought is such as to inspire rage — and yet, my friends, what else may I do, but heel to the present course? I cannot escape the charge of murder, by claiming an attempted duel: the latter merely establishes my credentials as a bloodthirsty rogue. You see how they have routed me, with this business of the girl’s visits to the Dolphin—”

“You must not allow it, my lord,” Frank said hotly.

“Your notions of honour — of shielding the innocent — do you the greatest credit, to be sure; but the impulse towards discretion is ill-placed in the present circumstance.”

“My lord, ” I said urgently. “Did you never speak to Flora Bastable when she sought you at the inn?”

“I had no notion that she did so. I must consider the housekeeper’s testimony a complete hum.”

“But I certainly saw her there — on two occasions at least, and once with Orlando. That was the very day before the duel.”

His eyes, which had been roving fitfully about the room as though in search of some means of escape, came to rest suddenly upon my own.

My brother snorted. “What does that signify, Jane? The valet did his duty, and sent the girl about her business! Lord Harold had better have the fellow sworn, and admit his evidence to the coroner — and then we might tell all the world how little his lordship knew of the maid!”

“What of the letter her sister claims that Flora received of you?” I persisted. “The missive summoning her to Butlock Common?”

“I sent no such letter. What are you suggesting, Jane?”

“That the note was a ruse! Flora told me herself: she never learned her letters. She could neither write nor read.”

“And so she must exhibit the paper to one who could tell her what it said — and thus the summons to Butlock, and the name of the man who signed it, must be recalled with clarity later.” Lord Harold’s voice was grim.

“—Once the girl was dead. Such coldness and calculation! It is beyond my ability to credit! But which of the Netley party penned that note?”

Lord Harold, however, was gazing beyond me now, at the doorway of the inquest chamber. The sound of commotion behind suggested that the panel was on the point of reconvening — but it was not this that had drawn his attention. I turned, and glimpsed a blond head above a black cloak. A countenance serene as a god’s. And a look of resolution about the set mouth.

Mr. Ord, it seemed, had determined to speak his part.