Thoughts of Charles Spence, however, could not help but intrude. I might sit by the Pembroke table, in the soft air of evening, and attempt to write in compact lines of the people we had met, and the alterations we had effected in the cottage; but the Major’s dark eyes must sketch themselves on the sheet of paper. His serious, earnest gaze — the dreadful pallor of his looks at Lady Imogen’s death — the fury of the man, as Thrace escaped — all must clamour for my attention. I had wondered before if Spence’s honour might be suborned by a woman of Lady Imogen’s power — if her bewitching charm and his desire for her affection might compel him to all manner of actions he should never undertake alone. I was now certain that they had.

Charles Spence could find no peculiar interest in Lord Harold Trowbridge’s papers, absent the interest of the woman he loved. Lady Imogen had bent him to her purpose — cajoled him, as a steward well-acquainted with the labouring class — to secure a pair of ruffians who might force their way into my house.

Had they also, I wondered, forced their way into Henry’s bank nearly a week ago?

Had the plan to find Lord Harold’s bequest been in train long before my arrival in Chawton? It was certain that Lady Imogen possessed an understanding of the chest’s contents for some months; she should have learned of their true nature from Desdemona, Countess Swithin, during the last London Season.[25]

Locating the chest itself, however, had demanded some time and exertion; no doubt Lady Imogen had recruited others besides Spence to the task. Who might her accomplices be?

I concluded my letter to Martha with a request that she bring some peony cuttings from her sister’s garden at Kintbury — and rose to take a restless turn about the room.

“What is it, Jane?” Cassandra asked.

“I hardly know.”

“You are thinking of our acquaintance in Sherborne St. John. Has there been no word yet of Mr. Thrace’s capture?”

“None that Edward or I have heard. The renegade appears to have vanished into thin air.”

“Then he will soon be desperate. With all the country alive against him, how can he hope to obtain so much as a cup of water?”

“—Unless he has found friends who will help him.”

“How can such a man — a stranger to Hampshire — recruit friends?”

“He might buy them, I suppose, among those who have no concern for murder.”

She set down her pen. “And what of Henry?”

“He must have reached Brighton some hours ago — but has not seen fit to despatch the news to his sisters Express. I suppose all such activity must be reserved for the Earl, and all such letters for Charles Spence.”

Charles Spence.

I had written to him myself only this morning; he might even now be reading my letter — the post between Chawton and Sherborne St. John being no very great distance.[26] What should be his feelings upon perusing my words?

... pray accept my very deepest condolences on the sad loss you have recently suffered. Lady Imogen was all that was lovely and amiable, and to witness her sudden taking off — at such an interesting period of life, when youth, high spirits, beauty, and the privilege of birth must conspire to make her existence a blessed one — is a dreadful reminder of the end we must all someday face, and our daily proximity to our Maker. It is regrettable at such a moment to allow the personal to intrude. Circumstances, however, require that I be perfectly frank. I have reason to think that her ladyship’s natural exuberance — her desire to best Mr. Thrace at every turn — and her very commendable wish to prevent her respected father from committing an error his friends must all deplore — may have led her to engage in an activity injurious to her reputation, and beneath her better sense. In point of fact, I believe the chest taken from my home — a bequest of my friend Lord Harold Trowbridge — might even now be found among Lady Imogen’s effects.

If what I have related causes you pain, I am heartily sorry for it. I am aware, however, that Stonings may soon be shut up and yourself gone from the premises, as must only be natural; and I should wish the chest returned before all your party has quitted Hampshire. Do I ask too much, Major Spence, or may I be allowed to wait upon you at Stonings as soon as may be convenient?

I had taken a good deal of trouble over the letter, as being a most awkward composition to a man in Spence’s state of mourning. Indeed, I had winced at the brutal force of it — the necessity of putting so delicate a matter into the bluntest prose. But I had done my work, and seen it into the hands of the post some hours before; and could not call it back again. The knowledge that Spence himself was encompassed in Lady Imogen’s crimes, however, made the communication a bitter one. It was possible he should read in my letter a veiled threat to his own security. If I professed to know that Lady Imogen had taken the Bengal chest, how could I be ignorant of the methods by which it was obtained? Did Charles Spence think to find me at Stonings’ door with Mr. Prowting the magistrate at my back?

I feared that I had blundered in writing as I did. Spence was no fool; and despite the misery of his present circumstances, must be alive to the implication of my charge. He was as likely to sink Lord Harold’s chest in the bottom of the Stonings’ lake, as return its contents to me; and I had only my own impatience to thank.

I placed my letter to Martha near Cassandra’s own, for posting on the morrow; made trial of a novel in three volumes that my sister had brought especially from Canterbury; picked up and set down a bit of mending the light no longer permitted me to see; and at the last, went up rather earlier than was my habit, to bed.

It was the dog, Link, that woke me: starting up from a sound sleep and barking furiously into the night. His small, sinewy body trembled with indignation; his attention was fixed on a disturbance below; his outrage filled our ears.

“Link!” Cassandra hissed. “Lie down, boy! There’s a good fellow! Link! ”

I threw back the bed linen and reached for my dressing gown. The terrier dashed to the window, his forepaws on the sill.

“What is it, lad?” I whispered. “What do you see? Another burglar, perhaps, come to steal into the household?”

A low growl escaped his quivering throat; I hushed him with a hand to his head.

The full moon of the previous week — which had allowed Julian Thrace to ride out at midnight, Shafto French to be murdered, and Jack Hinton to make his way from Surrey despite the befuddlement of his senses — was nearly gone. The night was dull as a blown candle, and heavy shadow lay about the fields surrounding the house. Chawton Pond was barely a gleam on the edge of my vision; no figures swayed in desperate combat beside it tonight. I strained to pierce the darkness of our yard, and could make out nothing; no furtive movement of man or beast could be detected near the henhouse or the privy. It might be any hour between the tolling of St. Nicholas’s curfew bell and dawn; I could not undertake to say.

“What is it, Jane?” Cassandra demanded in a hushed voice; there was anxiety in her accent.

I lifted my hand for silence, and Link growled again.

Perhaps he had seen what I had: a faint wisp of light bobbing down the sweep from Prowtings. It was, I guessed, the pale glow of a candle encased in a lanthorn — the kind that might be shielded from prying eyes by the fall of a cloak or wrap. Someone was setting out through the darkness on an errand that did not admit of scrutiny; and as the fugitive achieved the Gosport road, I thought I understood why. In the form and height of the figure — the hesitant, half-furtive movement — I recognised a woman.