I murmured assent.

“I cannot recall a happier time than those few short weeks aboard the Punjab, Miss Austen. When we achieved Plymouth, however, I gave her up for lost. No sooner did I find myself back in London, than I was riveted meself — it was only expected, as I had come into my brother’s title, and must stand the business. Amelia was well-born, well-looking, and without a penny to her name; that meant little to me, as I had made my fortune already in the East. I fear, however, that I was unable to accord my wife the sort of affection and fidelity a young woman might expect from her husband. My heart was already commanded by another, you see. Amelia left me when our child was but three years old, and I was forced to raise Immy myself. Not that I minded; it was preferable to living with my lady wife’s highjinks. All the same — I never undertook to marry again. Hadn’t the desire for it, if you see what I mean.”

“I do understand. But the French lady?”

“Couldn’t stick the Viscount,” he answered bluntly, “and naturally, she must have appeared in his lordship’s eyes as rather tainted goods. I will not deny that Hélène achieved her wedding day already two months gone with my child. I suppose she thought to brave it out — to deceive the gentleman if necessary, and endure a loveless marriage, provided he could be kind to her — but the truth is, St. Eustace was the Devil’s own cub, and there was no living with him for any woman. Hélène sought my protection within six months of her marriage, and I saw the poor gel safely home to Paris with all possible speed. Set her up in a lovely little house in the Rue de Sèvres, and prepared for both of us to be happy. That would have been 1786, I suppose — the year of Julian’s birth. But what with one thing and another, I only saw my French family perhaps four times in a twelvemonth. And then the Revolution began, and it was hard to know where an Englishman’s duty lay.”

“Particularly an Englishman of the Whiggish persuasion,” I observed.

“That’s the rub,” he agreed. “We were all for liberty, at first — for the reign of Reason, and the power of a Constitution, and the curbing of royal prerogatives; it was like mother’s milk to us, don’t y’know. Even Harry was wild for French republicanism. But then he saw at first hand the excesses of the populists bent on murdering all those they could not persuade. He wrote back to his friends at home that measures would have to be contrived, once the blood began to flow. And so we all agreed to serve as the rescue party for our French brothers. Charles Grey conceived of the details, and Harry and I volunteered to carry them out.”

“With Lord Holland as your second,” I mused.

“Exactly so! Are you acquainted with Henry?”

“Not at all.”

“Must introduce you. Old friend of Harry’s from schoolboy days.”

“And so the boy — Julian Thrace — was rescued and given over to you in Marseille,” I persisted, “in the winter of 1792.”

“He was then but six years of age. I could not leave the lad in France, of course, but I did not think it right to bring him home to the Holbrook nursery — there were Immy’s feelings to consider, and the awkwardness of questions. Henry — Lord Holland — suggested that Julian might be sent to school with the Swiss, where Holland might observe him from time to time, and send reports as to his progress. It served very well. Holland and his lady had made a habit of living abroad—first in France and then in Spain — and it was as nothing to them to pay a flying visit to Julian several times a year. They have even had the boy to stay in their household. Yes, it answered very well.”

So well that the boy’s father had never been put to the slightest trouble beyond paying his son’s bills. That should answer a man of Freddy Vansittart’s indolence very well indeed.

“What were your feelings, sir, upon hearing that Julian Thrace was believed responsible for your daughter’s murder?”

“I thought it the grossest misunderstanding, and could only lament that Julian had bolted — not from want of courage, to be sure, but a lamentable ignorance of the British system of justice. I never believed him capable of killing Imogen. Why should he, after all? There was no claim he was required to prove in order to inherit the title. I should always have known him for my son; his nose is my father’s, after all, and his eyes are entirely Hélène’s. Besides, there were the rubies to think of. The little chap arrived in Marseille with them tied in a leather pouch under his shirt, like one of Ali Baba’s thieves.”

“The rubies?” I repeated blankly. “Not the Rubies of Chandernagar?”

“He has told you of them, then!” Holbrook exclaimed with delight. “An heirloom of Hélène’s house, and owned at one time by Madame de Pompadour, if the old stories may be believed. I think Hélène expected me to sell the stones, in order to support our son’s education; but that is nonsense, of course. The stones are his inheritance from his mother, and must remain in his possession until he determines to place them about the neck of another.”

Poor Mamma, I thought ruefully, and her blistered palms. The Earl rose from the settee and wandered restlessly towards the window, where the prospect of lake and parapet could dimly be seen through the rain. “A black coach, and an outrider; that will be your excellent brother, Miss Austen. I do so dread a publick recital of Charles Spence’s affairs. He is, after all, family. Cannot we agree to bury the truth with the poor fellow’s body? Publicity cannot return Imogen to life, after all.”

“That is true,” I assented, “but the truth could do much to clear your son’s name. That must seem essential, as Mr. Thrace is all that remains to you.”

“Julian?” The Earl glanced at me ruefully. “He shall be well on his way to Switzerland by now, and such friends as he still possesses. I suspect it will be months before I am able to locate him; and many months more before he will consent to receive me.”

“I do not think he is fled to the Continent,” I replied, with a swift recollection of Catherine Prowting’s nocturnal wanderings, “and you will be happy to learn, sir, that not all your son’s friends are so far from home. An application in the right place should secure his return before nightfall, if you will consent to place the matter in my hands.”

“I cannot conceive of a better course,” Holbrook said simply. “Pray tell me in what manner I may serve you in return, Miss Austen.”

“You might order Major Spence’s valet to search his effects,” I suggested, “for a Bengal chest that was once in Lord Harold’s possession. It contains all that remains of the gentleman — and I have sorely missed the whole since Charles Spence made off with it.”

“It shall be done,” the Earl replied, and bowed low over my hand. “Now tell me, Miss Austen — how came we never to meet when Harry was alive? Do you never get up to Town for the Season?”

He is a stout fellow, and clearly given over entirely to dissipation — but Freddy Vansittart does possess an infinite abundance of charm, as Lord Harold once noted. In this quality alone, we may certainly recognise Julian Thrace’s father.