“Nil nisi bonum, Emerson,” I murmured.

“Ha!” said Emerson.

“It is a pity,” said Ramses, who had been watching his father closely, “that there wan’t time for him to satisfy our curiosity about other things. How did he find out about Percy?”

“He didn’t.” Emerson’s face was transformed by a look of paternal pride. “That discovery was yours, my boy, and yours alone. Russell wasn’t entirely convinced by your reasoning initially, but after he had had time to think about it he concluded that you had made a strong case. He decided he had no right to take the full responsibility, so he went straight to Maxwell. I gather it was not a pleasant interview! Russell stuck to his guns, though, and after storming and swearing, Maxwell agreed to cooperate until the matter could be settled one way or the other. Maxwell informed Sethos, who volunteered to have a look round the place himself.”

“Lucky for me he did,” Ramses said.

“Yes,” Emerson agreed. “I—er—I owe him for that. And for other things.”

“If you’d rather not speak of it,” Nefret began.

“I would rather not, but I must. I had believed that that part of my life was over, forgotten, obliterated. I was wrong. One never knows when a ghost from the past will come back to haunt one.”

He was silent for a time, however, his head bowed and his countenance grave but calm. He had not been so unmoved when he told me part of the story early that morning, as we rode back to the house.

“My mother was the daughter of the Earl of Radcliffe. Why she married my father, who was a simple country gentleman without title or wealth, I never knew. There was… one must suppose there was an attraction. It must have ended early in their marriage. My earliest memories are of contemptuous words and bitter reproaches from her to him, for failing to live up to her expectations. As I was to learn, that would have been impossible. Her demands were too great, her ambitions too high. He had, I believe, no desire to improve his position in the world. He was like Walter, gentle and easygoing, but with an inner core of firmness; while he lived, life was not entirely unpleasant. He died when I was fourteen, and then…

“She had already decided I was to be the man my father refused to be. When I resisted she tried various means to control me. The worst was what she did to Walter. We had been at the same school until then. You know what they were like, even the best of them; brutal discipline and legalized bullying were thought to make men out of boys. I was big for my age and ready to fight back, but Walter would have had a bad time if I had not been there to take his part.

“She separated us. He was becoming a mollycoddle and a coward, she said, and it was time he stood on his own feet. When I came home for the Christmas holidays the year after my father died, I had not seen Walter for months; he wasn’t even allowed to write me. That night it was snowing heavily, and it was in the snow I saw them—a woman and a boy, struggling through the drifts. I caught only a glimpse of his face, so distorted with strain and anger, it was unrecognizable. When I reached the house I told her—my mother—that we must find them and offer them shelter, and that was when I learned the woman had been my father’s mistress, that she had come to her former friend asking for help and had been turned away. You heard what happened. She kept me locked in my room till the following day.

“Well, to make a long story short, there was no way I could trace them; I had no money and no power. Matters went from bad to worse after that night. I was about to go up to Oxford when I discovered she was arranging a marriage for me, with the vapid daughter of a local aristocratic imbecile—and then, like an answer to prayer, I inherited a small amount of money from one of my father’s cousins. It provided enough income to enable me to pursue my studies and take Walter away from his hellish school. For years he had been torn between his fear and dislike of her and what he considered his filial duty; she made it clear to him that he would have to choose between us, that if he came to me she would never see him or speak to him again. So that settled that.

“Much later I did make an attempt to mend matters.” He smiled at me, his blue eyes softening. “It was because of you and Ramses, Peabody; caring as I did for you, I thought perhaps she regretted losing her sons and would be willing to let bygones be bygones. I was wrong. She would not see me. She did not send for me in her last illness, though she knew how to find me. I heard of her death from her lawyers. They told me she tried with her last breath to keep me from inheriting, but she had only the income from her father’s money while she lived; in accordance with the patriarchal tradition, the capital went to her eldest son. I haven’t touched it. It is yours, Ramses, as is the house that has been in my father’s family for two hundred years. So if you are thinking of—er—settling down and—er… Well, you are now in a position to support a family.”

He looked hopefully from Ramses to Nefret. When the true state of affairs had dawned on my dear Emerson I could not be certain, but he would have to have been blind, deaf, and feeble-witted if he misinterpreted the nature of their affection now. Of course he would claim, as he always did, that he had known all along. There was one aspect of that relationship of which he was certainly unaware. Ramses would never have mentioned it to his father, and Emerson had not been present when Nefret broke down and confessed—finding, I hoped, a greater understanding than she had dared expect.

It was not likely Emerson would be as sympathetic. I decided on the spot that it was none of his business.

Ramses had been as startled as the rest of us by these revelations, but he had sense enough not to refuse the offer. “Thank you, sir. But Uncle Walter’s children must have their fair share. And… another of my cousins.”

There was no need for him to explain. As soon as I knew Sethos and Hamilton were one and the same, I had realized who Molly might be.

“We cannot be certain,” I said thoughtfully. “Bertha was Sethos’s mistress, but the child she was carrying fourteen years ago might not have been his.”

“Fourteen years?” Emerson repeated. “Good Gad, has it been that long? Then it can’t be the same child. This girl is—what did you tell me—twelve years of age.”

“We had only her word for that. I did think she was remarkably mature for her age.”

“What do you mean?” inquired Emerson, staring.

I carefully avoided looking at Ramses, who was carefully not looking at me, and decided to spare him public embarrassment. He had been through quite enough in the past twenty-four hours.

“You were misled by her dreadful clothing on the occasion of our first encounter with her,” I explained in a kindly manner. “Even for a child of twelve they were old-fashioned and out of date—but then, so was Miss Nordstrom. I thought nothing of it at the time, but later she was dressed more suitably for her age, and I couldn’t help noticing… Women do notice such things. So do some men, and I am pleased to find that you are not one of them.”

“It’s all conjecture,” said Emerson stubbornly. “Sethos probably has a dozen… Oh, very well, Peabody , I apologize. Whoever her parents were, the child is not our responsibility. He made all the necessary arrangements for her several years ago, when he entered the service, and Maxwell assured me she would be well-provided for.”

“You asked about her?” It was Ramses who spoke. His face was even more unreadable than usual because of the bruises.

“Of course,” Emerson grumbled. “Well, I had to, didn’t I? Couldn’t leave the child alone in the world. I admit I was relieved when Maxwell told me Sethos was… told me the matter was taken care of. He does not know about the—er—the family relationship, and unless one of you can give me a reason why I should, I do not intend to tell him.”