Sometime during the night, a soaked Dr. Bagot hurried down the hall, wet boots squeaking, breathing hard. He hurried into the chamber and did not come back out.
Meg covered her face with both hands. She wanted to be inside. She wanted to help.
But she was not certain Lord Cunningham would let her even if she could.
“Well?” Tom stared at the crinkled letters that Mr. Telfner spread out across his ink-stained counter.
Another grunt.
A closer glance through his quizzing glass.
Then Mr. Telfner straightened, nodding his head as if he had determined something significant. “It is most certainly wove paper.”
“I need more than that. What about the black edges?”
“Yes, indeed. The edges.” Mr. Telfner scratched his oiled black hair, and turned his attention back to a package of uncut quills. He spread five on the counter before he went to work with his penknife. “Mourning, to be sure. I have heard of the sentiment, but have yet to see it practiced.” He glanced up at Tom with a smile. “Until today, of course.”
“Then you did not line the pages?”
“I should think not.” Mr. Telfner pointed at the letters with his knife. “You must examine the edges, my good boy. They are uneven, and too much ink has been applied so as to make the paper overly saturated. Work of someone inept, and certainly no job I would lay claim to, even if I had done it.”
Exasperation rippled across Tom’s shoulders. He should have known this would lead him nowhere. Everything else did. “And the handwriting?”
“The most fascinating of all.” Mr. Telfner glowed as if the puzzle—the mystery—was a playful challenge to his intelligence. “It is very strained and deliberate. Notice how many places the pen stilled, as if mind and hand did not work in effortless rhythm.”
“Which means?”
“Either the writer used a hand they are not wont to using.”
“Or?”
“They are mimicking the writing of someone else.” Mr. Telfner shrugged. “Either way, of course, the author of such letters wishes to remain unidentified.”
Tom gathered the letters, stuffed them back into his pockets. He took a deep breath that smelled of papery vanilla and Mr. Telfner’s too-strong hair oil. “Thank you, sir.”
“Come by more often. The street is not the same without you and …” He seemed to think better of speaking her name, so he coughed and said instead, “Mrs. Musgrave will wish to see you, to be sure. You will call on her?”
“Yes.” Tom started for the door—
“And boy?”
“Yes?”
“It is not much, but as most periods of mourning are less than two years, perhaps that shall aid in your search.” When Tom didn’t respond, Mr. Telfner shrugged. “Our unknown author, it would seem, has lost someone they very much loved.”
Which was exactly what would happen to Tom if he could not discover who that person was.
“Dr. Bagot.” Meg fell in step beside the man, aware that blood ringed his fingernails. Earlier that morning, she’d witnessed Jenny hurrying back into the chamber with the leech jar. “How is she?”
“She would be better if you had allowed her nurse to follow my instructions.”
“With all due respect, sir, I did not think it wise.”
“You have enough knowledge of medicine to gainsay common practice then.” His steps quickened. “Remarkable, Miss Foxcroft. Especially for one who cannot remember her own name.”
She accepted the injury without so much as a blink. “You do not answer me.”
“The child will live.”
