Jenks emerged as usual as soon as he entered the house. The butler betrayed no surprise, merely took Solomon’s hat and coat. “Your guest is in the sitting room, sir.”
Solomon regarded him. “You know it isn’t me.”
“I have been with you for more than two years.”
“And so I should know better than to ask if you’ve told anyone else your…suspicion.”
“You should, sir.”
“Then I shan’t. Thank you, Jenks.” Solomon strode forward, then paused, saying awkwardly, “How is he?”
“I could not say. He eats.”
“It’s a start,” Solomon said. “Any…unusual visitors?”
“None at all, sir. One moment.” Jenks vanished into his cubbyhole and emerged with a thick pile of letters in one hand. “These arrived while you were gone. I took the liberty of keeping them for you.”
So David had still to earn Jenks’s trust. As Solomon had to earn David’s. He smiled crookedly, took the letters, and went in search of his brother.
David was already on his feet in the middle of the room, facing him like a mirror image. “I thought I heard your voice. Do you want your house back?”
Solomon glanced around the room. His brother had not brought many changes, apart from several pieces of paper strewn across the sofa and the floor around it.
“Not yet,” Solomon said, walking forward and bending to pick up the nearest sheet of paper. “The case in Surrey is not yet concluded. I came back to be sure all was well.”
“Did you think I might have bolted?”
“Yes.”
To his surprise, David’s eyes lightened. “I almost did. The walls were pressing in on me. I went out, meaning to lose myself in London and take the first ship that would have me on its crew.”
“What changed your mind?”
“You. Me. Fear, probably. And…and the fact that I remembered a name.”
Jenks appeared then with a tray of breakfast and coffee. While David hastily gathered up the strewn papers, whichshowed drawings rather than writing, Solomon glanced at the one in his hand.
Constance gazed up at him, her expression of both humor and challenge so familiar that it caused his heart to jolt. Her enigmatic smile glinted in her eyes and curved those fascinating lips so that he almost touched them. The artist, who could only have been David, had caught the extra little upward quirk of her mouth, the precise tilt of her head…
“She told me you have talent,” Solomon said, dragging his gaze back to David, who was watching him tensely. The last time David had been in London, she had gone to his lodgings to persuade him to see Solomon.
David grimaced. “It passed the time on long voyages.”
And in effective house arrest, no doubt.
“Will that be all, sir?” Jenks asked.
“Yes. Thank you, Jenks.”
Solomon, who had not yet broken his fast, heard his stomach rumble. He set the sketch of Constance on top of the pile David had gathered on the sofa, and he and his brother sat down at the dining table.
“You remembered a name,” Solomon reminded him. “Whose?”
“The captain of the ship where I saw the merchant die. He was Captain Blake. Jordan Blake, I think, and his ship was theMary Anne. Does that help?”
“It should do. Well done. There’s been nothing in any of the newspapers I’ve seen about Chase’s murder, let alone about identifying a culprit, so we should still have time to find out enough to clear you.”
Deep in thought, it took Solomon most of his substantial breakfast to realize that he did not feel remotely uncomfortable in his brother’s presence. He was glad he had come.
