Wren watched him march off, not toward the academy as Wren had expected, but out the garden gate into the street.
And a little grey bird with a queer black mask flitted after him.
Prior to Shrike’s transformation, he and Wren had agreed to meet at Rochester Cathedral, on the assumption that Wren would enter the academy where no bird could follow. While things had not quite gone according to that plan, it would serve just as well to allow Shrike to follow Tolhurst whilst Wren investigated Miss Flora.
“What is it you have to tell me, Mr Lofthouse.” Miss Flora’s sharp words jerked Wren out of his avian musings. Her impatient tone did not allow for the slightest hint of a question.
Wren thought it prudent to come straight to his point. “It’s not so much what I have to tell you as it is what I hope you will tell me. Do forgive my impertinence in asking, but when did you last hear from yourfiancé?”
Miss Flora’s glower suggested she had endured more than enough impertinence already that afternoon. Yet her voice remained cold and indifferent as she replied, “I had a letter from him in the first week of May.”
Some weeks prior. “Again, I hesitate to enquire, but I assure you I must. What, pray tell, did this letter impart?”
Miss Flora raised her brows.
Wren supposed he must offer up information of his own if he expected to receive anything from her in return. While he couldn’t tell her of Felix’s death, he could give her something truthful for her trouble. “It is only, I fear Mr Knoll may have begun to reap what he has sown.”
Comprehension dawned upon Miss Flora’s face. Surprise did not arrive alongside it.
Wren continued. “A gentleman has visited Mr Grigsby to enquire after Mr Knoll’s debts. It seems this gentleman has not succeeded in contacting Mr Knoll for some months now. Mr Grigsby himself has neither seen nor heard from Mr Knoll since the second of May.”
Still, Miss Flora didn’t appear in any way astonished.
“Did his letter mention any intention on his part to travel?” Wren asked. “Abroad, perhaps?”
“Nothing of the kind,” Miss Flora replied. “He said only that unfortunate circumstances necessitated his withdrawal from university, and he did not anticipate our wedding could occur before he returned to take a degree.”
“Any hint as to his intentions between withdrawing from university and returning to it?” Wren pressed.
“He claimed certain matters of business required his attention. I presume,” she added dryly, “from your presence her, that he alluded to his debts.”
“You presume correctly.” Wren could admit that much, at least.
Miss Flora looked neither shocked nor satisfied to hear it. “Have you found the missing papers yet?”
“What?” blurted Wren, startled.
Miss Flora remained the very picture of perfect calm. “The certain papers which vanished from Mr Grigsby’s office on the same day Felix came to Rochester to convalesce.”
Ah. Those papers. Wren tried his best to appear indifferent to their fate. “No, I haven’t.”
“Has Mr Grigsby noted their absence?”
Wren had never expected her to remember his asking after them in the first place. He found himself ill-equipped to answer her with anything other than honesty. “No, he hasn’t. They were not so important to him as they are to me.”
“I see.” She glanced away from him to consider the middle distance. “May I task you with something, Mr Lofthouse?”
Wren’s surprise wasn’t enough to overpower the instinctive reply of, “I am at your service, Miss Fairfield.”
A pained and bitter smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. “Would you be so kind as to discourage Mr Grigsby from meeting with Mr Tolhurst?”
This did nothing to lessen Wren’s astonishment.
“Ideally,” she continued when it became apparent his bewilderment overcame his speech, “with subtlety and discretion. Only, I do not wish Mr Tolhurst to be alone with Mr Grigsby at present. I am concerned he may make certain enquiries or ask certain favours which would make matters awkward for… well, for everyone, really.”
Wren could barely follow her reasoning. Still, it seemed easy enough. As a clerk he would as a matter of course remain in the background of Mr Grigsby’s office and bear witness to all that occurred within it. If his mere presence would prove enough to prevent Tolhurst from saying whatever it was Miss Flora did not wish him to say, then Wren saw no reason not to do as she asked. “You have my word, Miss Fairfield. And my discretion.”
Before he could question her further on the point, she had curtsied, turned on her heel, and vanished back into Mrs Bailiwick’s Academy.
