Longstaffe gave him a look. “Hell, Hawk. That describes half the men in London. Particularly the older ones.”
“He was not old.”
Blackwell’s gaze narrowed. “A young man, then. Or young enough. Attended a masquerade five years ago in a wolf mask and favored an aggressive scent.”
Put like that, it sounded incredibly weak.
Longstaffe pushed away from the mantel. “Do you know anything else about him?”
Gideon’s jaw tightened.
He would have liked more. Height. Voice. Accent. Hell, anything. But he didn’t have it. And pressing Beatrice on that memory again was not an option. Not yet. Perhaps never.
“That’s all I have at present.”
Blackwell stared at Gideon and then narrowed his eyes. “And yet you want every guest list from every masquerade that Season.”
“Yes.”
“For a man in a wolf mask who smelled of cloves and oranges.”
“Yes.”
A pause.
Blackwell did not ask why. Not in words.
Gideon met his stare and gave him nothing.
At last, Blackwell leaned back. “Then we narrow it. Guest lists first. Men of the right age, known to have worn the mask of a wolf. Men who wore too much scent. Men whose reputations might just make the detail worth pursuing.”
Longstaffe’s mouth flattened. “Very well, then.”
Blackwell was silent for a moment, plainly weighing the near impossibility of the request.
Then his attention moved, deliberate and exact, to the other matter.
“Have you made any progress in your investigation?”
Gideon looked at him.
“Groby,” Blackwell said. “You watched him for the better part of a week. What did you learn?”
“That he spends money like a man who is expecting to come into a great deal more of it,” Gideon said. “Gaming rooms. Taverns. Tailors. Jewelers. Always spending. Often losing. Never especially troubled by it.”
Longstaffe’s mouth flattened. “So he is confident.”
“Very.”
Blackwell studied him. “Anything else?”
Gideon thought of the letter he’d opened after Beatrice left.
It had been from Daniels, who’d traced two of Groby’s associates to Kingston upon Thames. Two witnesses claimed Groby had been with them on the week before. But that was impossible.
Because Groby had been in London.
It had to have been a mistake.
