“Is he?” the baroness said.
“I was also gratified that he chose to talk sense and not fill the air with impossible phrasings,” Kitty said, though she did not know why she felt she must defend her opinion.
“Well,” Lady Penderton said, leaning back with a satisfied smile, “Lord Grayson may not be a scholar, but he is no dullard.”
*
Having got pastMrs. Radish/Ra-deesh with only a few minutes of complaint about her tenant, Giles paced what little floor there was in Crackwilder’s apartment. “It is vital that I discover this Veritas, whoever he is. Tell me all about it.”
“Good Lord, Grayson,” Crackwilder said, amused. “Why on earth should you involve yourself in it?”
Giles stopped and stared at his friend. “I really do not know why everybody thinksI’mthe one who is stupid. Is it not obvious enough? Miss Dell is working on the mystery, therefore I must solve the mystery.”
“If I cannot solve it, I do not see how you could,” Crackwilder said.
“Tell me everything you know so far,” Giles said.
Crackwilder heaved a sigh. “There is not much to go on,” he said. He sipped his brandy and related the history of the original John Hill and how he’d managed to embarrass the society.
When Crackwilder had done, Giles poured himself a generous glass of brandy to settle his temper. These scholarly people were absurd! All along, they’d posed as deep thinkers intent on unraveling the world’s mysteries. They’d advertised themselves as having capabilities beyond the average man. The truth was, they lived in a strange little world where the most ridiculous thing was held vital. It was very like one of his old great aunts who spent every Christmas telling him of the goings on of her neighbors. At the last, he was meant to be riveted by the tale of a certain Mr. Johnson who’d given up cows and had gone to sheep. Mr. Johnson, if his elderly relation were to be believed, had shaken the entire county with this shocking development.
“So you are saying,” Giles said in a controlled tone, “the fellow wrote a paper about a woman conceivingfrom the airand a bunch of idiots debated it. And now, there is likely another fellow setting out to do the same thing?”
“In a nutshell,” Crackwilder said.
“And you do not find this ridiculous?” Giles asked.
“Somewhat,” Crackwilder admitted. “However, the society is not what it once was. There was a time they’d have even letyouin—it was more a distinction than any real scholarly attainment. John Hill’s complaints were not unwarranted.”
“The society needn’t bother inviting me,” Giles said derisively. “I would poison myself were I to find I’d taken an unnatural interest in houseflies or the innards of a toad.”
“Yes, yes,” Crackwilder said, waving his hands, “but you understand my meaning. The society is more rigorous now, despite various papers you find unworthy.”
Giles shrugged and wondered what in the world they were rigorous about, though he did not say so.
Crackwilder leaned forward. “Grayson, we are on the cusp of something, though we know not what. The world will not stay as it is. Changes will come, and they will come through science. It is not the housefly that is notable, it is understanding what the housefly can do and how it does it.”
“Very well,” Giles said, though he was not convinced, “far be it for me to hold back the marches of progress. However, my only interest in this mountain of absurdity is uncovering the fellow that seeks to disrupt it. Miss Dell wants him found, and so I want him found.”
“Weallwant him found.”
“I suspect it is Sir John,” Giles said, the notion just having come to him. He did not have any particular evidence to support the claim, but it would be very convenient if that villain actuallywasthe villain.
Crackwilder snorted. “It is not Sir John. I realize he is a thorn in your side, and he is not the most engaging fellow, but he is not your man.”
“How can you be certain?” Giles said. “Nobody seems to know much about him. Where is his title from, exactly? I have heard both Denmark and Sweden, but nobody seems to be sure.”
“Sir John, for all his awkward manners, is no mastermind,” Crackwilder said.
“I think I will make inquiries,” Giles said. “I have distant cousins all over Europe, I will write them. Perhaps they will know from where his title springs.”
Crackwilder laughed heartily over the idea. “If you do have such relations, I suspect you have never graced them with a single letter.”
Giles did indeed have distant cousins across Europe. His grandmother, and now his mother, were meticulous in documenting the family tree, which was old and vast. He, and everybody else in the family, received a Christmas letter documenting all the joyous recent additions and unfortunate to-be-mourned subtractions. And no, he had never written to any of them. He had not congratulated on marriages or births, nor condoled on illnesses and deaths.
But that did not mean he could not write now. He must just hope LaRue had put the latest letter somewhere safe. He’d not even opened it this year.
As he thought of it, he was becoming more and more certain that Sir John was the man he sought. He’d come from nowhere. Crackwilder said the original John Hill had been knighted by one of those northern European countries too, though he could not recall which. Was that not coincidental? And, did they not share a given name, both were Johns. Further, was it not Sir John who’d received the mysterious letter? Why him? Why not Banks—he was the president of the Royal Society. Why would a person who sought to discompose the society write to a nobody like Sir John?
