Page 104

Lord Chandler straightened. “Your Grace?”

“I asked what we know. Not what you have failed to learn.”

Admiral Tribideau opened one of the ledgers. “They could not have left Old Town without passing through one of the city gates. Every cart and wagon is being checked. People are being searched for medallions. None of the gate records mention anything amiss.”

“Of course the records wouldn’t mention it. If a member of a secret society were sneaking in and out of Old Town, they would’ve paid someone to keep their mouth shut,” I said. Everyone just stared at me. “Is there anyone on the gates who owes debts or has connections to Monsieur Demarque? Have we even asked these questions?”

They shook their heads. I was beginning to wonder if they had been taking this investigation seriously at all.

“I expect you to have intelligence on every person who works the gates and the port of entry,” I said.

I opened my journal to the page where I had copied the name Cora gave me. The man we intended to search for once she got her magick back tonight.

“Have any of you heard of a man named Hartley?” I inquired. The name tasted like ash in my mouth. “I understand he wears an old naval officer’s jacket even though I can’t find record of him ever serving in the fleet.”

Lord Chandler looked up sharply. “Hartley?” He leaned back in his chair. “Tall fellow. Brown hair. Walks with a crutch.”

My nostrils flared. I tried not to think about the way Cora’s heart betrayed her insistence that she didn’t know him very well. I wondered if she’d let him kiss her, or if that was a rule set only for me.

“Yes,” I said. “What do you know about him?”

“He’s a gambler,” Lord Chandler replied, taking a sip of ale and wiping the foam from his bristly mustache. “And not a particularly good one. I’ve caught him moving unregistered cargo. When I questioned him, he claimed he needed the extra coin for his pain medicine. I took sympathy on him once or twice, until Old Pete told me he wasn’t buying medicine at all, but gambling away everything he owned—the lout.”

I wondered whether Hartley had been paid for moving the cargo at all. If he owed the wrong people money, they might have expected him to work off the debt.

“The next time I caught him, I threw him in a cell for a night, and that scared him off the docks,” Chandler said. “But Old Pete claims he’s seen him working firework nights at the Lanterns to shave a few coins off his debt. Or shall I say Les Jardins de Minuit, now that they are under new ownership.”

I knew Les Jardins des Lanternes. Everyone in Valemer did. Simply called The Lanterns, they were notorious amongst Valemer ne’er-do-wells. A place to be seen, enjoy outdoor music, and indulge in public displays of lust with only ornamental hedges to provide privacy. I hadn’t heard they’d been bought.

“Who owns The Lanterns now?” I asked.

Lord Chandler’s confidence faltered, and his attention shifted toward Severin.

“The grounds still belong to Valemer,” Severin answered. “However, The Minuit Company acquired the charter last year, restored the grounds, and renamed them.”

“The Minuit Company?” Another organization I didn’t know about. “Who owns it?”

“A consortium of private investors.”

I inclined my chin, waiting for him to elaborate.

Severin’s mouth tightened. “The charter names only their solicitor. Their taxes are remitted through a countinghouse in Mistfall.”

Mistfall.

I had dismissed the purple wax in Lou Demarque’s possession as a coincidence. A countinghouse did not make Edmond guilty, but the coincidence was beginning to resemble a pattern.

“Who approved this charter?”

“I did,” Severin said. “When The Minuit Company applied to take over the gardens last year, I examined them as part of the inquiry into suspicious activity that the High Prince ordered. The previous proprietor was insolvent, and the grounds had become a favored place for illicit gambling and unregistered trade.”

“And this Minuit Company?” I asked.

“Their accounts were clean. They restored the grounds, doubled their employment, and have paid every tax levied against them.”

Clean accounts meant very little when someone had taken such pains to conceal whose money filled them. The fact that Severin knew who operated one of Valemer’s most notorious establishments while I did not was another measure of how far I had withdrawn from my duchy.

That ended today.