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At Matlock House, the same afternoon, Elizabeth was engaged in a much happier discussion. Lady Caroline Sefton had invited a party to Ashcombe Park in Surrey for several days of music and riding before the weather turned. Elizabeth had been asked to join them with Mrs. Ashby, a widowed cousin of Lady Matlock, and two servants. Darcy intended to follow after attending to business at Pemberley; Richard had promised to appear for the final dinner if the army did not reclaim him first.

"We shall be obliged to enjoy ourselves before winter," Elizabeth said, reading the invitation aloud.

"A dreadful burden," Lady Matlock agreed.

"Ashcombe has a fine library," Saye said. "And a road which floods whenever anyone describes it as convenient. Use the southern approach."

Richard looked up from a newspaper. "You have never trusted a road unless it has been surveyed by at least three men and approved by the tenants."

"That is why my carriages ordinarily arrive," Saye answered.

"And why mine arrive with interesting stories," Richard returned.

The Earl, who had been listening, turned to Elizabeth. "Mrs. Ashby is an excellent companion, and Lady Caroline's house is beyond reproach. You should go. We have permitted the Falkenried affair to occupy every cheerful hour for too long."

"Will Uncle Albrecht think me neglectful?" Elizabeth asked.

"He has promised to dine with us tomorrow and may be persuaded to talk with you for three hours before you go," Lady Matlock said. "I suspect he would approve of anything that made you happy."

As it happened, Albrecht did approve. He examined the invitation with the solemn care of a man unaccustomed to surrendering the privilege of spoiling a newfound niece to other people.

"When Minna was young," he told Elizabeth, "she believed every invitation could be improved by a plan of her own. She would have gone to a house party for the pleasure of escaping whichever person was expected to govern her."

"You must not encourage Elizabeth," Saye said. "She already treats maps as objects to be corrected by opinion."

"I consider that a mark of spirit," Albrecht replied.

"A fatal alliance," Richard murmured.

The arrangement of the visit became known throughout the household. Servants consulted timetables, altered the packing lists, and ordered the hired travelling carriage suited to Mrs. Ashby's comfort. Saye asked his steward to recommend a reliable conveyance for the Surrey roads. The family had no reason to suppose that an invitation delivered in daylight could be dangerous.

Adelheid heard of the visit during a call made several days later. Lady Matlock mentioned it casually while discussing Elizabeth's wedding arrangements.

"She will enjoy a change," the countess said. "So much attention has been paid to her lately that I fear she has forgotten the pleasure of an ordinary country visit."

"When is she to depart?" Adelheid asked.

"Early next month, I believe. Mrs. Ashby knows the roads well, and I have asked our steward to see that the arrangements are comfortable."

Adelheid set down her teacup carefully. "What a sensible precaution. You are fortunate in your household, Lady Matlock."

The conversation turned to music. Adelheid contributed a few observations about an Italian singer and left after the proper interval. Her smile did not falter, but she had already calculated how quickly the information could reach Vogel.

That evening, writing in a hand disguised by deliberate care, she supplied the essential particulars of the visit without naming the proposed victim. Vogel would know whom she meant. She sealed the message inside a request for information about a parcel and entrusted it to a hired messenger, instructing him to deliver it to an address given on the outer cover.

Before midnight Vogel had the letter. He found it astonishing that Adelheid believed indirect words made him less capable of understanding her wishes. A date, a road, and an arrangement for a travelling party were sufficient. He made another entry in his account and began considering whom he could employ without drawing the attention of the authorities.

He settled upon a driver called Jonas Pike, a man with debts, decent hands upon a team, and a weakness for opportunities that promised money without honest labour. Vogel had used him before for conveyances of dubious legitimacy. Pike could follow a route and keep silent about his employer if paid enough. Whether he would possess the nerve to execute an arrangement intended to injure a lady was less certain.

Vogel did not need to approach the Matlock steward. The steward had always used Whitcomb and Sons, a respected London coaching firm, for conveyances that the family carriages could not conveniently undertake. Whitcomb sometimes obtained a spare coachman or a relay of horses from Vogel’s smaller concern. A normal booking would pass through Whitcomb’s yard and appear to have no connection with him at all. Vogel learned of the booking through the Whitcomb yard clerk who regularly requested spare hands from him. Claiming that his best relief driver was free on precisely the required morning, he persuaded the clerk to request that man instead of Whitcomb’s overburdened regular coachman. The clerk had no reason to think the change unusual. A substitution was entered upon the firm’s ordinary dispatch slip: Jonas Pike, furnished by Voss’s business. The carriage itself and its horses would be Whitcomb’s; only the man holding the reins would be Vogel’s choice.

He was careful to preserve the appearance of ordinary business. Whitcomb’s dispatch book would show the coach and the substituted driver, while his own concern would hold the invoice for Pike’s hire. The two entries were innocuous when read separately. Vogel counted upon nobody having reason to compare them.

When they met near a coaching yard, Vogel described the work as an opportunity to delay a journey and upset a carriage upon a difficult stretch of road. He did not say that the passenger was the ward of an earl; he said only that certain papers must not arrive at their destination and that the delay should be made to look like mishap.

Pike listened with a troubled expression.

"I will not have a death upon my conscience," he said.