Page 45 of A Murder at Kew Gardens

She took one look at my face and offered no further objection.

Her elbow was rigid under my hand for the first three steps. By the fourth, it was merely unforgiving.

As we reached the far end of the corridor, Finch's voice drifted after us: “And cheese as well, Mr. Milford, if it wasn’t too much trouble.”

"Good God, man," from Inspector Graves.

Rosalynd made a small sound that in anyone less angry might have been a laugh. It gave me hope. Not much. A duke learns to govern on thin majorities.

The library curtains stood half drawn against the westering sun. The fire was laid but not kindled. I did not ring for anyone to kindle it. What was coming would want no witnesses. And in any case, I expected the temperature of the room to be supplied by its occupants.

No sooner had I closed the door than she demanded, "What is going on?"

I could have lied. A month ago I would have offered half-truths, enough to satisfy her curiosity and not enough to place her in danger. But Rosalynd was too intelligent for that. Too curious. And she had heard enough to know there was more. If I continued to lie to her, she would not retreat. She would continue on her own. And that I could not have.

She had heard keep her alive. She had heard the river and Hammersmith. The only question remaining was whether she would have the whole architecture from me now, or excavate it herself with a teaspoon—and her work with a teaspoon was formidable.

Besides, I was tired. Not of her—never of her—but of keeping the secrets from her. "We're conducting a separate investigation."

"Into what, exactly?"

"Into the masked man from the Thames investigation."

"Why?"

"I decided the earth had harbored him too long."

"You're not planning to kill him?"

"He deserves it for what he has done. But no. Once we have identified him, he'll be turned over to the authorities. And let the Crown deal with him."

She studied me a moment longer than the answer warranted. Satisfied—or filing the point for later, one never knew which—she moved on.

"Finch and Graves are involved, I gather?"

"As well as Whitfield, the accountant I employed during the Opera House investigation."

"Finch and Whitfield I can understand. You pay them, of course. But Graves is Scotland Yard. How did you obtain his cooperation?"

There was the truth. But something held me back, first and foremost, her reaction.

"How long has this separate investigation been going on?"

I’d hesitated too long. "A month or so."

Her gaze narrowed. "Around the same time the Opera House investigation concluded, then."

"About then, yes."

She had begun to pace the room the way Graves paces a crime scene—unhurried, missing nothing. I recognized the method. It was my own, and it had never before been aimed at me.

She walked up to stare long and hard at me. Suspicion shone in her eyes. "How did you get Graves's cooperation, Steele?"

At close range her eyes were extraordinary, an inconvenient thing to notice while being cross-examined. "Her Majesty allowed it."

"Allowed? So you requested her help."

"Not her, precisely. Scotland Yard's."