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Coldwater’s name was found on a passenger log for a Boston-bound freighter. She sailed two days after Sir Wilfred’s death.”
    Napier hated lying—though strictly speaking, it was exactly what he’d seen . But that name, he suspected, had been the work of Lord Lazonby, or someone in his service. How hard could it be to bribe a clerk to jot down the name of an imaginary passenger?
    “Hmph! ” said Sir George. “Back to the States, eh? Well, we must find him there. We cannot have killers—even accidental ones—running from the Queen’s justice now, can we?”
    “No, sir. Of course not.”
    But this one, he said inwardly, we are never apt to catch.
    Sir George shook his head. “I greatly respected your father, Royden,” he said. “You must know that. But my God, how did he manage to bungle this old murder case so badly?”
    Napier was too proud to hang his head. “I do not know, sir,” he said again. “I am struggling to come to terms with it myself.”
    Which was the understatement of the century.
    “And now we have Rance Welham—or Lord Lazonby, I should say—exonerated after years of public humiliation and harassment by the newspapers,” Sir George complained. “And the real killer, Sir Wilfred Leeton, living a life of luxury—and being knighted for it! Really, it is too much to be borne.”
    Napier didn’t know what to believe.
    The case had begun years ago, when two young gentlemen had quarreled over a card game in Sir Wilfred’s home. Some had claimed the quarrel was more about a woman than cards, but however it had begun, it had ended with a duke’s son accusing Lazonby, then simply Mr. Welham, of cheating. The following day, the duke’s son had been found stabbed in his rooms.
    But now, if Lazonby was to be believed, Sir Wilfred had been the killer—and he’d been paid a lot of money by some very dangerous men to get rid of Lazonby, whose luck at the card tables had been intolerably good.
    The story held just enough credence to make Napier uneasy.
    “Recall, sir, if you will, that there was a witness—a porter at the Albany—who identified Lord Lazonby as the killer all those years ago.”
    “A witness, yes.” Sir George stared at him across the scarred wooden table. “One who recanted on his deathbed. One whom Lazonby has long claimed was bribed by someone. And I think we both now know who that someone was.”
    “Sir Wilfred, it would appear.” Napier cleared his throat a little roughly. He felt as if something was caught in it—his integrity, perhaps. “Well,” he finally added, “we’ll have our friends across the pond on the lookout for Mr. Coldwater. And I have placated poor Lady Leeton as best I can. I think she still cannot grasp her husband’s perfidy.”
    “Indeed, who can?”
    “Indeed. So . . . what further would you have me do, sir?”
    They both knew, however, it was a rhetorical question. The Crown’s original murder case was so old the files had damn near molded. One man stabbed and another dead by his own hand, and all of it over a card game turned ugly. And now, years later, Sir Wilfred had apparently confessed to the stabbing, and been accidentally shot.
    Allegedly accidentally shot.
    But in any case, there was nothing further to be done; everyone save Lazonby—and now Sir Arthur’s disturbing daughter—was dead or had vanished. And Lazonby had cleverly stymied Napier’s further investigative efforts, as he had been doing for years.
    But to be fair, had the Crown had left Lazonby with any choice?
    Oh, Napier would forever loathe the arrogant devil. It stung to admit, even to himself, he might have been mistaken about the man.
    Well, he hadn’t been mistaken, damn it. Not entirely.
    And neither had his father. In his youth, Lazonby had been a cardsharper of the worst order. More than a few men had thought the scoundrel had got what he deserved.
    “And this witness, this Elizabeth Ashton,” Sir George went on. “Went off to America and took her