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notarised statement from Humphrey Griffin, stating how he had forced Allan Day to sign the documents that had ruined him, laying out the lies, detailing the persecution he had subjected him to, all on the orders of Quentin, Lord Crane. The list of names to whom copies of that notarised statement were being sent, on the orders of Lucien, Lord Crane. The dry request that Stephen should supply names and addresses of any parties to whom further copies should be sent.
    He had opened an envelope and found in it his father’s long-lost reputation. And he had cried, then, kneeling in the hallway, for the first time in years.
    “How did you get Griffin to admit all that, Lord Crane?” he asked now, leaning forward. “It’s an admission of perjury as well as utterly disgraceful conduct. Why did he agree to write it?”
    “I am in the process of nailing Mr. Humphrey Griffin to the wall so thoroughly that future generations will mistake him for a tapestry,” said Crane. “Currently, he is under the impression that his cooperation may incline me not to press for a lengthy prison sentence for embezzlement, malpractice, extortion and perjury.”
    “Will it?”
    Crane smiled, not pleasantly. “No. But it scarcely matters. When I have finished with him, Mr. Griffin will be begging for an extra ten years in gaol, just to have walls between himself and me.”
    “Oh,” said Stephen. “Good.”
    Crane frowned. “I hope you’re not here because of that. You owe me nothing.”
    “No. I know.”
    “So I ask again, Mr. Day, why are you here?”
    “I’m here because I should be,” Stephen said. “It was rather childish of me to walk away in the first place. I dealt with the jack, so I have a feeling for the maker, and I know the Lychdale area. It’s obvious I should handle this.”
    Crane was looking at him with a raised brow. “It must have become obvious fairly recently, since Mr. Fairley introduced himself as your replacement yesterday.”
    “Ah.” Stephen cursed internally. “You met him.”
    “I did, yes. I can’t honestly say he inspired me with confidence in the matter of murder, although I’m sure that if I wanted a practitioner that I could take to all the best society parties and be sure of his many close acquaintances…”
    Stephen shut his eyes. “Yes, he does, um, feel the importance of birth and breeding quite strongly.”
    “Frankly, I thought he was an oleaginous prick. I assume he has hidden talents.”
    “I’m sure he does,” Stephen said, without conviction.
    Even after the miraculous letter had arrived, he had not wanted to do this. If Hector and Quentin Vaudrey had been murdered, they should have justice, but it could be at someone else’s hands. Then he had learned that the hands would be Fairley’s, a soft self-indulgent parlour magician whose only qualification was his social connection, and Stephen’s vow had stuck in his throat like a mouthful of brambles.
    It had nothing to do with the mental image of Crane’s long-fingered hands and lean, muscular, tattooed body, or the laugh lines around those lazy, perceptive grey eyes. Those irritatingly persistent memories gave him the strongest possible reason to stay away. No, it was as simple as it always was: justice had to be done. And since he had no authority to select the practitioner to do it, he had to do the job himself or stay out of the whole business.
    Crane was looking at him curiously. “So why did you send that obsequious twit in the first place?”
    “I didn’t,” said Stephen, slightly too honestly. “He, ah, he proposed himself. Feeling an earl would require a practitioner of birth and breeding.” Stephen’s talents outstripped Fairley’s to an almost embarrassing degree, but he was the son of a provincial nobody who had died destitute; Fairley was the son of a baronet. Taking the job back had led to a heated exchange. He quoted, woodenly, “Nobility has a certain je ne sais quoi that demands the presence of a gentleman,