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boy.”
    Pain throbbed behind Nell’s forehead. Blast it, this wasn’t a good time for a headache. “Then why did you say—?”
    “But I did see something. Yesterday I was over at arrivals. I tend to alternate, just for a change of scenery, you know. When the last train came in, only two passengers got off, a man and woman yelling at each other like howling banshees.”
    “What did they say?” Nell gave the ghost a hopeful smile. His information might be worthless, but they had nothing else to go on.
    “Give me a moment to think, here. I eavesdrop a lot, you know. Sometimes it’s hard to sort out one conversation in the jumble.” He twiddled his hat in his hands. “Ah, here we go. Tall girl, yellow-haired. Right side of thirty, but not by much, I’d say. Still had an impressive, uh…” He looked down at his chest.
    “Bosom?” Nell supplied. That matched the description Lord Michael, the ghost, had given, as well as Tom’s account of his wife. She tried not to glance down at her own unimpressive endowments.
    “Ahem. Quite right. Very impressive, so I couldn’t help but notice. Anyway, the chap with her—boring-looking fellow, he was. No beard, dapper clothes, posh accent but a mean look about his face. Old enough to be her da, but looking at her, ah, figure like he was no relation, if you catch my drift.”
    Nell’s memory for the spoken word was excellent. She didn’t need to write anything down. Every voice had its own pitch and timbre and cadence, and she automatically tapped into that when she listened. Then she could recall every word as if it were a musical note, every conversation as if it were a score.
    “Anyway, the chap says, ‘Let’s go get the little blighter now,’ but the girl says, ‘No, let’s wait until later, when the school has settled down for the night.’ They argued a bit, but she won. Hauled him off to the tavern for a bite of supper before they went up to the school.”
    “And did either of them say anything about where they were going or what they were doing after they retrieved the boy from the school?”
    “Had to meet a man, the chap said. London, maybe, or could be Southampton or Dover. Said she shouldn’t’ve ditched the brat. She said if they’d known he’d be so important, she wouldn’t’ve. Anyway he’s the one who told her to in the first place. Chap didn’t much care for that. Told her to just get on with it, while he rented a coach to take them east.”
    “So if they rented a coach last night, they could be halfway to London by now.” Nell looked over her shoulder at Tom as he approached. “Did you hear either of them call the other by name, sir? Any idea who they were?”
    “Moll, I think he called her. Chuckles, she called him. I figured it was one of those ironic nicknames, on account of him being such a gloomy bugger.” The ghost snorted out a laugh.
    “Just a moment, Nell.” Tom pulled his leather credentials case from the breast pocket of his overcoat. “Can you ask your friend if he—or she—has seen this woman? She’d be older now by about nine years.”
    Of course Tom carried a photograph of his missing wife. Nell took the offending scrap of paper and found a tiny reproduction of what was probably a larger cabinet card. She held it out to the ghost. “Could this have been the woman you saw? The portrait is several years old.” Nell had wondered if Tom would make the leap to thinking the “aunt” might be Charlie’s mother.
    The ghost squinted, scratched his nose, and squinted again. “Aye. That’s her all right. Unless she has a sister.”
    Nell handed the photo back to Tom. “It’s her, unless she has a sister.” She’d been required to glance at the image for herself, now that this was the woman they were hunting. Buxom and blonde, the girl in the portrait was about as much Nell’s opposite as another female could be. She also sported a come-hither smile that made nausea roil in Nell’s stomach. Only a first-rate beauty