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hand. Anyone who trifled with me would end up with powder burns on his bollocks.
    I went into the kitchen to wash my hands and found Mrs. Drinkwater slumbering at the table with her chin propped in her hand. I prodded her chair with my foot as I went past and enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing her head flop forward and her eyes spring open. She looked wildly about the room.
    “It’s only me, Mrs. Drinkwater. Please have lunch ready at one o’clock. I’ll eat in my study.”
    I took her surly growl as acquiescence and retired to my study. There I sat down at the desk and drew forth a sheet of plain cream stock, with my name embossed upon it in ebony ink. I unscrewed the cap of my sterling silver pen (a present from an admirer; I do so love admirers) and flipped open the lid of the inkwell. Preparations complete, I sat and stared at the paper. In truth, I’m not a great one for writing letters. Oh, I write the odd note to the greengrocer or the wine merchant, but one can hardly call that correspondence. There are no maiden aunts in my life, nor kindly vicars who’ve taken an interest in my education (at least, not in the generally accepted sense of that phrase). I admit that my skill in the art of drafting missives is nonexistent. I don’t mind making such an admission, as there are dozens of other skills at which I excel. I disclose the foregoing, of course, to explain why it took such a long time for me to set pen to paper.
    I’d another consideration weighing on my mind, and that was the recipient of the letter. I have mentioned the Balmoral affair previously, and if you’ve read my account of the threat against the Queen’s life, then you’ll remember a withered narcoleptic with a taste for snuff and tales of deceit and treachery by the female of the species. I refer, of course, to the Dowager Marchioness of Tullibardine, in whose employ I masqueraded as a lady’s maid at Balmoral. I can’t say I enjoyed the experience, having to launder the old lady each time she snorted a quantity of snuff and then expectorated it by way of an explosive sneeze. Nor did I appreciate her preference for sleeping during the day and remaining as alert as a fox vixen during the hours of the night. As I had never met the woman before our visit to Balmoral, and had no expectations whatsoever that I would ever set eyes on the dilapidated wreck again, it came as quite a shock to me when she acknowledged knowing my mother. Worse, the old bag had shouted out this revelation as her train pulled out of the station at Perth, leaving me agog on the platform. I was disconcerted, as you can imagine. I vowed then and there to track down the marchioness and pry from her whatever information she might possess. But it was a long way to Scotland, and I wasn’t keen about making the trip before ascertaining that Her Ladyship had something of value to tell me, which explains why I was chewing on the top of my pen at my desk and staring out the window at the rain this spring morning.
    After a quarter hour or so, I issued a stern injunction to myself to stop dithering and get on with it, for Christ’s sake, and so I applied myself laboriously to my task.
    “Forever in your debt—”
    No, strike that. God knows how the marchioness would interpret such a phrase. She’d probably expect me to move to Tullibardine and live out my days reading her to sleep at night.
    “Urgent that I know—”
    What was I thinking? That sounded desperate, and India Black was never desperate. I chewed the pen and muttered and tried half a dozen sentences, wasting a ream of paper (and the cursed stuff was expensive) and splattering ink all over the desk, until I finally settled on the following:
The Dowager Marchioness of Tullibardine
Aberkill House
Tullibardine, Scotland
Dear Lady Aberkill,
I trust this letter finds you well and in good health. I understood from your last comments to me on the station platform at Perth that you knew something of my mother. I would be