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finally, giving Sebastian the smallest of frowns. “The business with the Woolcotts has never been resolved to his satisfaction, and therein lies the crux of the matter. That tiresome chit, Julia Woolcott, and her new husband, Strathmore, are responsible for more than they know. Good thing that they are far away in Africa, beyond reach for the moment. At least Rowena Woolcott’s death slaked some of his thirst for vengeance.”
    Sebastian’s eyes strayed back to the Stone. “I have heard it said that Faron’s childhood amour, Meredith Woolcott, was behind the tragedy that haunts him to this day. That she was responsible for destroying what many consider one of the world’s finest minds.” He turned to hold Lowther’s gaze, raising one eyebrow. “Although I wonder if that explanation is mere apocryphal legend.”
    Lowther, who perhaps knew Faron best, both the scientist and the legend, pretended to ignore the question. “We can speculate for hours on end, but for what purpose? I should recommend that we focus upon the matter at hand.” He gestured dramatically to the heavy stone behind the glass. “Returning the Rosetta Stone to its proper home.”
    â€œFrance,” intoned Sebastian.
    Lowther shook his head. “More specifically, Clair de Lune.” He referred to Faron’s vast estate outside Paris. “Do what you must. And rapidly.”
    â€œDon’t I always?” asked Sebastian, quick as a snake. He placed a hand on Lowther’s shoulder, aware that the familiarity made the other man recoil a little. Bon, he thought. No more discussion was required. The two men returned to stare at the silent and ancient Rosetta Stone, its import shimmering in the empty caverns of the British Museum.

Chapter 4
    T he past few years had not been kind to East London. The docks had spread east along the Thames, and crowded housing brought epidemics of crime and disease. Mrs. Banks’s shanty reeked of decomposing flesh and remnants of fear. Located on the far side of Shoreditch, the abysmal dwelling was the final destination of those who had never been cherished in life and even less so in death. For a fee, she would collect the flotsam and jetsam of fate before the weekly arrangements were made for deposit in a pauper’s grave, where twenty-five shillings would buy an open maw to be filled forty feet and thirty corpses deep.
    Mrs. Banks had left Rushford alone for the moment, scuttling outside to argue, in a voice rattling with ague, with the char woman. The well-deserved exhortations rained over the woman’s cowering head for overcharging on a bundle of wood, dropped hastily at the doorstep earlier that morning.
    Inside the narrow building, a dim light barely illuminated dark corners filled with towers of cracked china, glass vases, and the occasional tarnished candlestick or oil lamp. These items were the elastic currency in which Mrs. Banks often chose to trade with those too poor to produce the shillings required to finish off what ill fate had begun. Rushford stood at the foot of a scarred wooden table, looking down at what was barely recognizable as a human form. The rumors had been correct, he thought. A bloated mess . He resisted the urge to pull the sheet over the suppurating mass sprawled on the table and topped garishly with a heap of golden curls. The stench was overwhelming, but he forced himself, in a kind of self-enforced punishment, to withstand it.
    His eyes lingered on the tangle of hair draped over the bruised throat, his vision blurring as he remembered another body and another time. His Kate. Who, they claimed, had taken her own life by wading into the Thames, her pockets freighted down with stones. Only Rushford knew otherwise.
    His mind spun back in time. It had been early spring, sometime before dawn, in the Duchess of Taunton’s husband’s home, adjacent to Apsley House. Rushford had fought his way into the grand pile,