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dark blue wool with silver buttons, and habitually carried a cane with a gilt metal handle. The cane was leaning against the sideboard, and Jack cast it a sideways glance; he had memories of a painful rap across the palm of his hand. As a boy he’d deliberately scared the magistrate’s horse enough for it to bolt. His father’s reaction at the time had been to laugh and thank the magistrate for sparing him the trouble of disciplining the boy himself.
    But things had changed. Slowly Blencowe heaved his hulking frame out of the chair and bowed to them. If he noticed Jack’s somewhat irregular haircut, he was too polite to comment on it, although his gaze rested on the loose tresses just a moment too long.
    ‘I’d like to report a highway robbery,’ replied Jack without preamble and accepted the offer of a seat, as did his father.
    ‘Not that confounded youth again,’ thundered the magistrate. ‘Devil and all his cohorts take that young rascal!’
    ‘You know about him?’ Jack experienced a sense of relief that, apparently, only he and Rupert knew this to be a woman, and they were now free to carry out their bet without interference.
    ‘Naturally. The varmint has been terrorising honest folk for months now, from Brentford to as far as Staines, and all the surrounding villages. No one is safe, except for those poor enough not to have anything worth robbing. I’ve been on his trail ever since, but every time he slips through the net.’
    ‘How come we’d not been informed of this?’ asked the earl.
    The magistrate cleared his throat. ‘With all due respect, my lord, you both seem to be spending rather a large proportion of your time up in London. A local matter such as this would hardly come to the attention of fashionable society.’
    Jack heard the reproach and felt as though the words were mostly aimed at him. His father had the excuse of his parliamentary duties, but Jack? Was he really nothing but a wastrel in everyone’s eyes? Silently he vowed to do something to rectify this impression and to show his genuine interest in local matters. Perhaps if he got Rupert interested in local matters too, Jack could keep him in line. He was well aware that one day he would inherit the estate and he couldn’t just stand by and allow Rupert to ruin it.
    He retrieved the highwaywoman’s pistol from his pocket and placed it on Blencowe’s desk. ‘The culprit left this behind last night. Might it provide a clue to catching this thief?’
    Blencowe examined the pistol, but then shook his head and handed it back to Jack. ‘Sadly not. That model is common as muck and there are no distinguishing marks on it. You’d be better off selling it, my lord, as a small compensation for your losses.’
    Jack nodded. He had suspected as much, but it was worth a try. He would keep it for next time he needed to travel at night.
    ‘So what’s being done to apprehend him?’ the earl asked.
    The magistrate scratched his head. ‘I’ve had the constable scouring the outlying hamlets, but no one knows anything about him; or if they do, they’re not telling. I’m quite sure this is a local person, and there must be someone out there who does know something.’
    ‘How local, do you reckon?’
    Again the elderly magistrate heaved himself out of his chair and crossed the room to a set of shelves lining one wall of his study. He pulled down a rolled-up map, spread it out on his desk and secured the four corners. Jack could see that several locations on the map had been marked with an ink dot.
    ‘These are the sightings,’ said Blencowe. ‘Here and here’—he pointed to two dots, each with a circle around them—‘are definite confirmations that this was the same young man. At the other points the victims merely reported being robbed by a single individual, quite young, but the descriptions given were startlingly similar to those given by the boy’s victims. It would seem the general consensus is that no one this young could be