“I’m looking for them now. They were right here, with the others. I’m sure of it.” Heart thumping, Viv leafed through the piles a second time, then a third. Her throat was dry when she glanced back up at Jacob. “They’re not here.”
“Not here,” he repeated.
She shook her head. “Not here.”
“And we don’t know who you were corresponding with?”
“The system is anonymous,” she reminded him. “No one who writes in shares their real names or addresses. Each correspondent is assigned a temporary number, and the query forwarded to me without any identifying characteristics. I send all my replies to the newspaper, who chooses which to publish and disperses the rest, returning the original letters in the process, ensuring complete anonymity.”
He appeared to think this over. “Do you think the more concerning queries came from multiple people?”
“I felt like it might be the same person.”
“Man or woman?”
“As you pointed out… that’s hard to say. If I had to guess, I’d say white, male, and British, but it really would be conjecture.” She swallowed. “You think the missing plays have something to do with Quentin’s disappearance?”
He shrugged. “We don’t know.”
“I can guess. Thatwouldbe a good twist. I’d write it that way.”
“We don’t yet have reason to believe the letter-writer has been in contact with Quentin. It’s still more likely that your cousin is out adventuring and has no idea there’s been a mix-up with your plays.”
Viv desperately wanted Jacob to be right. For Quentin simply to be gallivanting around, sure to walk through the door at any moment.
But she suspected the surprises were just beginning.
Jacob’s pencil paused in his notebook, and he turned toward her slowly. “Just so I understand the timeline correctly… Both Quentinandthe play that inspired a robbery disappeared at the same time?”
She folded her arms over her chest, her hackles rising. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying the play was in your house, and now it’s not. You’re saying the thief has the play. Therefore, someone in this household, either purposefully or inadvertently, put the missing play into the thief’s hands. You have no servants, which means the culprit can only be you… or Quentin. And only one of you is missing. Do I have the facts right?”
“I don’t appreciate your tone or your conclusions. For your information, I don’t knowwhenthe play disappeared. It might have happened weeks ago, not the day Quentin went missing.”
“And in that time, was there someone other than you or Quentin who might have had access to it?”
She glared at him. “You know there was not, but that doesn’t prove nefarious intent.”
He held up his hands. “I’m not claiming anyone in this household had nefarious intent. I’m looking at the facts the way a magistrate might. And we know the case is being investigated seriously.”
Viv’s blood drained. Jacob was right. Mr. Olivebury was a powerful MP. Rich, white, important to society. Her cousin was none of those things. It would be easy for the magistrate to point a finger at a boy like Quentin.
And the courts could sentence him to death.
Her limbs trembled in fear. Viv would never breathe another word of the play’s existence, much less Quentin’s proximity to it, but she might not have to. If she was right, and Quentin had accidentally sent the pages to the question-writer via the newspaper, the clerk might remember Ask Vivian giving advice about whooper swans and robbery.
And if Viv was wrong about it being an accident, and Quentin had done something else with her script… Such as share it with some miscreant named Newt…
“I have to go.” Jacob snapped his notebook closed. “I need to share the latest developments with my family.”
She grabbed his arm before he could turn away.
“I’m coming with you,” she informed him grimly. “Until you find my cousin and clear his name, I am your shadow from this moment forward.”
11
Jacob and Miss Henry stepped into the siblings’ sitting room side by side. Although there were now a dozen members of the Wynchester family, only two were currently present, both hard at work at the long table: Tommy, adding details to her latest cartography, and Marjorie, making copies of who-knows-what for her current mission.
