“Yes, you were rather preoccupied with Mr. Corbet last night,” Mira said.
Maureen flushed. “I do hope I didn’t make a fool of myself.”
“He didn’t seem to mind.”
Byron stood, gesturing to the piano with the music in hand. “May I?”
“By all means,” Maureen said.
He crossed the room, set the music on the stand, and stretched his fingers. Mira turned back to Maureen, mind spinning for a way to bring the conversation to her father and his correspondence. She winced as Byron began to play, the musicality sounding as poor as Maureen’s attempts.
“Admiral Hoddle seems to be in good spirits,” she said, unable to come up with anything at all to steer the conversation.
“Does he? I haven’t seen him today.”
“Do you not spend much time together?”
Maureen shook her head. “He’s always in the study with his papers.”
“I would have thought with him being your father’s friend that the two of you would be more familial.” Mira’s stomach twisted. She’d found her segue, distasteful as it was to her. “My late godfather was my father’s closest friend and he waspractically a second father to me.”
“Oh, I didn’t even know who Admiral Hoddle was before my aunt died and he was appointed to be my guardian.”
“I can’t even imagine it. Did your father never speak of him?”
“Not that I remember. But he knew so many different people. It was hard to keep track of them all. I was surprised, though. My father had such a tight relationship with Mr. Corbet, Bertie’s father, I expected to become his ward after my aunt died.”
Byron stopped halfway through the piece and leaned forward, squinting at the notes.
“With all the people your father knew, I’m sure he received so many—” Mira started to say before Byron interrupted.
“Why, there’s a musical cryptogram here.”
“A what?” Maureen said.
“Musical cryptogram,” Byron repeated. “It’s a motif composers use in a piece to represent names. This is a very common one. B flat, A, C, B natural.” He played the notes out. “It spells Bach, like the composer. I thought this was all nonsense until I came across it here in measure twenty-three. Makes me think maybe there is more to this.”
“Like a secret message?” Maureen asked.
“Well, no. It’s just the one motif here. A musical cipher would be...” he trailed off. “Well, depending on the way it was encoded, it could very well sound like this piece—all a jumble, with little rhyme or reason.” He looked up at her. “Where did you say you found this?”
“My great-uncle sent it to us back in late July. Or, rather, it was finally delivered.”
Mira blinked. “What do you mean by that? Had it been delayed?”
“From what I understand, it was sent to our old house inHertfordshire just after we moved when I was nine. The new mistress of the house, Mrs. Meadle, meant to send it on to us, but kept forgetting. It wasn’t until she was getting ready to move herself that she found the package and sent it on.”
Mira’s mouth went dry. Maureen would be turning twenty soon. “That would mean she’d had it for almost...” she tried to do the math in her head.
“Eleven years, yes.”
Mira locked eyes with Byron. Slowly, he said, “It was in a package?”
“Yes. Wrapped in brown paper and string with a postmark from Austria-Hungary. Mrs. Meadle didn’t even open it. The strangest thing about it was the package was addressed to my mother, Elizabeth Harris.”
“That makes no sense,” Mira said. “I thought your mother died.”
“Yes. Giving birth to me.”
