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Finch swallowed. "I had better speak plainly, then. The payment on this hire was not handled in the usual way. Mr. Voss kept a separate index for a private client. I made the entry myself, because he asked it, though I did not know who the client was."

"Can you identify the index?"

"Yes, my lord. It is in his private room. I could describe it. I should not like to touch it without being told I may."

Saye thought highly of that answer. "Then you shall describe it to the magistrate, and we shall see that the matter is handled properly."

Outside, Richard was waiting with news collected from the lodging houses near the yard. He had taken a different route through the inquiry, speaking with men accustomed to hiring drivers and borrowing horses. One hostler remembered Pike leaving his room late on the day of the accident. He carried a travelling bag and asked which coaches departed toward the north. The hostler could not say whether Pike had actually taken one. Richard also discovered that Voss used another name among certain foreign merchants.

"A fellow from the Baltic called him Vogel," Richard said. "It sounded like a surname rather than a term of affection. The man swore he had heard it years ago."

Saye stopped walking. "Vogel?"

Darcy looked between the brothers. "You know it?"

"I do not. But Albrecht may. He has given me lists of servants and retainers who attended his family when Minna disappeared. We should compare them."

At Matlock House, Albrecht was in the small library with Elizabeth, examining the childhood book she had been given before the visit to Ashcombe. Her right hand turned the pages because her injured shoulder was supported by a scarf. He was telling her about Friedrich's habit of correcting the household tutors, and she was laughing when Saye entered.

"I have an unfamiliar name to put before you," Saye said. "It may signify nothing. Have you ever known anyone called Matthias Vogel?"

Albrecht's expression grew still. "Vogel? Yes. He was a coachman at Falkenried in my youth. A quiet fellow. Rather older than I was. Why do you ask?"

"A London transport merchant calling himself Matthew Voss has been addressed as Vogel by men who remember him from abroad. His concern supplied the driver who took Elizabeth's carriage onto the wrong road."

Elizabeth's hand stopped upon the open book.

"A Falkenried servant?" she asked.

"It may be no more than an old employee who has set up in business," Saye said. "We must not decide otherwise without cause."

Albrecht looked troubled. "Vogel left our service not very long after Minna disappeared. He had been involved with the horses and carriages. I remember my steward saying he had taken employment elsewhere. Why should he have settled in London?"

"People do," Richard said. "The question is why he reserved a driver for Elizabeth's journey before the usual booking reached him."

"Did he know she was my niece?" Albrecht asked.

"That is another question to be answered."

A servant brought word that Adelheid had arrived with a basket of preserved fruits and a request to see Elizabeth. Albrecht rose to receive his wife with evident gratitude. Elizabeth had been pleased by Adelheid's attentions since the accident, although something in them had lately begun to exhaust her. It was as though every expression of concern carried a question she was not permitted to hear.

Adelheid entered and kissed her niece on the cheek. "You are pale, my dear. I wish you would not sit up among so many visitors."

"I have only been listening to Uncle Albrecht describe his childhood," Elizabeth answered. "He is the least fatiguing of my visitors, provided he does not attempt to make me laugh."

"You always did encourage an invalid to amuse you," Adelheid told her husband with an affectionate smile.

He laughed and held out a chair. "Our niece has appointed herself my chief entertainment. I must obey."

For a few minutes the conversation concerned books and the coming autumn. Then Lord Matlock mentioned that the inquiries had uncovered a former Falkenried servant in London. He spoke without emphasis, for he could not imagine the name had any importance beyond employment.

"Matthias Vogel," he said. "Do you recall the fellow, Your Highness?"

Adelheid reached for her cup. The china touched its saucer with a sound too sharp for the movement.

"Vogel?" she repeated. "I should scarcely remember every man who was employed in the stables twenty years ago."

Albrecht turned toward her. "He drove Mother's carriage sometimes. You may remember him from the winter before Friedrich died."