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"My indignation is entirely respectable."

"It is also loud."

Darcy, seated between them in the Earl's study, looked up from the notes he had made. "If either of you intends to quarrel over the volume of Richard's indignation, I would suggest an afternoon when Elizabeth is not upstairs recovering from it."

Richard opened his mouth, considered the objection, and closed it again. Saye watched him with a faint smile. Then the Earl entered and the matter grew serious.

The magistrate's clerk had sent an account of Pike's first examination. The man denied intending to kill anyone, but admitted that he had been paid to take the less-frequented lane and to delay the travellers. He insisted that the coach had overturned by mischance. When asked why he fled, he said that he had feared being blamed for the accident. He claimed to have been given directions by Matthew Voss and to have known nothing of the people inside the carriage.

"A man who knew the road was dangerous and drove there deliberately," Darcy said, "cannot excuse himself by claiming that the result was unexpected."

"The magistrate will determine the charge," Lord Matlock answered. "Our concern is to understand who arranged it."

Pike's description of the meeting was sufficiently specific to direct attention again toward Vogel. He recalled that Voss had shown him a marked road, provided an advance, and spoken of papers that ought not to reach their destination. He would not say who was paying Voss. When pressed, he insisted that he had not asked.

"The unhappy consequence of accepting dirty money is that one cannot always demand clean answers," Saye said.

Finch had meanwhile made a second statement on oath, identifying the private index he had seen in Voss's office. With the magistrate's authority, constables attended the premises and inventoried the business papers in the presence of Finch and the magistrate's clerk. They found the separate index precisely where Finch had said it would be. Its entries referred to a merchant account not ordinarily used for hiring carriages: an unusual sum had passed to Voss near the date of Elizabeth's journey, with a second payment promised but not yet collected. The records did not name Adelheid. Beneath Voss's desk the officers also found a locked iron box, which they listed separately and secured for examination. They did not allow the family to remove or search it themselves.

Vogel was taken before the magistrate to answer questions about the arrangement. When presented with the dispatch slip and the record Finch had identified, he admitted employing Pike. He claimed the purpose was to frighten a debtor whose papers were being carried in the coach. This invention lasted only until he was asked to name the debtor. He refused.

When Darcy reported Pike's answers to Elizabeth, she did not greet them as a triumph. The description of his flight had made the road familiar again, and she could almost hear the broken glass shifting beneath her hand.

"If he never intended a death," she said, "why did he leave Mrs. Ashby and Tom beside the ditch? He must have seen they were hurt."

"He says he feared being blamed."

"It is strange that a man's fear of blame should matter more to him than another person's fear of dying."

Darcy sat near her chair. "The authorities will have an opportunity to test his account. We need not accept his explanation merely because it is the first one offered."

Elizabeth looked toward the garden. "I wished to believe the driver had been frightened into foolishness. Now I fear he was frightened before we set out, and did it anyway."

"You are allowed to be angry," Darcy said.

"I am. I think I shall remain so until I have finished writing to Mrs. Ashby. She will be curious to learn whether her smelling salts have at last become necessary."

He smiled. Elizabeth reached for her letter and began, carefully, to write with her uninjured hand. The steadiness of the pen mattered to her. She was still capable of doing an ordinary kindness while others pursued extraordinary wrongdoing.

News of the proceedings reached Adelheid through a merchant acquaintance. She sat very still while the account was recited, then asked whether the authorities had found Vogel's personal correspondence.

"I could not say, Your Highness," the man replied. "They appear interested chiefly in the driver's payment."

"Of course," she said. "There is nothing remarkable in the affairs of a small transport concern."

After he left, she went to the room where Albrecht kept the gifts he had purchased for Elizabeth. A box of enamelled miniatures stood open upon a table. He had chosen them carefully, intending to present them upon her marriage, and he had spent the previous evening discussing which designs Minna would most have liked.

Adelheid touched one with her fingertip. Once, she had loved his attention to small things. Now it terrified her that he could possess so much tenderness and yet still be capable, if the truth came, of ceasing to love her.

Albrecht returned before supper. She could see at once that he had been with Lord Matlock.

"There has been news," he said. "The man who hired the driver has been questioned. He is the old coachman Vogel."

Adelheid forced herself to meet his eyes. "I remember your speaking of him. Has he explained his conduct?"

"Poorly. We do not yet understand why he wished Elizabeth's journey delayed."

"There are extortioners who seek money wherever it may be found."