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"He did not ask us for money."

Albrecht came closer. "Did you know him well when we lived at Falkenried?"

"I scarcely noticed him," she said. "Why should I have done?"

"I wondered whether you remembered anything that might explain his disposition."

"He was a servant, Albrecht. I should not wish you to think me acquainted with every man who once attended our stables."

He looked regretful. "Forgive me. I know these conversations distress you. I cannot rid myself of the thought that someone connected to our family might have sought to injure Minna's child."

She accepted his offered hand. Had he spoken with reproach she might have found it easier. His trust was worse.

The next day brought a discovery so unforeseen that even Saye lost his habit of answering questions with patient qualification. The magistrate's clerk had inventoried the contents of the iron box in the presence of two officers. Among the recent payments and sealed correspondence lay a small packet of older papers, still folded together and annotated in Vogel's own hand. One was a receipt dated in the autumn of 1789 and bearing the Falkenried household's mark; another recorded money given to Vogel after a journey undertaken for a young lady of that family. The clerk compared the handwriting and mark with the other papers rather than assuming their age proved their truth. The originals remained with the magistrate's papers; Saye was permitted to read careful copies prepared for the household.

Saye carried copies to Matlock House. The Earl summoned Albrecht, and Elizabeth asked to attend despite her mother's injunctions that she rest. Lady Matlock agreed only when Elizabeth promised to remain seated with her shoulder supported. Darcy arranged her cushions himself, provoking the smallest of smiles from her.

"I am reasonably comfortable," she told him.

"I have not yet arranged the cushion behind your elbow."

"Then I shall hope for comfort when you have conquered the final cushion."

He set it in place and kissed her hand beneath Lady Matlock's indulgent eye.

When Albrecht arrived, Saye explained the evidence cautiously. He said that the papers appeared to concern a carriage accident at Falkenried shortly after Friedrich's death. He had not assumed the incident was the same one in which Minna vanished until he read the date.

Albrecht took the copy. His face drained of colour.

"This is the week she disappeared," he said. "I remember the rain. Our people searched the roads for days."

"Was Vogel involved in that journey?" Darcy asked.

"I had not believed so. It was said that Minna had left with a maid to visit a physician. She had been in dreadful distress after Friedrich's death. I believed she was being cared for."

Elizabeth listened to the strained quiet in his voice. Her mother's nightmares, the terrace, the carriage she had been told was an accident: the past seemed to be drawing lines between events that had once stood separately in her mind.

"The receipt is not proof of a crime," Saye said. "Nor are we entitled to treat a copy as an original merely because it has been shown to us. But the magistrate has inventoried the packet and preserved the papers, and the dates give us reason to ask Mr. Vogel what occurred."

The magistrate agreed. Vogel, confronted with his old notes, ceased maintaining that his past was irrelevant. His account came slowly, and not without efforts to soften his own guilt.

He had been instructed to arrange a carriage for Minna and an elderly attendant. He had been told that the young lady must be taken away from Falkenried before she caused further distress to the family. A substantial payment had been promised. A private instruction was then given that the carriage should be taken by a dangerous road, and that the journey was not expected to end safely. He had passed the order through men whose names he now claimed not to remember. The attendant had died; Minna was believed dead. He had accepted the payment and said nothing.

"Who instructed you?" the magistrate asked.

Vogel stared at the floor. "I require assurance that I shall not be left alone to answer for everything."

No assurance was offered that he did not have the power to receive. When the question was repeated, Vogel's lips moved soundlessly. At last he named Princess Adelheid von Falkenried.

It was an accusation, not yet a judgment. The clerk recorded it, and the magistrate reminded Vogel of the gravity of his statement. He repeated the name.

Albrecht was told privately before the other members of the family. He stood at the library window as though he had mistaken the words for another language.

"My wife?" he asked. "The woman who comforted me after Minna was lost?"

Lord Matlock did not try to ease the answer with a false certainty. "That is what the man alleges. We have not yet established the truth."

"He might be seeking to injure her. A dishonest servant might invent anything."