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Gillie’s expression grew doubtful. “Are you certain we’ve the same measurements?”

Something in the back of Lavinia’s mind snapped into place. “Measurements! They’re measurements, Gillie!”

“What?” Gillie and Anika asked at the same time, but Lavinia was already racing through the shop and up the stairs to her study. On the desk, under a pile of bills from her muslin supplier, were copies of the code she’d stolen from Wark’s study. Only it wasn’t a code. Each set of numbers was a man’s measurements—she’d bet her life on it.

She grabbed a pencil and began to scribble.

“Forty-one,” she called over her shoulder to the women clattering up the stairs behind her. “Based on these other measurements, that’s likely a waist. I’m willing to guess that forty-three is a chest, and thirty-four is the length of this gentleman’s back.”

“What about seventeen?” Gillie asked.

“It could be shoulder to shoulder or maybe his sleeve length, although that would mean he had the misfortune of rather short arms relative to his body. The same with the twenty measurement.”

She quickly applied the logic to the other rows of numbers.

“Those,” Lavinia said with a grin, “are the measurements for four jackets. I bet if I’d been able to open the drawer, I would’ve found corresponding measurements for trousers too. And boots.”

All the murkiness was beginning to clear, and she could see the puzzle. “There were four footmen at the Wark household the evening I was there, and none of them was particularly good at service. And one was particularly tall. As though he would have a thirty-six-inch inseam.”

“Are you saying—?”

“Yes,” she cut Gillie off. “And in Wark’s bankbook I found a receipt for a tailor, but the price was far too low to be anything Wark would wear. I think it was—”

“An order for a servant’s livery,” the liaison finished. “But who is the fifth?”

Lavinia shook her head. That she didn’t understand.

“Do you have a copy of one of Wednesday’s evening newspapers lying around?” Gillie asked.

Lavinia pulled free an issue of the Edinburgh Evening Times. Swiftly, Gillie scanned the front page before slapping it down on the desk, her finger jabbing at a line and reading out, “ ‘The prince traveled from Waverley Station to Holyrood Palace in a coach drawn by four bays and attended by four footmen and a driver.’ ”

“Douglas. Everyone kept going on about what an expert driver he is. They’re going to pose as footmen and driver and kidnap the prince,” said Lavinia, eyes wide.

“But why is it Mrs. Wark who wrote out the measurements?” Anika asked.

Lavinia and Gillie turned on her as one.

“What?” Lavinia asked.

Anika pointed at the paper on the counter marked up with numbers. “This is Mrs. Wark’s handwriting.”

Lavinia frowned. “No, it isn’t. It’s Wark’s. It’s the same as the notes that come back with the invoices I send to the house.”

“Which are paid by Mrs. Wark,” said Anika. “I know because she visited the shop once looking for bolts of green velvet for a set of drapes. We don’t normally stock velvet in that color so we had to order it specially, and she wrote out the specifications herself.”

“But . . .” Lavinia pulled out one of her old account books from under the counter, leafing through the loose receipts in the back until she found one for the Wark account. She pointed to the handwriting—the same as the measurements—at the signature. “This was paid by Harold Wark. It’s signed by him.”

“Are you telling me you never did business in your husband’s name and put his signature down because it was easier?” Anika asked. “If Mrs. Wark isn’t the real mind behind the entire family business I’ll be shocked.”

Another puzzle piece clicked into place. “The study. It was all done up in emerald, moss, hunter green. Green. All Mrs. Wark wears is green.”

“It was her study and not Wark’s. Her account books. Her plot,” said Gillie.

“She would’ve had access to her son’s warehouse, and if she was really the silent business owner, she could’ve had the weapons moved there anytime she chose,” said Lavinia.

“Except Wark doesn’t own the warehouse in Leith anymore.”

She and Gillie looked at each other. “Douglas does.”