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“Thank you, Martha,” Simon said.

Miss Crawford waited until Martha’s quill was raised above a fresh sheet of paper. “The most well-known is Guy Fawkes,” she said. “He is the one who was placed in charge of gathering and lighting the gunpowder.”

“Guy Fawkes?” Maidstone gave Simon a puzzled look. “Is he familiar to you?”

“Not at all,” Simon admitted.

“That’s not terribly surprising,” Miss Crawford said. “He grew up in Northern England—York, actually—but he left the country about a decade ago to fight for the Catholics in Spain. While there, he took upon himself the name Guido Fawkes, and that’s where he learned so much about the use of gunpowder. He returned to England at the urging of Robert Catsby and has been posing as Thomas Percy’s manservant, John Johnson, since then.”

“Do you mean to tell me that Catsby and Percy are in on this?” Maidstone asked.

Miss Crawford nodded. “Catsby is the ringleader of the conspiracy. Percy has provided invaluable access to the royal palace and to a residence that is close enough to the Parliament buildings to allow the conspirators to try tunneling their way beneath the House of Lords.”

Maidstone uttered a quiet curse. Simon echoed the sentiment. Miss Crawford had not been exaggerating when she had told them this band of men was well connected. Catsby’s family was known to be recusant Catholics but were affluent landowners. And Percy—although reputed to be a bigamist, an embezzler, and an all-too-ready swordsman—was the great-grandson of the Earl of Northumberland.

“Who else?” Simon asked.

“There were two Wintour brothers,” she said.

“David Wintour?” Maidstone asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I seem to remember their names were the same as Catsby’s and Percy’s, so Thomas and Robert.” She frowned. “There were another set of brothers. Men who Guy Fawkes knew in school.” She closed her eyes, and Simon wondered if she was visualizing notes she’d taken in class. “Wright!” she said, opening her eyes. “That was their last name. John and Kit Wright.”

“I believe Kit Wright is Percy’s brother-in-law,” Maidstone said grimly.

“Several of them are related,” Miss Crawford said. “Keeping track of how they were connected helped me remember their names. Another one was Francis Tresham. He’s Catsby’s cousin.”

“I would not trust Tresham if my life depended upon it,” Simon said. “And I know of no other gentlemen who would.”

“Catsby’s servant, Thomas Bates, was involved too,” she said. “And a couple of horse breeders.”

Horse breeders? Simon’s thoughts whirled. He knew most of the reputable horse breeders in England—at least by name and reputation. “Where were they from?”

“The Midlands, I think,” she said.

“Smythe, Townsend, Grant, Rookwood?” Simon rattled off the names of the best-known horse breeders from that part of the country.

“Rookwood,” Miss Crawford said, seizing on the unusual name immediately. “And I think the other was Grant. Their responsibility was to supply the conspirators with getaway horses to escape London during the chaos that would ensue after the explosion. And one of them was to organize some kind of hunt at which Lady Elizabeth was to be kept until they brought Duke Charles to join her.”

“Blast it all, they’ve thought of everything,” Maidstone said, running his fingers through his hair.

“Not everything,” Simon said. “They must have made at least one error, or else they would not have been found out.”

“True.” Maidstone released a tense breath. “Perhaps the time has come to learn what will cause their downfall.”

Simon looked over at his sister. “How many names do you have, Martha?”

“Eleven,” she said.

Frustration lit Miss Crawford’s eyes. “There were more. Two or three, I think. Some of them joined the group just before November, and so they played a lesser role in my history books.”

“You’ve done well to remember eleven of them,” Simon said.

She offered him a grateful smile. “If the other names come to me, I’ll let you know.”

“Join us again, Martha,” Maidstone said. “And we shall have Miss Crawford tell us what lies ahead for these scoundrels.”

Martha left her writing table and took her place beside Maidstone. Simon opted to stay on his feet.