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“I shouldn’t have spoken so soon.” He shook his head, but he was grinning. He could see it all unfolding, see the end result with a clarity both giddy and pitiless, almost preternatural.

Like when he was a boy, during those chess games with his father. Counting the moves to checkmate before he touched his first pawn. Then and now, an addictive feeling.

“Do you know an art dealer named Sleaford?” he asked.

Holroyd glanced at Coover, who shrugged a shoulder. “Doesn’t ring a bell. He mustn’t organize exhibitions.”

“I’m making inquiries about him now.” Alan rested his left hand on his left thigh, neatly stacking his physical discomforts. The throbbing of his knuckles. The burning in his hip, dull and persistent, a hot coal nested in the socket. He sealed off his awareness of that portion of his body.

All mind. His existence began and ended right behind his eyes. Easiest to pretend when he had a puzzle to solve, a game to win. He was almost grateful to Geoffrey, to Syme, to Sleaford. Almost.

“From what I’ve gathered,” he continued, “his inventory consists of old masters. It’s a small firm, with a showroom in High Holborn. He sold my brother a fake Rembrandt. Syme buys from him as well. No proof, as of yet, that Syme purchased forgeries. But . . .”

“Cracking!” Holroyd pounded the chair again. “This isn’t good news. It’s glorious. Syme buying fakes for the blooming museum!”

“Purely speculative at this point.” Alan said it warningly. Holroyd was hotheaded, passionately devoted to her own art and the art of her Sisters.

“Don’t hie off to the newspaper offices just yet,” he added. “I’ll need time to investigate, confirm, build a case. You’ll know when it’s safe to gloat. You’ll be the first to know. The Sisters. And Miss Finch, of course.”

He inclined his head toward Miss Finch.

Miss Finch had stopped writing. In fact, she’d laid her pen in the gutter of the notebook and wore a fixed expression.

“Gah!” Holroyd let out a gusty sigh, which recalled his attention. “Even so. Let’s ring for a drink.”

“It’s hardly noon.” Coover jammed her sketchbook back into her bag. “Let’s not. What about our meeting? We should go.”

“Obviously we should go,” said Holroyd with another sigh. “I was suggesting a solitary, celebratory, valedictory glass of cognac.”

The gardenia had slipped down from the buttonhole of her jacket, and she plucked it up and sniffed the white petals. Despite articles—by Syme, but not only Syme—that spilled as much ink denouncing her degenerate personal habits as her paintings, she dressed, with increasing frequency and boldness, in exquisitely tailored three-piece suits, with every accessory male vanity allowed.

“We’re talking about a meeting of the Sisterhood,” said Coover to Miss Finch helpfully. She, too, had noticed that Miss Finch’s pen had stopped moving. “We’re a circle of artists who support and critique each other’s work.”

“Thank you.” Miss Finch gave herself a little shake. She bent again over the notebook.

“Do you take an interest in art yourself?” asked Holroyd, threading the gardenia back into her buttonhole.

“No.” Miss Finch looked up. “I was told it’s not necessary for the job.”

“More boring that way,” observed Holroyd, lifting one brow and one corner of her mouth, poking fun. “Tomorrow, at the gallery, I’ll demand your opinion of my pictures.”

Miss Finch frowned. “I’m only the amanuensis.” She gestured to herself, to her dress, which buttoned up to her chin. She could have modeled for a fashion plate in a magazine devoted to bluestockings. She’d scraped back her hair into a painfully severe bun. Shocking that her eyes didn’t water.

Alan bit back a smile. Yesterday, she’d insisted she was moving to the countryside. She’d even appeared in his dreams, tramping toward him down a hillside, holding up the corners of her apron, which sagged with the weight of its cargo, enormous gooseberries, greeny-gold in the sun. Today, she’d appeared in his house in her version of scholastic garb, with an old-fashioned reed dip pen, eager to claim her place as his assistant. His curiosity at the reversal manifested as admiration.

She was one of a kind, this Miss Finch. It would be a waste for her to note down his thoughts without ever sharing her own.

“You’re entitled to your own taste,” he said to her. “Which I can help you refine.”

“Lofty, isn’t he?” Holroyd winked at Miss Finch, then looked at him indignantly, wrinkling her nose. “Before you do any refining, we must give her context. She doesn’t even know who Lloyd Syme is and why his ruination tickles us pink!”

“Miss Finch has gone quite pink,” said Coover gently. She was right—Miss Finch’s cheeks had flushed. “Don’t put her on the spot.”

But Holroyd couldn’t be stopped.

“Lloyd Syme,” she said. “Crank, chump, tosser, bastard. Evil mossback. Shibboleth-spewing dinosaur. Puffed-up duffer. Not to mention . . .”

Coover groaned. “Kate.”