"Talking to you is like-- like talking to an eel!"

"No, is it? I've never tried to talk to an eel. Isn't it as waste of time?"

"Not such a waste of time as talking to you!"

-- Georgette Heyer, Black Sheep

Phil rowed back to the jetty in stunned silence. Yo-han stayed silent too. All things considered, the return journey was very uncomfortable.

When they reached the path that ran past Phil's house, she couldn't stand it any more. "I won't repeat what Miss Bennett said. Not even to Vi. Especially not to Vi."

"I didn't think you would, Miss Patton," Yo-han said in surprise.

"You may as well call me Phil. My sister does, and after Aunt Rachael—" Phil summarised that horrible situation with a wave of her hand "—you know as much about me as she does."

"Thank you, Miss— Phil. And you may call me Yo-han. But to return to Lord Kilskeery, I already knew. I realised after Çelik Bey made a certain comment." He stopped and looked up at Lennox House. "I intend to begin searching the male servants' rooms this afternoon. Would you help by searching the women's?"

Phil blinked. "But... I don't know what I'm supposed to look for."

"Honestly? Nothing. I know none of the women in the household were involved. But I don't want the second murderer to know that yet."

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Yo-han had pieced together almost everything that had happened from the moment he left the empty house. His current search was mainly to find evidence to support what he already knew.

First he questioned McCullagh the groundskeeper. That confirmed where the oar and rope had come from. Then he began his search of the servants' rooms. The footmen lived on the third storey. Each had a room to himself. The housemaids lived on the third storey too, but their rooms were accessed from a different staircase to prevent getting too friendly with the footmen.

There was no butler. Most of the footmen were teenagers, hired solely because they were cheaper than more experienced staff. None of them had anything incriminating in their rooms.

Well, nothing more incriminating than a box of stolen cigars. Yo-han examined them, decided they had nothing to do with the case, and said nothing about them.

He went down to the second storey. Most of the rooms here were guest rooms or completely unused. The master bedroom, which should have been Lord Kilskeery's, was at the top of the main stairs. Lady Kilskeery's room was beside it. On the other side were guest rooms, including the one occupied by Çelik Bey.

Yo-han went through it. He found some American newspapers, some letters in English and Turkish, and a note from Gwladys Lennox.

Well. It was supposedly from Gwladys Lennox. Yo-han compared the handwriting to a letter from her. It was too similar. No one wrote every letter exactly the same size and shaped exactly the same way. And it made an appointment for six o'clock outside the greenhouse.

Gwladys had probably received a duplicate. They'd been lured to their deaths by someone who had access to samples of their handwriting.

The guests who had been there on the night of the dinner had left the next morning, before the murders. Their rooms had been cleaned. Further along, separated from this part of the storey by a door that could be locked, was David Eames' room. He had his own staircase which led down to the servants' hall.

Yo-han tried the door. It opened at once.

At first he thought the room was empty. He took the main details in at a glance. It was an unusually large room for a valet. The window overlooked the stables at the back of the house. That meant neither the scene of the murder or the bodies were visible from here.

A clock chimed the hour softly from the top of a large, ornate mantelpiece. Bookshelves were built into the walls on either side, but there were very few books on them. A wardrobe was set against the wall beside the door. A four-poster double bed, a writing desk, a chest of drawers, an armchair, and a window seat made up the rest of the furniture.

There was only one photograph in the room. It was set on top of the mantelpiece. Yo-han was about to go over and examine it when he made a startling discovery.

Another room adjoined this one. The door was closed, but the faint sound of a tap being turned on came from behind it.

Yo-han hesitated, unsure whether to knock the door and announce his presence or try to examine the room without Eames' knowledge. Eames solved the question for him.

The tap was turned off. A bolt slid back on the inside of the door. It opened and Eames stepped into his bedroom. His hair was slightly damp, but not wet enough for him to have had a shower. His face was pale and drawn. He started violently when he saw Yo-han.

"I'm searching all the male servants' rooms," Yo-han said. He studied Eames' face. "Are you quite well?"

Eames drew in a shaky breath. "McCullagh brought in some rabbits to make stew. Seeing him skin them... It reminded me of... I can't stand blood. It makes me feel sick."

He certainly looked sick. He crossed the room and practically collapsed into the armchair. "Look anywhere you want," he said. His voice was muffled because he buried his head in his hands. He was trembling.

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Yo-han looked at him thoughtfully. He looked especially at his arms and hands. Eames was slightly-built, yes. But unlike Lennox he showed no signs of under-eating, so this was probably his natural physique. He was two or three inches taller than Yo-han. Could he have hit Mrs. Lennox with an oar hard enough to break her skull with a single blow?

Eames had certainly hated her. It would be hard to find anyone in the household who didn't hate her. But Yo-han found it hard to picture him being strong enough for such a violent murder.

A man who felt sick at the sight of blood was an unlikely murderer anyway.

Yo-han went over to the mantlepiece. He examined the photo. It showed three people: a middle-aged man whose white collar marked him as a Church of England clergyman, a middle-aged woman holding a small dog in her lap, and a teenage boy who was recognisable as David Eames. Judging by his age then compared to now, the photo was at least five years old.

The adults looked too old to be his parents and too young to be his grandparents. There were too many differences between their features for them to be related at all. In fact, Eames looked as if he came from a completely different country.

Çelik Bey had been Turkish. If Eames was also Turkish by birth, it would be either an astonishing coincidence or an important clue.

"Your parents?" he asked casually, pointing to the photo.

Eames nodded without looking up. "Before you ask, yes. I'm adopted."

"What happened to your real parents?"

"They died." Eames' voice was oddly flat.

Yo-han knew when a subject was closed. He moved on to the wardrobe. A quick look showed there were no conveniently blood-stained clothes hidden in it. The clothes were expensive, though. More expensive than a valet would normally wear.

As he opened the writing desk he was aware of Eames watching him. The atmosphere abruptly became tense. That was all Yo-han needed to know there was something important here.

The first thing he saw was a writing pad. It contained nothing but notes on chores (curtains need washed) and meals (fish soup?). Yo-han opened the drawers one at a time. The first one was full of bills, all of them carefully stacked and marked "PAID". The second contained lists of dates and, oddly, a complete list of kings from the House of Vasa[1]. The third was empty.

All of the paper, from the writing pad to the historical notes, had a curious symbol doodled somewhere on each sheet. It looked like a cross surrounded by flowers. Some of the symbols were detailed, others were mere scribbles. The detailed ones were found mainly beside the historical notes. Yo-han suspected Eames drew them when he was thinking about something else, and researching Swedish kings would certainly take more thought than making a to-do list.

Beside the main writing space were two concealed drawers. At first glance their handles looked like ordinary carved decorations, but Yo-han spotted the scrapes on the wood that showed where they were pulled out. He opened one of them.

Two objects were inside. A stack of letters, and a ring. The letters were in Eames' handwriting. Yo-han caught a glimpse of the opening words: "Dearest Alec...". The ring had a letter L engraved on it.

Yo-han turned to face Eames. As he'd expected, Eames was watching his every move. His brow was furrowed and his mouth was a thin line.

"It's not what you think," Eames insisted before Yo-han had a chance to say anything.

When people thought someone didn't believe them, they had an amazing tendency to give away information they otherwise wouldn't have admitted under torture. Yo-han already had a fairly clear idea of exactly what was happening, and if it wasn't what he thought then he should retire, so it was easy to look disbelieving.

Eames started up. He clutched the back of the chair so tightly that his knuckles were white.

"I know," he said, stumbling over his words. "It looks like Alec keeps me as his... lover. But I swear it's not— not like that. He's never touched me."

Yo-han continued to look disbelieving. "Mr. Eames, I am investigating a murder." And a theft, but he knew Eames had nothing to do with that. "I need to know everything that might have a bearing on the case. Now, when a woman is murdered and I discover her husband has a romantic entanglement with someone else? That has a bearing on the case. I advise you not to hide anything. It will only make things worse when the truth is revealed."

Eames tensed like someone who expected a punch. "Some... things are illegal."

"When I go to the police I will tell them the identity of the murderer and not about any lesser crimes I discovered during my investigation. I won't tell them, for example, that one of the footmen steals cigars."

A brief silence fell. Eames stared at the floor. Yo-han waited.

Eames raised his head. He looked suspiciously at Yo-han. "Are you... like me?"

"Not exactly," Yo-han said. He'd realised years ago he had no interest in either men or women. "But I will not tell the police about you."

Unless, of course, Eames and Lennox had conspired to murder Mrs. Lennox. He decided not to say that.

Eames' words came slowly at first, then in a rush. "Alec and I met before he knew Gwladys existed. We fell in love. We... We're married, no matter what anyone says. He never wanted to marry Gwladys. It was his mother's idea. I became his valet because I couldn't bear to be separated from him, and I help him with his research, but he's never broken his vows to Gwladys. He was going to divorce her. He had proof! You saw how she behaved! He had no reason to kill her, and why would I kill her when I knew he'd be free of her soon?"

Yo-han could think of many reasons. Mrs. Lennox had obviously known about her husband's preferences. Lennox had said she would blackmail him if he tried to divorce her. And of course there was the simple fact that murder was cheaper than divorce.

He turned back to the desk. He opened the other drawer.

He stared.

Of all the things he expected to find in it, a photograph of people standing among ruined buildings wasn't one of them.

Behind him he heard Eames draw in a breath sharply. Something was scrawled on the corner of the photo. Yo-han squinted. Five letters, but what odd letters! Qnwuw, and they were written very carelessly too.

"What is this?" he asked.

"Some of my research," Eames said, which didn't clear things up at all.

Yo-han looked through the photos beneath that one. Most of them were of demolished buildings, some with people among the ruins. Two were panoramas of a city's skyline. One was labelled 1909. All had the same five letters written somewhere on them. The more Yo-han saw of them, the more he began to wonder if they were the Latin alphabet at all. They looked almost like a code.

Mystified, he asked, "What are you researching?"

"Alec is compiling an encyclopaedia of historical events related to Christianity." Eames hesitated. "I'm researching how people have been persecuted."

Yo-han closed the door. "Hmm," was all he said. "Where is the head groom's room?"

"On the ground floor, beside the back door."

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On the way downstairs Yo-han paused and took out his notebook. He copied down the five letters from memory. Then he altered them until they resembled the odd way they were written. When he was finished the Q looked like a U with a dash, the N and U were lopsided, and the Ws looked like upside-down Ms.

It was familiar. He should recognise it. But the explanation stayed stubbornly out of reach.

For some reason it made him think of Leopold Colman.