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challengingly, her heart pounding. "Have you heard something about Thomas?"

"No, Mrs. Pitt," he said immediately. "I apologize if I gave you that impression. As far as I know, he is safe and in good health. Were he not, I would have heard to the contrary. It is your safety I am concerned about."

He was very polite but she detected a shadow of condescension in his tone. Was it because Narraway was a gentleman, and Pitt was a gamekeeper's son, in spite of his perfect diction? There was always something in the manner, the bearing, which marked the confidence that was not gained but inborn.

Charlotte was not aristocracy, as Vespasia was, but she was very definitely of good family. She looked at him with a cool arrogance which Vespasia might not have disowned. Her old dress with its darned cuffs was irrelevant.

"Indeed? That is very gracious of you, Mr. Narraway, but quite unnecessary. Thomas left everything in order before he went, and all arrangements are working as they should." She was referring to the financial ones regarding his pay, but it would be crude to say so.

Narraway smiled very slightly, merely a softening of the lips. "I had not imagined otherwise," he assured her. "But then perhaps you did not tell him of your intention to investigate the apparent disappearance of one of Ferdinand Garrick's servants."

She was caught completely off guard. She scrambled for an answer that would keep him at a distance and close him out of intruding into her thoughts.

"Apparent?" she asked, her eyes very wide. "That sounds as if you know more of it than I. So you have been investigating it also? I am very pleased. Indeed, I am delighted. The case requires more resources than I can bring to it."

Now it was his turn to look startled, but he masked it so quickly she almost failed to see it.

"I don't think you understand the danger you may be in if you proceed any further," he said carefully, his dark eyes fixed on hers, as if to make certain she grasped his seriousness.

Without taking a second to think, she smiled at him dazzlingly. "Then you had better enlighten me, Mr. Narraway. What danger is it? Who is likely to hurt me, and how? Obviously you know, or you would not have taken time from your own case to come to tell me... at this hour."

He was disconcerted. Again it was there only for an instant, but she saw it with sharp satisfaction. He had expected her to be cowed, humbled by censure, and instead she had turned his words back on him.

He sidestepped her challenge. "You are afraid something unpleasant has happened to Martin Garvie?" he asked.

She refused to be defensive. "Yes," she said frankly. "Mr. Ferdinand Garrick says that his son and Martin have gone to the south of France, but if that is true, then why in three weeks did Martin not write to his sister and tell her so?" She was not going to let Narraway know that Tellman had also tried and failed to find any record of their having sailed, or even a witness to their taking a train. Tellman could not afford to attract the notice of his new superior, still less his criticism, and she did not trust Narraway not to use information in any way that suited his own immediate purpose.

"Do you fear an accident?" he asked.

He was playing with her, and she knew it.

"Of what sort?" She raised her eyebrows. "I cannot think of one that would cause the danger to me that you suggest."

He relaxed and smiled. "Touche," he said softly. "But I am perfectly serious, Mrs. Pitt. I am aware that you have concerned yourself with this young man's apparent disappearance, and that he is, or was, manservant to Stephen Garrick. The Garrick family is of some power in society-and in government circles. Ferdinand Garrick had a fine military career, ended with a good command-lieutenant general, before he retired. Rigid, loyal to the empire to the last inch, God, Queen, and country."

Charlotte was perplexed. She stood in the middle of the room looking at Narraway while he relaxed a fraction more with every second. If Garrick were as upright and honorable as Narraway said, the "muscular Christian" Vespasia knew, then simply he would not be party to any abuse of a servant, let alone the kind of danger she and Gracie had come to fear.

Narraway saw her hesitation. "But he is a man of little mercy