"What kind of clients?" Mr. Norton prodded gently. "For what services?"

"For... finding things."

"Finding things? Like those that are lost?"

"Or stolen."

"What you describe, Miss Huxleigh, is an inquiry agent. Many barristers employ such from time to time. Such men are of some use..." He paused to dissect his erroneous a.s.sumption. "But that is the point, is it not? Your chambermate is a woman, a female inquiry agent... and an actress as well-"

When the truth struck him, Mr. Norton drew himself up as if in court. "She is this Adler woman who has meddled into the history of my family, who is trying to locate my father!"

"I fear so."

"And you have been sent to spy upon me!"

I dared not even glance up to read his expression. Now the blind impression of "old Norton" I had received through the draperies and the man I knew merged as his indignation thundered above me.

"This is pernicious, Miss Huxleigh! I would not expect it of you."

"Nor would I. Truly, I have not 'spied'; there was naught to spy, and so I have told Irene. She was most annoyed with me."

"This is infernal!" He began pacing. "Intolerable. To corrupt a parson's daughter, to harry a man in the privacy of his own office-"

I wrung my hands. "Yes, it is dreadful. Irene has absolutely no compunction in the pursuit of a mystery. She is relentless."

"Mystery! What mystery is there about the Nortons but the usual measure of human misery in double dose?"

"Why, the Zone."

"Zone?"

"Of Diamonds." I swallowed. G.o.dfrey Norton stared at me as if I were mad. "Queen Marie Antoinette's diamond belt, that your father reputedly bought in the fifties and that Mr. Tiffany wants to buy."

"Diamonds? Marie Antoinette? Tiffany?" Mr. Norton flipped up his frockcoat skirt and sat on the doc.u.ments that cushioned the only other chair in the office. "You had better tell me more, Miss Huxleigh. Half-confessions are liable to lead to half-baked conclusions."

"That is what Mr. Tiffany had heard, that a fellow named Norton had purchased the Zone cheaply after it escaped Paris in the Revolution of 1848."

"I wasn't even born then."

"Nor was I. Or Irene. But that's why she was investigating the Norton family. It was her only line of inquiry. She was looking for your father; instead she apparently unearthed you."

"Diamonds"-he shook his head-"what... fairy tales! Oh, I don't doubt that some story is circulating. At least this tale is more glamorous than the sordid truth of my family's past. Perhaps I should be grateful to this fabulous 'Zone' for obscuring what is merely tawdry with its dazzle." He regarded me sharply. "You know, of course, then, of my call upon your chambermate."

I nodded, afraid that an unconsidered word would force me to confess to the miserably petty crime of eavesdropping as well.

Mr. Norton sighed, smoothing his dark mustache with a forefinger. He laughed suddenly. "Your Miss Adler must think me a greedy rival for the Zone, angered to have other hounds on the trail. Or does she think I have it?"

"She thinks no one has it, for no one shows signs of that kind of wealth, though, of course, we-she has not located your father."

"My father." An odd expression came over Mr. Norton's face. He tore a piece of paper from the corner of a deed and scrawled across it. "Here is my father's, address. Perhaps she should speak directly to the supposed owner of this fabulous treasure. Take it! That is where he resides, at that address. You have my blessings, Miss Huxleigh. Let your indefatigable friend go directly to the source, and good luck to her!"

"Surely you are not serious!"

"You mean that I am not sincere. But I am!" He smiled again, bitterly. "I wish to forget my family, and particularly my father. I wish all others to forget him. Let Miss Adler find the cursed Zone and convey it to Mr. Tiffany and let them all forget the memory of Black Jack Norton. My mother is dead, at least. She can be hurt no longer."

"Please, Mr. Norton. It was quite unforgivable of Irene to go hunting over the ground of your family's history. She gets quite carried away in the pursuit of the unattainable-"

"So do we all. Do you want to know what is really unattainable about my sorry family, Miss Huxleigh? A happy memory. My mother had left my father when I was quite young. As I grew older, I began to see what a scandal it was that she and my brothers and I lived apart from him. I even began to see the price she had paid, despite the success of her novels. When my father sued her for the proceeds of her writing-and won-I certainly saw our lodgings, our food, our clothing decline in the face of his legal success. It quite broke my mother's heart to have the very law of England uphold such a scoundrel."

"I cannot say how sorry I am; really, you need not tell me more."

"I must tell someone the truth, since lies about my family are all that I have heard since my youth. Now your friend perpetuates more lies with this glittering tale of lost diamonds. Speak of lost honor, lost love, lost hope, lost livelihoods, rather than of diamonds. But such losses are too dull, too sordid in their everyday way to enchant the curious."

"Yet they are losses I can sympathize with more readily, Mr. Norton," I said quietly.

His thin-lipped smile grew rueful. "You find yourself quite in the middle, don't you, Miss Huxleigh? A parson's daughter must be used to firmer moral ground. Perhaps you think ill of my late mother, as so many did-"

"It sounds as if she were sorely wronged."

"Indeed she was, by the law of England that declares all of a wife's property is her husband's, even when she earns it and lives apart from him because he is the worst sort of brute. That's why I became a barrister, though my father before me had tainted the profession in my eyes, I wanted to right that law, and defend other women who are defenseless against the rapacity of their own husbands."

"Most admirable," I muttered, ashamed. "I quite understand why you cannot bear to have strangers probing into your family background. I shall tell Irene at once and insist that she abandon her inquiry."

"No!" He caught my wrist as I rose, releasing me as soon as he realized the strength of his gesture. "That, too, invades my privacy. This talk of ours is between us alone. As you sought discretion, so do I."

I unfolded my hand, in which lay the crumpled address of his demonic father. "What of this?"

He smiled with a mysterious relish. "Give it to her. Let her follow the trail to its natural conclusion. From what you say of Irene Adler, she will not rest until she is convinced every stone has been turned. Let her overturn her own stones, and deal with what... vermin ... she finds under them."

I shivered a little at his tone, at the bitter blackness in his eyes. I knew and liked G.o.dfrey Norton, but I realized that I had merely skimmed the unhappy surface of his family's past. I wondered now-with new guilt-whether I should let Irene pursue the path that Mr. Norton had so unexpectedly cleared for her.

Chapter Eleven.

BLACK JACK NORTON UNEARTHED.

"You are certain that this address in Croydon is where G.o.dfrey Norton has sent so many of his funds?"

"Yes," I admitted, though I felt something of a betrayer for leading Irene blindly to it. I had not told her of Mr. Norton's revelations to me. It had taken me a full month to pa.s.s on the address.

"Why ask now, Irene, when we are already embarked by rail and by hired coach, at great expense? If you have doubts about prying into this affair-"

"No." Irene lifted her chin as she did just before delivering the first note of a song. It was a gesture that both commanded attention and expressed Irene's deep commitment to her course. "This jaunt of ours may forever lay to rest an old mystery."

"Mr. Norton has been a most considerate and generous employer," I mumbled. "Perhaps old mysteries should not be settled at his expense."

"Don't go sentimental on me, Nell, at this late date. 'Mr. Norton' was not most considerate and generous to me when we met. You say he is now aware that you and I share lodgings. No doubt he still thinks me a hired meddler with not the brains to solve who killed c.o.c.k Robin. I fancy I will change his opinion shortly."

"Then you know what to expect at The Sycamores in Croydon."

"Not what, Penelope. Who."

With the rare invocation of my full formal name and that clipped monosyllable, Irene lapsed into morose silence.

Late summer sunshine dappled through the roadside leaves and cast a lacy veil of light and shadow over her features. She would not heed any feeble objections I might care to make; for some reason, this journey tapped both her personal and professional wellsprings. No one knew better than I when Irene Adler would not be gain-said.

Our carriage slowed before an ornate wrought-iron gate. The fencing was fully as formidable as that surrounding the seventeenth-century Royal Hospital that Wren had built in Chelsea, but this establishment was buried deep in fragrant countryside. No sound came to us but the calling of thrushes and the occasional bleats of the black-feathered rooks perched atop the sycamore trees.

A sign on the right gatepost proclaimed the place to be that which we sought. A gateman's presence announced that our trek might have been in vain.

"Your business?" he demanded brusquely.

Irene leaned out the lowered window, expertly tilting her head so as not to dislodge her ecru straw bonnet trimmed in blue velvet and cream-colored plumes.

"We are here to visit one of the residents," she said in a tone equally alloyed of command and charm.

"You'll have to register with the main desk at the house."

"Of course. And you'll have to open the gate for my coachman." Soon I heard the squeak of hinges, oddly rusted for so well maintained an estate. "Many thanks and good day," Irene waved in farewell as the wheels crunched over a gravel drive between an avenue of plane trees.

"In truth, Irene," I said, "I wonder that you don't simply use 'open sesame' in such instances and save yourself the trouble of chitchat."

She smiled at my tart tribute to her powers of persuasion but remained silent. I sensed a barely controlled excitement in her that our outing to bucolic Croydon hardly seemed to merit. The house hove to on our right, a ma.s.sive Jacobean pile with immaculate grounds.

"I imagine some of Mr. G.o.dfrey Norton's pounds have gone to clip these boxwood hedges, my dear Nell."

"Why? He is a pure city dweller. Why underwrite an estate in the country?"

Irene favored me with her most mysteriously knowing look. "When we arrive inside, allow me to set the scene."

"When have I not?" I retorted, following her out of our vehicle and up some shallow steps, then across a broad pavement to the front doors.

Irene yanked the bell. So large was the house that I heard only a far, faint ring. A peephole snapped open and a set of red-rimmed eyes regarded us.

"We are here to see Mr. Norton," Irene said boldly.

I tried not to start, but I believe that my hat plumes wavered a bit. How did Irene know what to expect without having been forewarned by the younger Norton, as I had been? My pulses began to flutter when I considered the depth of her perception and the guilt of my own secret.

The raffish eyes behind the peephole widened. "Then you don't know the news-I'll let you in."

"Thank you." Irene waited regally as bars, locks and various mechanisms grated free on the other side of the door.

When it swung wide the butler-for I a.s.sumed so grand a house would have one-admitted us to a hall paved in checkerboard marble after the Wren style.

"Mr. Edgewaithe is in the office, directly ahead," said he.

"What don't we know?" I whispered as I followed close on Irene's heels. "Why does a private residence require an 'office,' and isn't that butler's manner rather familiar?"

"He's not a butler, merely a doorman-and this 'residence' is both more public and more private than you suspect," was all that she would say.

Mr. Edgewaithe rose from behind a Queen Anne desk as we entered. "Ladies, please be seated. You are new to The Sycamores..."

"New, yes," Irene said, softly rustling into a chair. "I am Clytemnestra Saunders and this is my cousin, Henrietta Rushwimple. We are distant cousins of Mr. Norton, and had not learned of his residence here until lately."

"Norton, is it?" Mr. Edgewaithe frowned. He was a lean, stooped man in a frockcoat. The thick swag of watch chain across his concave belly echoed the gilt spectacles on his worried face. "How tragic that you did not come yesterday, as his son did."

"G.o.dfrey was here?" Irene inquired alertly. "Then I presume that our relation has-"

"-been called to quieter pastures," our host finished solemnly.

"Plainly speaking, he is dead? And only yesterday?"

Irene's businesslike tone brought a pained look to Mr. Edgewaithe's professionally furrowed features. "He was of an age for it. There was no irregularity, I a.s.sure you. His son would swear to that."

"Oh..." Irene blinked prettily, as if batting back tears, "we have come so far, after so long. It is possible to... see him?"

"See him? I'm afraid not. The Sycamores is accustomed to sudden death. The local doctor signed the death certificate and Mr. Norton was interred last night. You may visit the mausoleum, which is on a particularly lovely portion of our grounds..."

"Of course." Irene pulled a handkerchief from her reticule and waved it ostentatiously. "Cousin Henrietta and I must see the-the place of interment. But to make our journey and come away with no... feeling for the man. It is so sad. May we not at least see where he stayed?"

Mr. Edgewaithe's face took on a queer expression at her last words. Irene noticed it as quickly as I.

"Or perhaps I should say, where he was... kept? Pray do not think you shock us, sir. When we learned of our cousin's whereabouts, no secret was made of his condition. This is a private sanatorium for the mentally disturbed, is it not?"

"For the brain-feeble, yes. Your cousin suffered from the slings and arrows of old age. He had grown quite forgetful and confused. He even failed to recognize his own son; one can hardly blame the lad for visiting so seldom. But young G.o.dfrey never failed in his financial duties to his father's caretakers, nor we, I trust, in our tending of the gentleman."

Irene buried her face in the linen. "To see where he spent his last days would do more to set our souls at rest than to see where he lies now."

"If you insist, ladies. The Sycamores has nothing to conceal in its accommodation, which is the best in the environs of London. If you will follow me."

We did, through waxed and dusted halls, up shining stairwells and down a corridor lined with doors equipped with small peepholes.

This last touch overshadowed the place's beeswax-scented cleanliness, that grim line of barred doors with their spy-holes. Then, too, the odd chirps and moans that drifted from beyond all those doors did little to calm my fears.

There was apparently nothing wrong with their hearing-the mad-for as we pa.s.sed nails scratched the far sides of the doors, and fists pounded and faint voices pleaded.

Then I realized that it was not our pa.s.sing footsteps that so disturbed the unseen denizens behind the doors, but the cheerful jingle of the keys in their warder's hand. Mr. Edgewaithe made this wordless pa.s.sage as if he heard nothing. Irene's face was composed as for a photograph, fiercely still.

Finally the keys made a last clash and our guide paused before a door. I noted a bra.s.s number on the panel: 12. The key turned; I fancied I heard wails all up and down the hall as those other locked doors stayed shut. This one swung ajar on silent, oiled hinges.

Irene stepped through. No carpet softened our footfalls. No curtains festooned the window, which was barred. How had I failed to notice those barred windows from the driveway? There was a bed, stripped to its ticked mattress. A bare table. A metal pitcher and bowl, even a bra.s.s chamber pot.