Page 152 of A Modest Independence

Tom’s gaze jerked to his. “What?”

“A man at the apothecary’s shop. A friend of Mr. Crenshaw.”

Justin crossed the stable floor to Neville. “He told you this?”

Neville nodded.

A wave of nausea rose up in Tom’s stomach. In the months preceding his disappearance, Alex had been apprenticed to old Mr. Crenshaw, the Abbot’s Holcombe apothecarist. It had been a poor fit from the beginning. But Tom had never thought—had never considered… “Who?” he demanded. “Do you have a name?”

“He didn’t say. It was…afterward. He came to my bed and said goodbye. He said he was sorry.”

Justin uttered a vicious curse. It was enough to make Neville wince. “Neither of you thought to tell me any of this? I might have done something. Looked for him or—”

“It was afterward,” Neville said again, a sharp note of insistence in his voice. “I thought it was a dream.”

“Afterward,” Tom repeated. “You mean after your accident.” He gave Neville a fleeting smile of understanding. “Of course you thought it was a dream. Perfectly logical. You were out of your head for a while.”

Justin’s shoulders sagged. “What a bloody mess.”

Neville’s face was pale, his hands still clenched on the loose box door. “Are you angry, Justin?”

“Not at you. At myself. I should have realized—”

“How could you?” Tom wondered. “You’re not omniscient, Justin. Besides, when it came down to it, you were a boy, no different from any other Parish orphan. We none of us were equipped to handle what happened at that place. It’s not a matter of being strong or smart or knowing everything about everything. We had no power. No real power, anyway.”

“We have it now,” Justin said quietly.

Tom met his eyes. An unspoken understanding passed between them. It was true: Justin Thornhill had been an orphan boy just like the rest of them. He had also been their fearless leader. “What would you like me to do?”

“Find him,” Justin said.

Neville nodded. “Find him, Tom.”

Tom exhaled. “Well. Having just unearthed a missing earl, how difficult can it be to locate one larcenous former orphan?”

Very difficult, he suspected.

And probably impossible.

Tom arrived back in London the following day. There hadn’t been any point in lingering at Greyfriar’s Abbey. He was in no mood for festivities, and after speaking with Justin and Neville, it was plain that Tom would be of more use to them at his offices than if he remained in Devon halfheartedly celebrating the Earl of Castleton’s return to the bosom of his family.

After depositing his luggage at his rooms, he hailed a hansom to take him to Fleet Street. As he climbed the steps to the front door of his office, he saw a light flickering in the second-floor window.

What the devil?

It was Sunday. Keane would be at church with his family, as was his habit. Keane’s clerk was, presumably, occupied in a similar manner. No one else had a key—not even the elderly charwoman who cleaned for them.

Tom unlocked the door and entered, bounding up the stairs to his office to find…

Josiah Fothergill hunched over his desk.

“Ah, Finchley. You’ve returned at last. Have a look at the wording I’ve used here and tell me what you think of it.” Fothergill extended a paper to Tom, the ink on it still glistening wet.

Tom took it carefully between his gloved fingers. “What are you doing here?”

“Your job. Precisely what it is you should be doing—and would be doing had you not followed some auburn-haired female all the way to India. You haven’t married the girl, have you? But of course you haven’t. If you had, you wouldn’t be here of a Sunday morning.”

“There’s no need for you to be here, either. I have no open cases at the moment.”