‘Confident lot, aren’t you? Claiming Maulberg for your own already.’
‘It is just to show where we are from,’ Frenzel said earnestly. ‘There are many places in Europe where our members hold great power.’
‘Hmm. What does PMCV stand for?’
‘Per me caeci vident.’
‘“Through me the blind shall see.” Interesting claim. Now you said you thought of it when I wrote out that equation. Does that make me the owl? Yet in talking about your owl it sounds like you think me blind.’
‘You just need to be led towards the light, Pegel.’ Florian looked confused suddenly and made to reach for the coin again. ‘I shouldn’t have given it to you; they are only for those who have taken the oaths. Give it back.’
Pegel held it out of his reach. ‘Hang on there, you can’t give a man a present then snatch it back.’
‘Please, Jacob, it was a stupid idea.’ Pegel looked at him. There were tears in his eyes.
‘All right, all right. Per me caeci vident, eh?’ He ran his finger over the raised body of the owl, then passed it back to Florian. ‘Then talk, owl, and I shall eat.’
Michaels set down the letter on the table. It was the short note from Beatrice that had brought Mrs Padfield to Ulrichsberg. ‘So you think this man Kupfel is the magus she wanted to learn from?’
‘He’s the only alchemist in town.’
‘You haven’t been to see him yourself?’
‘I intended to do so, but by the time I had found out his name, an attachment had formed between Colonel Padfield and myself. I did not want to risk his affection, which was foolish. I find I have married a generous man. And then …’
‘What, lady?’
She smiled briefly, sadly. ‘I was sure she would come to me. I married under my true name, and we always read the papers wherever we lived. She would have seen I had married well, and come to pick my pockets. She has not.’
Michaels stroked his jaw. ‘She could be anywhere by now. What’s to say she’s not in Spain, telling fortunes there?’
‘If you find signs she had gone there, I will not ask you to follow. But I am sure she would have written. I can only think she either has married very well indeed, so wishes to keep our past as secret as I do, or she is dead. I would like to know which. I hope you will help me, though I know there is no reason why you should.’
He considered, and thought of his wife and son, the mantelpiece in the kitchen where the family liked to spend their time with its pewter-ware laid out. ‘That ivory puzzle-ball you were playing with — I think my wife would like it. If I find you certain word of your sister, I’ll take that for her.’
‘Very well.’
Michaels got to his feet and his greatcoat knocked against the table and made the tea cups rattle. Mrs Padfield stood also and rang the bell for the maid.
‘Why now?’ he asked. ‘You lived with the not-knowing all this time. Why confess all to your husband, then me?’
She clasped her hands loosely in front of her. ‘I think I have been looking for a way to tell my husband the truth for some time. I am … very fond of him. Then I heard a man like yourself had arrived in court and it gave me hope.’
‘Any other way to know her, other than the name and the hair?’
‘She had a plain gold cross, with her name engraved on the back. A boy she liked gave it to her many years ago, and I never saw her without it after.’
The maid curtseyed at the door and Michaels made to follow her. Mrs Padfield offered her hand and Michaels caught the maid’s blink of surprise. No wonder she couldn’t go looking for herself if offering a hand to a man like him made the servants curious. ‘Thank you, Michaels.’
He nodded, and followed the maid out of the house.
It was a small and extremely inky child who opened the door. Harriet had elected after their discussion with Krall to find out what she could of the writer Bertram Raben and Krall had directed her to the shopfront in one of the smaller squares of Ulrichsberg where his works had been printed and sold, and where the official newspaper of Maulberg was written and printed. It was suggested that to avoid the sneers of the court, Harriet should take her maid. It irritated her, but when she saw Dido’s delight at an outing, even if it were walking three paces behind her mistress to a newspaper office, she felt more at peace, and a little guilty.
Harriet asked for Herr Dorf and the inky child jerked his head towards a young man in shirt-sleeves standing behind a desk in the back of the room. It was a crowded space and Harriet had a general impression of paper, noise and tobacco smoke. Four or five men, rather sloppily dressed, shouted instructions or requests back and forth. The man to whom they wished to speak looked up briefly and seemed to be in the process of readying himself to speak to them, when another man of roughly the same age, but double his girth thrust a sheet of paper under his nose. He spoke German, but with such weight on each of his words, Harriet found she could understand him reasonably well.
‘Look at this, Dorf! Look! Four Princesses at the Gala and the names of three of them are spelled wrongly! It will have to be altered, or we shall have all of the cats about our ears.’
‘Then speak to Flounders, Kurt. And you could learn to write more clearly.’ Dorf’s voice was calm but sounded deeply weary.
‘I think you should tell him.’
‘I am sure you can express your displeasure strongly enough. Look, we have a guest.’ He crossed towards Harriet and made a bow. He was perhaps the same age as Graves, and had a particularly long face. He reminded Harriet of her favourite saddle-horse at Caveley, a patient beast.
‘How may I be of assistance?’
She bowed her head quickly and spoke in French. ‘I wished to speak to you about Bertram Raben. I understand you knew each other well?’
Herr Dorf looked a little confused. He moved his hand across his forehead and answered in the same language. ‘Indeed, we were friends. He was one of my best writers. You are Mrs Westerman, are you not?’
She admitted it and could see the questions forming behind his eyes, but he was too careful to give them voice at once. Instead he turned and fetched his coat from the back of his chair. ‘Let us take a turn around the square. There is no chance at all of us being uninterrupted here.’
The day was bright. They began walking side by side; Dido took her place behind them and a little separate, looking around her with a wide grin.
‘You seem much occupied at the moment,’ Harriet said pleasantly once they had fallen into step.
‘The wedding, of course. We are producing lists of all the various attendees, the speeches, and every human who can hold a pen has written some sort of verse for the occasion, it seems.’
‘What sort of material did Herr Raben write for you?’
‘All manner of things,’ Dorf replied. ‘Odd bits of gossip from the court for the daily news-sheet. Longer pieces of opinion on literature or politics. We did a couple of those as short pamphlets. People knew he had friends at court, so they read what he wrote with interest. They sold quite well. He was a logical thinker and had a fine turn of phrase when he put his mind to it. He seemed to enjoy his life.’
‘Yet he committed suicide?’
Dorf looked up at her sideways. ‘So I believed — until you walked into my office, Mrs Westerman.’ She smiled and they walked a little further in silence.
‘Would you know of anyone who would wish to do him harm?’
‘No man picks up a pen without making enemies. But no, nothing that would mean-’
‘Herr Dorf, forgive me, but you do not seem shocked that I am asking about Raben. Why is that?’
He came to a halt and Harriet noticed that they were outside his office once more. ‘I wondered if it might be a robbery at first, as his watch was missing — but then there was money untouched and in plain sight in the room. Still I did not think Bertram would have killed himself, Mrs Westerman. I know we can be terribly wrong about our fellows, but I have never been quite able to believe it.’