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strong heartbeat—a heart that he’d been assured pounded only for him. He felt he was going to burst from sheer delight that

someone else could love him so much, want him so much.

It had started so delicately, Jonty taking off Orlando’s shirt

slowly and with much caressing. Orlando had felt rather

embarrassed at the rather scrawny figure he presented compared

to his friend, who’d already discarded his own shirt. But Jonty

hadn’t seemed to be disappointed. With a soft sigh which might

just have contained the word
magnificent
, Jonty had reached out to draw his fingers down the smooth skin of Orlando’s abdomen

and stroke it tenderly. “Been so very long, Orlando.”

They’d kissed, languorously and slowly, but with a fire, an

urgency, that hadn’t been present when they’d kissed before. Now Orlando could take a rest and savour all that he was feeling. The pounding of his heart, the strange burning in his stomach that he couldn’t recall ever feeling before. “I do love you, Jonty.” He

breathed the words into his lover’s skin, feeling the answering

quiver against his cheek.

“Then come and kiss me again.” Jonty drew his lover’s head

up better to plunder the man’s mouth once more with his fierce,

eager tongue.

Orlando could feel himself becoming lost, wonderfully so, in

the wildness of their embraces. He turned Jonty onto his back,

pressing him onto the bed and kissing him with more passion than he thought himself capable of. Nothing was going to come

between them now, neither accident nor murderer. He’d forgotten

illness.

A sudden paroxysm of coughing racked Jonty’s body.

Orlando immediately sprang apart from him and started to rub his friend’s back. “Just like in sick bay.” Orlando shook his head.

“That journey’s taken too much out of you and it was wrong to

indulge so. I’m sorry.” He concentrated on the rubbing, face

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burning with the shame he felt at having caused his friend to

become so distressed.

Jonty tetchily shrugged the hands away. “It’s just the

London air, Orlando, bit of a shock when you’re used to the sweet atmosphere of Cambridge. Please don’t fuss so.” He rose and took his shirt. “I’m off to the other bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Goodnight.” Orlando felt like a chastised spaniel that had

no idea how it had offended its master. “I’m truly sorry.”

“I know you are, please don’t make a song and dance about

it.” Jonty walked to the door, turned back and took his friend’s hand. “I’m sorry, that’s abominably rude of me. You’re right, it has been a long day and I am tired. But this—” he indicated the

rumpled sheets on the bed, “—was lovely. As if the last few

weeks hadn’t happened. Thank you.” He kissed Orlando’s brow

then walked away again, this time really going to the other room.

Orlando watched him with regret. If he’d not had that

wretched coughing fit, who knew how the evening might have

ended? And would Jonty ever be well enough for anything more

than a cuddle?

The slow train rarely halted at the Pheasantry unless there

were Stewarts in residence at the Manor, as the house had been

known for the last three hundred years. Then both up and down

services would be regularly asked to make a stop for guests, staff or packages to alight or entrain. The honorary stationmaster,

whose proper job was the managing of the signal box—two

hundred yards down the route where the track split—would be

notified by telegraph that he had business on hand at the platform.

Then he would have to hare up the line and attend to it, leaving
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Charlie Cochrane

as the Stewarts were great tippers, Mrs. in particular, who might be loud and imposing but had a heart made entirely of gold.

Christmas was usually a busy time, or had been before the

Manor had been closed for renovations, but the reopening of the

restored castle had brought the expectation that the festive season of 1906 would see a resumption of business on the stationmaster’s platform. The twenty-first of December brought the first of many expected signals and then the alighting at the halt of one rather serious-looking young man and another instantly recognisable,

somewhat cheerier, one.

“Dr. Stewart,” the stationmaster cried, grabbing the man’s

bags. This seemed an unnecessary act as the footman from the

Manor was on hand to attend to things, but everyone knew it was

essential to the procuring of that tip. “Just like old times for us, having the great house occupied again for Christmas and New

Year.”

Jonty smiled and nodded. “Not entirely like old times, I

hope. I think we’ve grown out of insisting that my brothers and I be allowed into your hallowed box to operate the signals

mechanism.”

The keeper of the box of delights laughed heartily. “You’d

be very welcome any time if you still wanted to give it a go, sir.

And any of Mrs. Stewart’s other guests.” He gestured his head

towards Orlando. “As long as you remember…”

“Not to touch anything until told,” Jonty finished off the

sentence for him. “I do remember and we’ll bear it in mind.” He

turned to Orlando. “How do you fancy getting to change the

points for the fast down train, Dr. Coppersmith?”

If he had expected a look of disdain in response he was

sorely disappointed. Orlando actually had a twinkle in his eye that spoke of great interest in being allowed into a signal box for an hour or two. The stationmaster had noticed the gleam too and

bowed very politely, picking up Orlando’s case in the process,

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while fending off the eager footman for the privilege. Once

money had been pressed firmly into the hand of this eager

employee of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway

Company, the men were allowed to escape into the carriage that

awaited them and set off.

“The Manor and lunch, Orlando—what more could any man

need?”

Mrs. Stewart’s welcome was much as anticipated, all hugs

and powder, the hearty handshake from Mr. Stewart less so.

Orlando had speculated long and hard about this man. He’d seen

his picture in Jonty’s room and knew him to be well built, tall and handsome even in late middle age. But it was the personality that fascinated him. What sort of a man must Richard Stewart be to

have swept one of the most eligible ladies in the Home Counties

well and truly off her feet? And what prodigy of nature could

have sired a Jonty Stewart? All he knew in advance was that his

friend’s father was a lord but chose not to use the title, for reasons that defied both social mores and logic. He was interested in

bridge and the Ten Commandments, hobnobbed with royalty but

regarded the king’s morals with disapproval. He still adored his wife after well over thirty years of marriage and tolerated the fact that his son had chosen not to find an acceptable spouse, choosing instead to fulfil his desire for men.

Orlando wasn’t sure whether any or all of these factors

would show on his host’s face, but he was pleasantly surprised

with his first impressions. Intelligence came across in spades,

alongside a combination of solemnity and sensitivity. When he’d

been favoured with a thicker thatch of hair and fewer wrinkles,

Richard Stewart must have been regarded by the ladies as the

catch of the season. He too, like his youngest son, suffered with a cough in the wake of illness, although both rightfully regarded

themselves as lucky to have escaped the pneumonia which had

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taken a number of folk who’d thought they’d successfully

survived the flu.

The Manor amazed Orlando, too. How he could ever have

felt at home—as Jonty reassured him he had—at a place which

was half unfinished castle and half stately home, he wasn’t sure.

The scale of the edifice wasn’t as great as St. Bride’s and the era of construction more recent, but it was just as imposing, a great entrance which must have once held a portcullis leading into a

grassy court. Three sides of this were bounded by Tudor buildings with Georgian additions, the fourth by a walled garden. If he

hadn’t been both besotted with and in awe of his hostess, he’d

have bolted straight back to the station.

Mrs. Stewart bustled them all into the warmth of the drawing

room then fussed and fretted over them all to her heart’s content, her husband rolling his eyes when she couldn’t see him do so and sharing wry smiles with his guests. In due course they were

allowed to be left alone, at which point Richard Stewart

immediately began to quiz the “lads”, as he’d taken to referring to them, on something about which he was itching to have

information. He was a St. Bride’s man himself and naturally took an interest in the Woodville Ward case.

It was also said that Shaa had once stayed at the original

building on the site of the Manor. That building was no longer

standing, having been cleared when the castle was built, but its traces could be seen on the northern lawns. There was no

documentary evidence of the visit, of course, just some local

history that had been jotted down by a clergyman in the

eighteenth century, the source of which was dubious.

Mr. Stewart was delighted the lads had thought to bring

down all their documents, and his eyes lit up to learn of the

encoded ones. He’d always had a soft spot for cryptograms, he

confided, which made Jonty roll
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of his father and his lover ensconcing themselves together over

dry and dusty parchments.

As it turned out, they were all too tired and full of lunch in

the afternoon to attempt anything more than a brief résumé of how the case stood, before the local rector and his wife arrived for a drink or two prior to dinner. This proved an interesting meal, the clergyman having a fund of funny stories that were matched blow

for blow by his host.

Inevitably the case on which the fellows were working got

mentioned, something which made the rector prick up his ears. He was a staunch Yorkist, not a red rose being allowed in his garden, not a book about the Tudors polluting his shelves. He could,

however, just about square his conscience with visiting a home

that had been founded under the benefaction of Henry VIII,

especially when Mrs. Stewart, in whose gift was the living of the parish, had confessed to a smidgeon of York blood in her noble

veins.

The rector had his own pet theories about the case and was

fascinated to hear those that Orlando and Jonty had come across.

The one about Richard of Gloucester enraged him, that which

picked out Margaret Beaufort interested him enormously and the

faux Shakespeare theorem made him hoot, especially as it was

told by Orlando, with every note of outrage he’d felt about being gulled getting exaggerated in the telling.

“But are you any nearer to solving this puzzle?” Mr. Stewart

tapped his fork on the table, earning him a sharp look from his

wife. “I’d love to be able to claim some connection to the people who unravel once and for all the mystery that’s eluded so many.

Especially if it means keeping it out of the hands of
he whom I
shan’t mention.
”

“I beg your pardon?” Mystified, the rector looked from Mr.

Stewart to his son.

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Charlie Cochrane

“My father means a certain fellow of St. Bride’s who

treacherously absconded to the college next door and is now

regarded as a cross between Iago and Guy Fawkes. He’ll get

access to all the new information if we don’t have this wrapped up by the start of term. It’s enough to drive a man insane.” Jonty dug into a potato as if it were Owens himself. “However, we’re

making some headway, aren’t we, Dr. Coppersmith?”

“We think so.” Orlando smiled happily. Usually ill at ease in

company, the welcome afforded him by his hosts, and having a

subject to discuss on which he was confident, had made him

positively garrulous. “It’s all Dr. Stewart’s suggestion, of course.”

He inclined his head towards his friend, inviting him to continue and then wondering whether Jonty would be brave enough to raise

the matter of his dream in mixed company.

“I suddenly had an idea—” Jonty waved his hand airily, “—

that all the evidence we have as to the identity of the body in the well is circumstantial. The jewellery, the arm, the rough

coincidence of dates. That’s the entirety of it. I’ve learned a thing or two over the last year about looking for real hard evidence and none of this convinces me.”

Orlando nodded. “The thing that has always worried me in

this case is the matter of
qui bono
. No one obviously benefited from the murder of Shaa, except, as Jonty pointed out—and it was like a bolt of lightning illuminating the sky—Shaa himself. If he could pretend that he was dead, he could escape as easy as kiss

my hand and live the life he’d always wanted to. We know

another young man went missing at the time and I think it’s likely it was him in the well, although Jonty thinks the evidence on that is coincidental too.”