Long fingers lightly tapped the brooch. “After Waterloo-indeed, even before that-we’d started getting reports from the new French authorities. They were perfectly willing to work with us to trace any payments made by Napoleon’s spymasters. However, we still turned up nothing-nothing we hadn’t already found-until some enterprising French clerk started an inventory of the palaces, and the artworks and artifacts contained therein, the jewelry collections amassed by the various princely families of the ancient regimes. He started reporting pieces missing. Not wholesale ransacking but one piece missing here, one there. At first he assumed it was simply mislaid items, the natural outcome of the disruption of war, but as he discovered more such missing items, he began to sense a pattern. That’s when he approached his masters, and they sent his list to me.”

Dark eyes narrowing, Dalziel lifted the brooch, slowly turning it between his fingers. “Would it surprise you to learn that on that list is an oval cloak-brooch dating from the age of Charlemagne, Celtic goldwork with diamonds and pearls surrounding a large rectangular emerald?”

His voice faded into absolute silence.

Madeline broke it. “Are you saying that the man after the brooch, the one searching for a cargo the brooch formed part of-the man who has Ben-is this unidentified traitor?”

Dalziel’s eyes rose to meet hers. His jaw set. “I fear so.” He paused, then added, “As it happens, that increases the likelihood that your brother will be released unharmed once he’s identified the beach for our traitor. Our man is careful and clever-he’s only killed once that we know of, and then he was forced to it, when a henchman who knew his identity was cornered. Murder attracts too much attention-he’ll just want Ben to be lost for a while, more to keep you occupied than anything else. You’re right about that.” He looked down at the brooch. “Now we know it’s him, things make more sense.”

He stared at the brooch, then leaned forward and carefully handed it back to Madeline. “Regardless of what happens, please don’t offer to give it back. If he demands it and there’s no alternative…but don’t volunteer it.”

She considered the brooch, felt its weight in her palm. Understood why he’d given it back to her, into her keeping, appreciated his comprehension. She looked up and met his dark eyes. “Thank you. I won’t.”

He nodded, then looked at Gervase. “I think we can conclude that your blackguard is indeed our old foe, and he’s after that cargo. No surprise he was wise enough not to agree to be paid in French sous, and careful enough to wait until now to bring his ill-gotten gains into England, and used French smugglers to do it. Far safer to cache his thirty pieces of silver in France while Napoleon was in power, and bring it over now, long after the wars are over and, so he would reason, no one’s watching anymore.”

Gervase nodded, his gaze locked on the brooch. “It all makes a certain sense.”

“Indeed. We’ve already established what sort of man he is. He has no need of money, but items such as that”-Dalziel watched as Madeline slipped the brooch back into her pocket-“the treasures of kings and emperors, those would hold a real incentive for him-something only he was clever enough and powerful enough to gain, something no one else could ever have.”

Christian snorted. “Symbols of his greatness.”

Dalziel nodded, then came to his feet in a rush of nervy energy. “He’ll want that cargo. After all this time, all his planning, waiting for his moment of triumph-he’ll be fixated on regaining his treasure.” He smiled chillingly. “And fixated men make mistakes.”

He looked at Gervase. “Regardless of what happens here today, I’ll be on my way to Cornwall this afternoon.”

Gervase’s face hardened. “Madeline and I won’t leave here until we find Ben.”

Dalziel nodded. “I’ll help in whatever way I can, but this might be our last chance at catching this man and I can’t let it pass.”

“We’ll have to find Ben first,” Madeline said.

Dalziel nodded again, more curtly. “I’ll put all the forces I can muster at your disposal before I leave-”

“No, you don’t understand.” Her voice held a hint of suppressed humor, enough to make Dalziel frown at her.

“What don’t I understand?”

She knew she was supposed to be intimidated by that voice, by his chilly diction, but she now had his measure. She held his gaze calmly. “The Lizard Peninsula is large-you won’t be able to watch all the beaches, nor will you be able to monitor access to the peninsula itself-there are too many ways to reach it, including by sea. To catch your last traitor, you’ll need to know which beach he’ll be heading for. And until we find Ben, you won’t know that.”

Dalziel’s frown didn’t lift. “But we know which beach the brooch came from.”

She nodded. “Indeed. But as Edmond-another of my brothers-pointed out, it’s more than likely Ben will lie.”

The frown evaporated; frustration took its place. After a moment, Dalziel flung himself back into his chair. “Haven’t you taught him not to lie?”

She inwardly grinned at the disgruntled grumble. “I have, but the lessons don’t take well with Ben. Perhaps when he grows older. Regardless, at present, he lies quite beautifully-he’s so…”-she gestured-“fluent, even when I know he’s not telling the truth, he makes me think I might be wrong.”

Dalziel stared at the floor, then grimaced. “All right.” He lifted his head; his eyes pinned Christian, then moved to Gervase. “So how are we going to locate the whelp?”

Suppressing a smile, Madeline turned back to the desk. She completed the last of Christian’s notes while around her a wide-ranging discussion of how to scour London, especially the slums, raged.

Dalziel was making plans to contact various commanders in the Guards as she laid the last note on the pile. She glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes to twelve. She turned to Christian, intending to suggest he send for the footmen they’d told her Gasthorpe would provide, when the knocker on the front door was plied-not just once or twice but with persistent, repetitive force.

The three men broke off, turning to the door. It was shut, muting sounds from the front hall below, but the knocking had stopped.

Ears straining, Madeline listened…heard a light, piping voice politely ask…

She was out of her chair, past Dalziel and flinging open the library door before any of the men could blink. Sweeping to the stairs, her heart in her mouth, she paused on the landing, looking down into the hall, to the group before the front door. Then she grabbed up her skirts and rushed headlong down.

“Ben!” She couldn’t believe her eyes, but there he was; she saw the relief that washed over his face as he glanced up at her call, disbelieving her presence as much as she had his.

Reaching him, she swept him into her arms, hugging him wildly, only just remembering in time not to lift him from his feet, bending over him and clutching him to her instead, her hands patting over him.

“Are you all right?” His clothes were dusty and disarranged, rumpled and soiled, but not torn or filthy.

He nodded; he was clutching her quite as fiercely as she was clutching him. But then he pushed away; reluctantly she forced herself to ease her hold. He looked up into her face. “There was this man-”

He broke off as he noticed Gervase, who had come down the stairs, Dalziel and Christian at his back. Ben smiled, a trifle shy. He nodded to Gervase. “Hello, sir.” His gaze traveled on to rest on Dalziel, then Christian; his eyes widened, then he looked up as Gervase neared.

Smiling, Gervase laid a hand on Ben’s shoulder and lightly squeezed. “You’ve no idea how glad we are to see you. But how did you get free-and how did you know to come here?”

Ben looked into his face. “You told me, remember? When we were fishing, you told us about your club in London. You said it was in Montrose Place. When those horrid men pushed me out of the carriage in an awful street”-he glanced at Madeline-“it was smelly and dirty and the people looked mean, I found a hackney cab.”

Turning, he pointed to the heavyset, frieze-coated individual watching the proceedings through the open front door. “Jeb’s hackney. I told him I was a friend of yours-Lord Crowhurst of Crowhurst Castle-and if he brought me to your club in Montrose Place, then the people here would pay him twice his fee.”

Looking up at Gervase, Ben made his eyes huge. “You will pay Jeb double for bringing me here, won’t you?”

“Not double. Triple. With a tip.” Dalziel moved past Gervase to the door, fishing in his coat pocket. “Indeed, quadruple the fare is not too much in the circumstances.”

Jeb looked beyond awed. He took the coins Dalziel handed him, stared at them. “’Ere-this is way too much.”

“No,” Dalziel said. “Believe me, it’s not. If I had my way you’d get a medal.”

Jeb looked uncertain. “All I did was drive ’im here from Tothill. It ain’t even that far.”

“Nevertheless. You did your country a great service today. If I was you, I’d take the rest of the day off.”

“Aye.” Jeb shook his head, studying the largesse in his palm. “I might just do that.” He bobbed his head, started to turn away, then looked back, weaving to look past Dalziel and Gasthorpe at Ben. “Anytime you come back to the capital, nipper, you keep an eye out for Jeb.”

Ben beamed his huge, little-boy’s smile. “I will. Good-bye. And thank you!”

“Seems it’s me should be thanking you,” Jeb mumbled as he headed off down the path to the street where his mare stood patiently waiting.

Dalziel turned back to the group in the front hall.

Ben looked up at him, curious and intrigued. “I don’t know you.”

Dalziel smiled at Ben; Gervase blinked. It wasn’t the sort of smile he was accustomed to seeing on his ex-commander’s face. Boyishly charming wasn’t the half of it.