It was late at night and the house was dark, everyone tucked up in their beds, when a side door opened quietly and a dark figure slipped inside. The man stood for a moment, still and watching, then moved with equal silence down the hallway and up the servants’ stairs to the second floor. Once again he waited, poised at the top of the stairs for the slightest sound before he went on to the door he sought. He opened it and peeked inside. There was no sign of the General’s valet or a nurse keeping watch over the old man.

      He slid through the door and closed it softly after him, then glided across the floor until he stood beside the bed. He stood for a moment, gazing down at the old man. The General looked so frail that for a moment he wondered if this was really necessary. The man had just, after all, almost died. There was always the possibility that he would not regain his health, and then General Streathern would be of no danger to him.

      As he watched, the old man’s eyes opened, as if he had sensed the watcher’s presence. His eyes narrowed. “You!” he rasped. “What the devil are you doing here? Didn’t I tell you—”

      “Yes, yes, I know,” the younger man said lightly. “I am never to taint you with my presence. But, I thought it best to talk to you. You see things have changed.”

      “Yes, they have.” The General pulled himself up into a sitting position against his pillows. His uninvited guest noted that it was something of a struggle for him.

      “I wanted to make sure that you were not thinking of doing anything foolish.”

      “You mean revealing what really happened? What makes you think I wouldn’t?” the General shot back, rather injudiciously. “I have no reason to keep silent anymore.”

      “There is the slight problem of your not having brought the matter up years ago, when it mattered. It would not reflect well on you. Your name would be ruined.”

      “Perhaps that is as it should be,” the old man remarked heavily.

      “Easy for you to say, when you are facing the grave, anyway. I, on the other hand, have many years to live, and I have no desire to do so under the taint of scandal.”

      “It would be worse than that.”

      “Indeed? I think not. Only your word against mine, and you are an old fool who has just suffered an apoplexy. Everyone would assume that your brain simply was not working properly any longer.”

      “Oh, they would believe me,” General Streathern said, contempt and hatred lighting his eyes. “I have proof, you see.”

      The other man’s eyes were as cold as the General’s were heated. He surveyed the old man for a moment, then said, “Well, I am sorry to hear that.”

      Swiftly he picked up a pillow from the bed and put it over the old man’s face. The General struggled, but he was weak from his illness, and it was not long before his struggles ceased. The visitor waited another long moment after that, then lifted the pillow and set it back with the others. He pulled the old man back down in the bed so that he was no longer sitting up but would look as if he had died peacefully in his sleep.

      He cast a quick glance around the room, and it was only then that it struck him: if the General truly had proof against him, he could still be in danger. His jaw clenched, and he glanced at the still man in the bed, anger surging up in him. The old fool had made him so angry, he had acted in haste. He should have made him reveal where and what the proof was before he killed him.

      He went over to the chest across the room and began to search through it, realizing even as he did so how difficult it would be to find what he needed. To begin with, there was the possibility that there was no actual proof, that the General might have been merely bluffing, hoping to scare him. And if the old goat had been telling the truth, he still had no idea even what the proof consisted of. Was it an object? A piece of paper? Whatever it was, he was certain that the General would have secreted it away somewhere. A safe was the most likely choice, so he searched the room but found none, knowing even as he did so that the safe was just as likely to be downstairs in the old man’s study or smoking room, or even where they locked up the precious silver. Finding it would be a daunting task in the best of circumstances. At night, with a houseful of people around who might wake up and discover him, it was almost impossible.

      Even as he thought it, he heard the sound of the doorknob turning. He darted into the shadowy spot between the wardrobe and the corner of the room and waited, holding his breath. He heard the shuffle of an old man’s feet across the room and saw the flickering low light of a candle. Fortunately the light did not come close to where he hid. He, however, could see the features of a man close to the General’s age, dressed in nightclothes and dressing gown. The General’s valet, he thought.

      The servant stopped at the foot of the bed and stood for a moment. Then he began to frown and edged around the bed to stand beside the old man. He sucked in his breath and let out a low wail. “Oh, no, oh, my lord, no!”

      He moaned again, then turned and left the room at a pace close to a run.

      The intruder did not hang far behind. He raced to the door after the servant and saw him shuffling down the hallway, moaning and crying out, “He’s gone! The General’s dead!”

      He did not pause, but slipped along the hall in the opposite direction, running lightly down the main stairs and out of the house.

      2

      The carriage rolled to a stop, and Jessica pushed back the curtain to peer out into the dark, a question on her lips. As soon as she saw what lay before them, the question died unanswered. The coachman had stopped, no doubt, just as she would have, because of the