Chapter Twenty-Five

"We must search both rooms systematically," Mrs Finch said a couple of hours later when we stood inside the doorway to the Lavignes' bedroom. "What are the rules?"

"Quick, efficient, undetectable," I replied, repeating the words that had been drummed into me throughout my training, though this was my first opportunity to put them into practice.

"Thankfully the Lavignes are tidy sorts," Mrs Finch said, looking around. "This should be relatively straightforward."

The room was similar in layout to my own, and while Mrs Finch moved towards the two large trunks that stood at the foot of the bed, I headed for the armoire, where both Mr and Mrs Lavigne's clothes hung.

"The scar on Helene's hand was real," I said, feeling carefully along all the seams in the first of Mrs Lavigne's gowns.

Mrs Finch nodded, tapping inside the empty trunks, in search of any hidden compartments. "Yes," she said. "And old too. I'm no expert but it must be at least several years for the skin to have paled as it has."

"Which would imply she is Ellen," I whispered, moving on to the next dress.

"So it would seem." Mrs Finch's lips pressed together.

"But you're not convinced."

She hesitated. "I can't like the Lavignes," she admitted. "And there is something about Helene that I can't put my finger on…" She sighed. "I don't know. It is like a tickle at the back of my brain."

"You are very good at reading people yourself, Mrs Finch," I said.

She smiled. "Well, Mari, you and I have much in common, don't we? I'd say we're both clever, successful businesswomen. We both have a sense of when something is, shall we say … off kilter."

I nodded, pleased. "Exactly. That is how I have felt too. I'm not sure Helene is lying precisely, but sometimes … there is something…"

"Yes," Mrs Finch agreed. "Something. Of course, there are the strawberries to consider as well."

"Is it possible she outgrew her reaction to them?" I asked, moving further down the rail.

"Possible?" Mrs Finch shrugged. "I suppose so, but the intensity of the attacks she used to suffer as Oliver described them make it seem unlikely to me. I had Barker telegraph Winnie first thing this morning, as well as sending messages to Sylla and Izzy."

"Sylla is in Paris now?" I asked.

"Yes, and I have directed her to visit this Lycée Sainte-Geneviève, to see if the story there matches up with what the Lavignes have told us."

I moved on to searching Mr Lavigne's clothes – a more time-consuming job, thanks to the incredible number of pockets men seem entitled to. I wondered not for the first time why women are not afforded the same luxury.

"I'm not sure what it would take for Oliver to feel reassured that it is her," I mused.

"Whatever he needs he shall have it," Mrs Finch said. "After all that Oliver has done for the Aviary, it is the least he deserves from us."

"After all he's done for the Aviary?" I repeated. "What do you mean?"

Mrs Finch only treated me to a long look. "That is for Oliver to tell you, I think. Have you found anything?"

"Some tobacco, ticket stubs, nothing important," I admitted. "You?"

"There are hidden compartments in both the trunks," Mrs Finch said thoughtfully. She tipped the case so that I could see the small drawer in the false bottom. "They are empty, but it does beg the question why the Lavignes needed them."

"Wait." I felt my hands fold round a piece of paper and pulled it from one of Mr Lavigne's pockets. "It's the advert!" I exclaimed, smoothing it out. "The one Oliver's private investigator placed."

Mrs Finch came to look over my shoulder. "The one they claimed they hadn't seen," she said thoughtfully.

"So they lied," I murmured. "They knew that Ellen had money waiting for her. It was no coincidence that they turned up now at all."

Mrs Finch pursed her lips. "It is certainly interesting. Although it doesn't prove anything. Helene may be the real Ellen, and her parents didn't previously think there was a strong enough incentive to return her to her home in England – perhaps they avoided doing so if they feared they might be parted from their daughter before she came of age. She is turned twenty-one now, and free to do as she chooses."

"I find it hard to imagine Mrs Lavigne wouldn't have been on the first boat over, if she thought there was a chance of installing her daughter here. She's certainly made herself very at home, hasn't she?" I said.

Mrs Finch nodded. "It is clear that woman is particularly displeased by your presence, Mari. I imagine she thought she would be running the house on her daughter's behalf before the year was out."

"She's ambitious," I said.

"Perhaps we may use that to our advantage."

We swiftly completed the rest of the search, turning up no further helpful clues or pieces of information. Aside from the advertisement in Mr Lavigne's pockets, their belongings supported the story they had told us – they were middle-class British citizens who had lived in France for many years.

The labels in their clothes and shoes were French – some of them appearing several years old and neatly repaired. They had paperwork in English, including a letter from the doctor they had seen in London – a Dr Wright – who wrote to confirm that, while he believed Helene's second accident had resulted in no further injury to her brain, it was perfectly possible it might have recovered memories that were previously lost. There were also travel papers for the three of them and Helene's official adoption papers, carefully kept, and I remembered Oliver saying that he had already seen these.

There were French face lotions, French perfume, but English shaving cream, which Mr Lavigne must have picked up when they were in town.

Helene's room was similarly unhelpful. She had brought a lot less with her, and unlike the Lavignes' room, I found myself feeling guilty and uncomfortable about pawing through her meagre possessions.

A handful of gowns with nothing hidden in the seams, shoes, a few hair ribbons. There was hardly anything personal at all, only a Bible bound in pale blue leather slipped under her pillow.

Inscribed inside the cover in beautiful, faded calligraphy was the name of the school Helene told us she'd attended: Lycée Sainte-Geneviève. Tucked between the pages was a piece of embroidery that I supposed Helene had done herself when she was younger. The stitches, large and unruly, formed a wobbly heart with her initials, HL, inside.

Mrs Finch frowned over this for a moment, running her finger over the thread, before tucking it neatly back in place.

I sighed. "Nothing."

"We shall have to wait and see what news the post brings," Mrs Finch said, with none of the frustration I was feeling. When she caught sight of my face, she laughed. "This is often the way of it, Mari. Investigations take time; it is a matter of fitting many small pieces together until you have a complete picture. It is likely that we learned more today than you think."

"Such as?" I asked, curious.

"Such as, that for all their talk of what they sacrifice for their daughter, Mr and Mrs Lavigne don't seem to prioritize Helene when it comes to shopping – she has less than half the number of gowns Mrs Lavigne has brought with her." Mrs Finch said. "Such as, the fact that not one of them has travelled with anything personal." Here she held up a finger. "Now, you see that as a lack of clues, but in itself it is strange. Which of us would travel abroad, on a journey of unspecified length, without so much as a letter from a loved one, a diary, an appointment book, or any number of other trivial little things we think nothing of carrying with us?"

"Only someone who was hiding something," I said slowly. "Someone who wanted to be as anonymous as possible."

"And in that context Helene's Bible stands out." Mrs Finch shook out her skirts as she glanced around the room, checking not a thing was out of place. "It is a sentimental object. She brought it with her when the entire family have eschewed anything else of the sort. Why?"

"Perhaps she is particularly pious?" I said.

"Perhaps," Mrs Finch said, "though I have not observed anything else to make me think so."

"And she keeps it under her pillow," I said slowly. "To hide it from her parents?"

"Another possibility," Mrs Finch agreed. "Now, I have some correspondence to attend to. Take some time to yourself; I am sure it will be a while before Oliver returns."

I couldn't remember the last time I had been left to my own devices with nothing pressing to do with my time. While Mrs Finch returned to her room, my feet took me, almost without thought, to the garden.

Pushing my way through the lawn, I bent over the rough sections that I assumed had once been flower beds, bordering the space, taking in the size and shape of them, looking out for what survived. There were weeds, lots of them, and I couldn't resist kneeling and pulling some of them out with my bare hands, unearthing as I did so, a patch of cheerful asters: pale, delicate purple with their sunny golden centres. The sight of them made me smile, holding on so stubbornly beneath all this neglect. There was no one to appreciate them, and yet they bloomed anyway.

Aster. Symphyotrichum. Meaning: Daintiness.

I looked down at the small patch I had cleared. It hadn't been a lie, what I told Oliver – there was still life here, that it was still beautiful if you knew how to look.

Getting to my feet, I brushed absently at my skirts. They would be in York for some hours yet, I supposed. Perhaps I might use the time to practise honing my observation skills.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I headed back to the house and through to Oliver's library. I hesitated before the door for a moment, and then pushed it open.

The room was just as warm and cheerful in the light of day, even without the homey crackle of the fire, and the air had the same wonderful, papery scent as Mudie's did, delivering an instant sensory hit of comfort. It was, I thought, the single room in this house where a person wanted to spend their time.

Marmalade was in situ too, and as he stalked over to me, I half expected him to start hissing, warning me away from his master's domain. Instead, he weaved around my legs, as if inviting me in.

Stepping over the threshold felt strangely forbidden, but I reminded myself that Oliver had never said that I couldn't be in here.

And I wanted to practise.

I wasn't going to go through his things, or invade his privacy – well, not any more than I already was by being in a place that was so clearly his. But I wanted to look. I wanted to see what I could find out if I was careful, meticulous. I wanted to know more about Oliver Lockhart, the strange, bad-tempered man who had started occupying too many of my thoughts. To discover what his connection was to the Aviary and how he had done them a service.

For a moment, I stood in the middle of the room. The fact that it was so different from the rest of the house was significant, I realized. He didn't like Lockhart Hall, or what it represented, but he wanted a home – a place of ordinary pleasures: books and brandy and a fat orange cat purring in his lap.

The single chair, the single glass sitting beside the brandy decanter made something in my chest ache. Oliver might claim that he didn't care for company, but I thought about what Beth had said the evening before, just outside this room. That Oliver needed someone on his side. Was he lonely?

I moved to his desk, which was enormously untidy, trailing my fingers along the edge. There were stacks of papers, and I deliberately didn't look at them. This wasn't a search, like it had been in the Lavignes' rooms. I didn't know what this was, really, but certainly the rules were different.

Still, I saw opened boxes of charcoal, a scattering of chewed pencils. An artist? I wondered. Did he draw?

I made my way to the bookshelves, eyeing the titles, which covered an enormous variety of subjects, from natural history to Elizabethan theatre, to an entire section on jewellery design and something called "gemology". There was also a huge number of well-thumbed novels, which I knew Daisy and Mother had devoured. I smiled at that. Oliver Lockhart was a secret romantic, after all.

If I hadn't been looking so carefully, I would never have noticed it, but somewhere on that long, long wall of books was one that was different to the rest. It was a slim volume, and it had been handled so much that the title on the spine had worn away completely. All that I could see was an embossed design that looked like a foxglove.

Foxglove. Digitalis. Meaning: riddles and secrets.

I reached out and pulled the book from the shelf, only it didn't come away in my hand. Instead, the top of the book moved, but the bottom remained stubbornly in place. Puzzled, I pulled again, harder, and then a strange, mechanical whirring sound filled the air.

I jumped back with a gasp as an entire section of the bookcase lurched towards me.

Raising a hand to my pounding heart, it took me a moment to understand what I was seeing. It was a door.

Tentatively, I gripped the edge, and pulled it towards me. It swung open easily, on silent hinges, and beyond the opening it created I saw a steep flight of stairs, leading down into darkness.

Naturally, I went down them.

However, as I got further down the stairs, it got darker and darker, the only light filtering in from the open door I had walked through. I stopped on one of the steps, waiting for my eyes to adjust, and in the gloom I realized I had just about reached the bottom, and that beyond the stairs was a single, large room filled with dark, bulky shapes.

There must be lights in here, I reasoned, as I stepped gingerly forward. Candles somewhere, perhaps? I began feeling around in search of them.

"Oof!" I exhaled, as I crashed into something. I put my hands out. It was some sort of table, and as my fingers moved across it they closed over something cold and hard.

"What are you doing in here?" a voice demanded from behind me, and suddenly the room was filled with light.

I whipped round to find Oliver frowning at me.

In my hand I held the biggest diamond I had ever seen.