The Rodina main house was quiet at that hour.
Most of the estate had settled into its morning rhythm. The cook category house had its lights on. The architects had gone back to their drawings after breakfast.
Grandfather sat at his desk.
The investigation team stood in front of it.
Joel stood to the side with his arms folded.
Agatha was on the small couch near the window with a cup of tea she was not drinking.
Grandfather looked at the papers on the desk. The photographs of the Ashford estate. The floor plans the investigators had drawn from memory and confirmed with the dismissed servants they had tracked down. The autopsy result confirming the body in the carriage was not Noel.
He looked at Joel.
"You are certain," he said.
"Cedric confirmed it," Joel said. "He did not say it in those words but he confirmed it. Noel is in that house."
"And Cedric is helping us."
"Yes."
"Why?" one of the investigators asked. Not suspiciously. Just as a practical question.
