Warwick submitted his counter-materials in mid-June: forty-three pages, seventeen legal citations, and a sworn statement from a retired military officer who claimed to remember the sixth earl making disloyal remarks at a meeting some thirty-two years ago.
Ella read the statement twice. Then she found the problem.
The meeting the officer claimed to remember had occurred on a date when the sixth earl was documented as being at the front—a fact verifiable from the military movement records held in the national archive. The officer was either confused or lying, and either way, the contradiction was disprovable within a week.
She sent the document to Evans with the relevant dates circled. He replied the same afternoon: understood, handling it, expect three to four weeks' delay while this is resolved.
She went to Samuel and told him: "He's not trying to win. He's trying to slow us down. We should use the delay."
"How."
"Catherine's three hiding places," she said. "The northern estate. If we go and collect what she left, we have the original materials—not transcriptions, not secondhand reports. That's a significantly stronger position for the final hearing. Whatever Warwick does with the delay, we go get what Catherine hid."
He looked at her steadily. "When."
"As soon as we can arrange it. Three people—you, me, and a local guide. Move quietly. One day, two at most."
A pause. "Raymond should come," he said.
She considered this. It was the first time he had ever proposed including one of the others in a practical plan—had acknowledged, aloud, that Raymond's experience of the northern estate was a real resource.
"Yes," she said. "That's right. He knows the land."
"I'll tell Elias," he said. "He needs to know the plan." A pause. "In case."
She understood what in case meant. She did not respond to it directly. "I'll arrange the guide," she said.