“Aye, sir, I swear it,” Rose said.
“What does this man who came to see your father look like?” Jamie asked.
“We was sent up to our bedchamber before he comes,” Lily said. “An’ we can’t see much from under the stairs.”
“But he had an old voice,” Rose said.
A mercer with an old voice. God have mercy on him.
“Did he use a cane?” Master Woodley asked.
Lily nodded so vigorously, her curls bobbed. “A fancy one. All’s I could see was the bottom, but it was all silvery and carved like a cat’s paw.”
“Could it have been a lion’s paw?” Master Woodley asked.
Lily nodded again.
Where had he seen a walking stick like that? At the edge of his mind, he could see a cane and a glint of silver…
“Lady Linnet was looking for a man with a cane like that,” Master Woodley said.
Jamie had believed it was Pomeroy she was intent on murdering that day at Windsor, despite her denials. But perhaps it had been someone else—this man with the silver-clawed cane.
“Who might know who this man is?” Jamie asked the clerk.
The clerk shook his head. “At Lady Linnet’s instruction, I tried to bribe a couple of the others who had been involved in the scheme.”
“Others? I thought you said there was one man?”
“I am persuaded that one man planned it. A very clever man. I suspect he parceled out just enough of the gold and goods to the others to get the cooperation he needed.”
“Give me a name,” Jamie said.
“While I could not find where the bulk of the gold went, I did discover that a small portion of it went to Alderman Arnold and to”—he cleared his throat—“Master Mychell.”
“Where is your father now?” Jamie asked the girls.
Both shook their heads. Giving up their father was too much to expect of them.
“Come with me, Woodley,” Jamie said, rising. “We are going to find a certain alderman.”
“Wait,” Lily said, leaping to her feet. “We’ve more to tell you!”
“Quick. Out with it.”
“The man with the cane said he knows someone who’ll payhimto get his hands on the lady. ‘And once this fellow has her,’ the man says, ‘the whoring bitch will be no more trouble to anyone.’ ”
“Lily!” her sister scolded.
“That is what he said!”
Jamie squatted in front of Lily and took hold of her arms. “Did he mention this other man’s name?”
“Aye, but ’twas a noble name what’s hard to remember,” Lily said, scrunching her face up. “Pom-o-tee? Pom-o-ray?”
Pomeroy.A chill went through Jamie, and he heard Mistress Leggett’s voice in his head talking about a man driven by mad lust. Somehow Pomeroy had become connected with these merchant thieves.
“God bless you two,” Jamie said, putting his hand on top of Lily’s red curls. “Martin, see the girls home safely.”