"The dials are a lie, sir," she said. "They are meant to be a lie. A man who made a lock like that would not put the answer where a hundred fingers could turn it. The plate was proud. That was the answer."
"Twenty-five men have looked at that plate."
"They did not look at it, sir. They looked at the dials."
He was silent. She stood up. She wiped the pin on her apron and put it back in her pocket. She looked at Mrs. Ambry and not at him.
"May I go to my mother now, ma'am?"
"You may not," said Mrs. Ambry, and the dry warmth in her voice had gone very quiet. "Sit down, child. There is a purse promised, and there is a child in Somerset, and there is a gentleman who will want to speak with you."
"I did not do it for a purse."
"I know that."
"I would have done it for anyone."
"I know that also. Sit."
She did not sit. She stood by the cabinet with her hands folded in front of her apron, and her freckled face perfectly still. And the man in the gray coat looked at her across the length of the west room as if she were a page he was reading for the second time to make sure of it, and outside the rain thinned and thickened and thinned again.
And she did not know then that the man in the gray coat had signed every one of the 25 invitations himself, and had watched every one of the 25 failures from that same chair, and had begun 3 days ago to believe the box would not be opened in his lifetime, and had, 5 minutes past, begun to believe something else entirely.
Two mornings later, she was sent for. The summons came on plain paper with a plain seal. It said only that Mr. Holden of Blackmere would be grateful if Miss Wren would call at the west room at 11, and that a carriage would come to the corner of Butcher's Lane at half past 10, and that she was to bring nothing.
Her mother read it twice, and folded it, and put it in the tea caddy, and said, "Wear the gray, and a collar Aunt Susan made. It is only Mr. Holden."
"Mother"
"Then wear the gray for Mr. Holden."
She wore the gray. The collar was linen that had been turned twice, and was still white because her aunt had been a woman who believed in bleach and prayer in equal measure. In the carriage, she sat with her hands folded and did not look out.
At Blackmere, she was taken not to the west room, but to a small parlor on the ground floor that smelled of wood smoke and lemon oil. And Mr. Haldane was there in the same gray coat standing by the fire, and he did not sit until she did.
"Miss Wren,"
"Sir,"
"The box in the cabinet contained what we hoped it would contain. The child in Somerset has been sent for. Her name is Alice. She is seven. She has been living with a woman who took her out of charity and has been paid nothing for it these two years. That has been made right. I wished you to know."
"I am glad, sir."
"I have a purse for you."
"I did not do it for a purse, sir."
"I know you did not. That is why I am giving it to you."
She looked at the fire. She did not answer.
"Miss Wren, will you take work here?"
"I have work, sir. I mend for the linen draper in Cross Street, and I read for the old ladies in the almshouse on Wednesdays."
"I did not mean scullery work. Mrs. Ambry has need of a person who can read a hand and keep a ledger and hold a tongue. She has said she would like you. His grace has said she may have you. The wage is 30 pounds and your keep."