Curtain Call at the Lantern

Crane listened to your case with the courteous attention of a woman being read a menu.

"That's very interesting, Miss Voss," she said when you'd finished. "And it's all very circumstantial. A coat. A tray. An impression." She turned to Rook. "I have been in the company of this man's family for forty years. Am I to be accused on the strength of an accent?"

Rook shifted. You could see the doubt landing, one grain at a time. A doctorate nobody had checked. A voice nobody would dare to doubt. Rational-legal authority: the right to be believed, because of who she was.

You had one card left.