The neighbouring house prefect lays the damp notice flat beneath a brass paperweight. Goldy settles against Lewis’s shoes, panting softly as the paper dries.
The Neighboring House Prefect
No one touches it until the ink has been examined. Lewis, remain precisely where you are.
Alexander bends over the writing table without disturbing the notice. The dates and initials fail to match the corresponding entries in the neighbouring house ledger.
Alexander Pavlovich Romanov
These dates are not merely absent. They contradict the ledger. Someone has altered the notice, or the ledger, and expected no comparison.
He points with one gloved finger to a rewritten initial. Its brown-black stroke is slightly fresher than the surrounding script, and the paper has buckled beneath it.
Alexander Pavlovich Romanov
That alteration uses the same ink as the recent School House memorandum. The resemblance is too exact to dismiss as coincidence.
The Neighboring House Prefect
Then this is not a stray notice. Lewis, you recovered it. Tell us exactly where Goldy carried it from, and whether anyone approached you.