He was a doomed man. There was no point in even trying to deny it. His days as a free—as a carefree—man about town were numbered. Ever since just before Christmas he had felt the noose tightening ever more firmly about his neck.

“That coachman of yours deserves to be led in front of a firing squad,” Miss Frances Allard, that charmingly gentle lady, said suddenly and sharply, and at the same moment her hand clamped like a vise about Lucius’s sleeve. “He is going too fast again.”

The carriage was indeed slithering and sliding as it plowed its way through the heavy snow. Peters, Lucius thought, was probably enjoying himself more than he had in many a long day.

“I daresay you would say that,” he said, “since you have your own coachman trained to proceed at about half the walking speed of a gouty octogenarian. But what have we here?”

He peered out through the window and saw that the slithering had been occasioned by the fact that the carriage was being drawn to a halt. They had arrived at what appeared to be an inn, though it was a decidedly poor specimen of its type if this first glimpse of it was anything to judge by. It looked more as if it might be a community center for the drinkers of the village that must be close by than a stopping place for respectable travelers, but, as the old adage went, beggars could not be choosers.

The inn also looked somewhat deserted. No one had cleared any snow away from the door. The stables to the back of the building were shut up. No light flickered behind any of the windows. No reassuring plume of smoke was billowing from the chimney.

It was something of a relief, then, when the door opened a crack after Peters had yelled something unintelligible, and a head complete with unshaven jaws and chin and a voluminous nightcap—in the middle of the afternoon—peered out and bellowed something back.

“Time to wade into the fray, I believe,” Lucius muttered, opening the door and jumping out into the knee-deep snow. “What is the problem, fellow?”