Not that direction.

Inwardly, he sighed. Then, closing his eyes, sinking into the bed, he opened his mind and let his grief take him.

Let sorrow for the good times he would not now share with Horatio rise and spill over-let grief for the passing of one who had, in one way, been a kind of father, well and pour through him. No more the joy of shared discoveries, the eager quest for information, the shared hunt to pin down some elusive provenance.

The memories lived, but Horatio was gone. A formative chapter in his life had ended. It was difficult to accept that he'd reached the last page and now had to close the book.

Grief ebbed and left him empty. He'd seen death too many times for the shock to hold him for long. He came from a warrior caste; unjust death was the trigger for one of his most primal responses. Revenge-not for personal satisfaction, but in the name of justice.

Horatio's death would not go unavenged.

He lay in the soft sheets while grief transmuted to anger, eventually coalescing into icy resolution. His emotions hardened, he mentally returned to the scene, replaying every step, every recollection, until he came to the touch…

Fingers that small belonged to a child or a woman. Given the fascination behind the touch-one he recognized instinctively-he would wager his entire collection that a woman had been there. A woman who was not the murderer. Horatio might have been old, but he hadn't been so infirm that a woman could have stabbed him so neatly. Few women would have the strength, or the knowledge.

So-Horatio had been murdered. Then he had entered and the murderer had coshed him with the halberd. Then the woman had entered and found him.

No-that couldn't be right. Horatio's body had been turned onto its back before he'd arrived; he agreed with "Papa"-it hadn't been the murderer who'd done that. The woman must have, then she'd hidden when he appeared.