Daniel felt suddenly colder than the morning. Catherine might have threatened him on her own, and Pike might have turned the threat into a trap she could no longer control. Or they might have arranged the whole thing together and quarreled over how far it should go.

“What did they mean?” he asked.

Mercy shook her head. “I do not know. But I found this.”

She opened her palm. A small bent brass pin lay inside, flattened at its tip. It was identical to the hinge pin Daniel had been fitting the night before.

“Where?”

“In her dressing room, beside the window.”

Daniel understood that someone had carried an object from his shop back to Catherine’s quarters, perhaps to make a false trail run both ways. He also noticed that the pin had been driven hard against a sharp edge. It might have served as an improvised tool to open a latch.

“Keep it,” he said. “If anybody searches you, throw it away. Do not put yourself in danger for a scrap of brass.”

Mercy closed her fist. “You would not say that if you believed it was only a scrap.”

She stood before he could answer.

At midmorning, Alden visited the drying house with a county committee member, Mr. Fiske, who had come early to approve seating arrangements. Fiske was a broad man in a faded red vest. He smelled of tobacco and horses and glanced impatiently at every surface Daniel tried to show him.

“We need a decisive demonstration,” Fiske said. “The committee likes machinery that moves.”

“Then they will be satisfied,” Pike answered.

Daniel watched Pike’s hand rest against the extra bracket. His thumb covered the shallow groove. It was an unconscious gesture of possession, as though this crude addition mattered more to him than the entire frame.

“Everyone must remain off the gallery until the final test,” Daniel said.

Fiske frowned. “Why?”

“Because the counterweight is not secured to my satisfaction.”

Pike said, “He wants more time.”

“No,” Daniel replied. “I want the people underneath it alive.”

The comment embarrassed Alden in front of his guest. He ordered Pike to perform a test before supper and asked Daniel to ensure it passed. Then he departed without considering the contradiction.

Silas Crowe emerged from behind a stack of timber after the men had gone. His eyes followed Fiske’s carriage. “They mean to put him on the gallery,” he said.

“Who?”

“Mr. Fiske.”

“Why him?”

Silas studied his damaged shoe. “I was hired to install the bracket. I was not told who would stand beneath it.”

“Who hired you?”

Silas swallowed. “Pike. He paid half in cash and said the rest would come tomorrow, after the demonstration.”