"Eavesdroppers often overhear highly instructive things."

Rhett to Scarlett, Gone With the Wind

A/N: Thanks to all readers and reviewers, especially: eyeon (I love your theories!)

All the way back to the house, Anna's sense of panic kept rising. She hadn't been able to find out anything all day, she hadn't seen Bates since breakfast, and she had no idea what to tell Mary that night. Perhaps I could lie? Pretend that I knew who killed Mr. Pamuk? No, she'd never believe that. And he… the ghost, or only a figment of our own imaginations, or whatever that spectre really is… he wouldn't be satisfied either. Will Mr. Bates come up with anything? Or… does he already know something he isn't telling me?

.Anna had just closed the downstairs back door behind her when she heard footsteps coming towards her from the left hand side of the passageway, still quite far off. One set was just a bit heavier, moving in a halting, irregular fashion; one was lighter and quicker, with a characteristic rhythm as the heels tapped on the stone flags. She froze. That one's O'Brien. I'd recognize that wicked creature's step anywhere. And the other… Thomas, I think? But the way he's walking seems so odd, unbalanced, like… oh, what am I doing, wasting my time by figuring out whose footsteps those are? I need to get out of here before they see me.

Her hand was on the doorknob when she heard the words that shocked her into stillness.

"It's all right. Shh. Thomas. Shh. You mustn't let anyone else hear you, dear." Incredibly, those caring words were coming from O'Brien. Her voice was agitated and low, but also softer than she had ever heard from the other woman, or imagined that she was even capable of. For a second, Anna was sure she was wrong, that the unrecognizable tones of tenderness could not possibly be coming from the hard, bitter lady's maid. The voice must belong to someone else.

The footsteps came closer still, and the voice spoke again.

"Just another moment. Hush, dear, hush."

No, that was O'Brien, all right.

Anna's heart leapt into her throat. She still had time to slip outside. The pair were still far enough down the corridor so that she could have disappeared into the yard with nobody the wiser. She could have also have retreated down the corridor in either of the two other directions, either back towards the kitchen or to the warren of boot room and still room and lamp cleaning room down the other hall, where it would have been easy to hide. But she didn't, and she would later know that this meant she could never fool herself into thinking she had been forced to do what she did next.

She peeked down the hall to see Thomas and O'Brien about to turn the corner, still coming towards her, his head down and the other woman supporting him with an arm round his shoulders. They had to be headed for Mrs. Hughes's private sitting room, she realized. They must be counting on her not being down here for a good bit yet. Something must be going on, all right, or they'd never take that chance. Oh, if there was ever a time to get out, this is it. Instead, she slipped to the left and stole into the storage closet directly adjoining the room. A ventilation grate sat high in the wall up against the other room, she knew. Anna eased between two piles of boxes and stood on a stepstool in front of the rectangular grate, just a few inches away from it. The two sets of footsteps were still approaching down the hall, which left her plenty of time to think about what an awful mistake she was most likely making.

This is a terrible idea, she thought. If anybody catches me, what on earth am I going to say? I'm rearranging the boxes? Lady Cora sent me down here to find a spare pair of boots packed away? Is there any chance at all I'd get away with that? But I've got to know what that nasty pair is going to say to each other. I've never heard O'Brien sound like that... it's as if she actually cares for Thomas… Perhaps she's going mad, and that's the answer. In which case I could run and tell everyone else, I suppose. But…

I have to know if those two are going to say anything that has to do with Mr. Pamuk, she realized. If I can pick up any clues at all, I've got to. I've got nothing else to go on, and time is flying fast. Giving up on any return to sanity, Anna moved slightly so that she could see the central part of the adjoining room.

Their backs were to her, but she could see that Thomas's shoulders were slumped, his usual arrogant upright carriage broken. O'Brien was holding him, and he was leaning into her for support. Anna's eyes widened at that.

"I knew better," said Thomas. "Or I ought to have done. Silly of me to get upset over this." He gave a snuffle and wiped at his nose.

He was holding a folded piece of paper in one hand. A letter? wondered Anna. Did he get bad news about something?

"He isn't fit to lick your boots; I don't care what sort of title he has," said O'Brien in a soft voice, unlike anything that Anna had ever heard from the other woman before.

Thomas gave a quiet, ragged laugh. "I suppose that I really thought he still cared. How very foolish of me."

He? Oh…. Anna swiftly put two and two together. Well… it's not as if I didn't know. Thomas's ways were an open secret among most of the upper staff. No-one ever spoke about it—one didn't speak of such things—but Anna knew. She knew that the things he felt, or did, were a sin and a shame and a crime, or ought to have been, but she could never quite bring herself to believe that, somehow. In her most private heart, although Anna never articulated this to herself, she knew that if she'd been judged a criminal for who she loved, then she'd be a damned unpleasant person as well. Perhaps this even explains why Thomas has been so much worse than usual this past week, whoever this other man might be, she thought .A title… I wonder, well, no time to think about that now.

But none of this has got anything to do with Mr. Pamuk, or Lady Mary, she thought a bit uncomfortably. I shouldn't rightly be listening to this, or witnessing it. But I can't get out of this room now, they'd hear me for sure. Whatever else Thomas is going to say, I'm stuck hearing it.

"It doesn't matter now," said Thomas.

"If you're sad," said O'Brien in the softest voice she had used yet, "then it matters to me."

Thomas hesitated, and then suddenly laid his head against the other woman's breast, taking long, shuddering breaths and closing his eyes. O'Brien stroked his hair, something motherly in the gesture, or sisterly, and she crooned in his ear, no coherent words; all that Anna could hear was shh, shh, my dear boy, shh.

After only a few moments of this, Thomas straightened up, a resolute expression on his face. "That's that, then," he said.

O'Brien nodded, seeming to understand exactly what he meant without any additional explanation. Her face was still soft, and Anna realized that when her features were not set into lines of bitterness and disappointment with the world, Sarah O'Brien was a strikingly good-looking woman. Anna could see what the other lady's maid might have become, if life had not dealt her the harsh blows she sometimes hinted at.

Thomas tucked the letter into his jacket pocket without looking at it, as if the matter were now closed for good and all. He cleared his throat. "As long as we've got a moment, I want to talk about something else, what we were discussing before."

O'Brien nodded, her face hard and businesslike again.

"It's about that man who was going down the corridor of the guest wing after eleven," said Thomas. "The valet."

O'Brien shook her head. "He can't have been Napier's valet. That's what I wanted to tell you yesterday."

Thomas looked at her sharply. "Why not?"

"Because Napier's valet was downstairs. We were finishing up a bit of a talk before going to bed, and I saw the clock. He can't have possibly been upstairs at the same moment."

"It must have been Bates," said Thomas. "He wasn't downstairs, so I suppose you're right. P'raps the valet asked him to go up there." A pause. "I can't imagine it's important," he said dismissively.

"Nor can I," said O'Brien.

She had to get out of there. She had to. Anna knew that later on, she would probably be furious with herself at the lost opportunity to find out more information. But just then, she could not bear to hear another word. She slipped out of the door as quietly as she could and walked quickly towards her room upstairs, heart pounding.

Why hadn't Bates told her that he was the man both William and Thomas had seen? Why wouldn't he simply have said, "Napier's man asked me to go upstairs for him and get something for him"? Unless somehow, O'Brien had been wrong about the time. Yes, that must be it. She must have glanced quickly at the clock and read the wrong time. Anna grasped at the possibility. After all, William could have been wrong as well; there were no clocks in that upstairs corridor…

She went into her room, closed the door, and looked at herself in the mirror.

Be truthful with yourself, always. Even if you decide to lie to everyone else in the world, never lie to yourself. That's what gran always said, she thought.

The dream came back to her again, the still, dead face of Mr. Pamuk, holding up the little bottle of dark liquid. Find me.

Anna knew what she would do, and she understood, now, that she had known all along.

Thursday, 9 p.m.

It was the hour when dinner had wrapped up, when there was a brief, predictable lull in the duties of the ladies' maids and the valets. Mary wouldn't want to change yet; she never liked to put on her nightclothes that early, and she would likely be talking to her mother or reading in her room. She wouldn't expect Anna to come up for at least half an hour. There was enough time for what she needed to do. This was the last throw of the dice. But then, perhaps I knew all along it would come to this, from the moment I heard about that bottle, she thought.

Looking round the guest room a few minutes later, Anna began to feel foolish. She didn't really know what she'd expected—Ghostly wails as she walked in? The figure of Mr. Pamuk ghost appearing behind her in the mirror again?—but nothing at all was happening. It was just a silent, empty room, ready for the next guest. Sighing, she began to walk around, opening dresser drawers and peering under furniture. The bed was neatly stripped, the carpets swept, and the tabletops bare of ornament. The sense of failure grew with each passing moment. There's nothing to find, she thought. There's nowhere else to look—

Then she stopped.

A door in the corner of the room hung partially open.

Ice rippled up Anna's spine.

She walked slowly to the door, her footsteps seeming to drag, and opened the door in one swift movement.

It was a closet, of course. Nothing but a closet. The floor wss gritty with dust. Anna shook her head. That Sophie again! Girl's worse than useless.

But maybe there was a reason why the maid hadn't wanted to sweep in here.

Maybe she'd seen something in the dark corners untouched by the light eddying in through the crack in the door. There's nothing to see, nothing to see, Anna told herself.

But there was.

Something was lying on the furthest corner of the floor.

Anna knelt on the floor, folding her skirt over her knees as they grated on the boards. She held up the bottle to the faint shaft of light. It was a glass bottle, its surface cold and slippery as a snake, a bit of dark liquid still coating the bottom. She stared at the glimmering surface.

Then something appeared in the glass, a vague tall shape. She whirled round awkwardly on her knees, her mouth open and ready to scream. The figure bent down, and a large hand clapped over her mouth.

"Mmph!"

"Shh, Anna," said a voice she thought she knew.

She looked up and saw the familiar figure of John Bates, tall and solid, outlined against the shaft of light. Anna sagged back with relief, her heart beginning to slow. Perhaps her reaction didn't make any sense; she knew that, dimly. But it was as if her body and mind relaxed naturally once he was near her. She couldn't feel afraid or apprehensive when she was near him. Even when maybe I should, she thought. If it's my failing, I can't help it.

Anna leaned back against the wall of the closet. "You followed me, didn't you, Mr. Bates?" she asked, no rancor in her voice.

He lowered himself the floor a bit awkwardly and sat across from her. "Yes, I did. Why are you here, Anna?"

"I was looking for something. And I found it." She held up the bottle.

He recognized it. She realized that at once.

They looked at each other for a long moment.

"I want to tell you something," she said.

"Go on," he said.

"I think there are clues about what happened. Pointing towards one specific person, I mean."

"And who would that be?" he asked.

Yes. He knows, all right, thought Anna.

She shook her head. "That's not really what I wanted to tell you."

"Then what do you want to tell me, Anna?" he asked, as he had asked on the bench by the stream.

"Only this. I saw the clues, I realized that I knew who this person was, and then… I decided that it didn't matter."

"Didn't matter?" He raised his eyebrows.

"No. Because if I thought that someone I… cared for… were the one responsible," Anna whispered, "then. I'm not sure where my loyalties should lie. But I do know where they would. I couldn't do anything that might hurt the… the someone I cared about."

Bates' mouth twitched, and he nodded. "And you care deeply, Anna. With everything that is in you."

You're right about that, she thought. I care more than I should, much more than is wise. She understood, now, that she had the capacity to love fiercely, with everything that was in her, to love, perhaps, beyond reason. She couldn't and wouldn't tell anyone about her suspicions. Even if she somehow had real proof, more than her bone deep conviction that John Bates had been the one to go up to the room to poison Mr. Pamuk, she would never turn him in, Anna thought. Even if the penalty was that she had to take on the blame she would not assign to him, she could not do it. Perhaps it really was a failing in her character. But she was as she was. To her, loyalty to another human being would always outweigh whatever she owed to an abstract principle, such as justice.

"Perhaps that's wrong here, even wicked," she finally said. "But it's who I am."

Bates shook his head. "Who you are, Anna, what you are—that could never be wrong."

He shifted closer, and she did not move away. They sat next to each other, a heartbeat away. They were in an isolated room at Downton, and nobody knew they were there. Was he going to kiss her? Would she allow it? Deep in her heart, Anna knew that she would. Her judgement about what was right and wrong seemed to be draining away into the floor, leaving her light as air, ready to soar in passion.

But then she felt the cooler air strike her skin. Mr. Bates had moved back, and his face was very grave.

"It's time that you knew the truth, Anna," he said.

A/N: Bum bum BUM! So, what IS the truth about what happened to Mr. Pamuk? Any guesses? We'll find out in a week…