Cornelius Brandt cut the seals that made Caldermarch's contracts binding. Every bank vault, every railway charter, every marriage settlement in the city carried his mark.Now he is dead on his own workshop floor, and the ward on the door — the kind that cannot be bribed, forged or mistaken — records that no one came in.The Perpetual Assurance Company sends Harriet Ledgard to establish whether it owes his estate a fortune. She is forty-two, twelve years in claims, and she has...