This homicide case featured aristocrats as far as the eye could see, between the Russians and the Spaniards-and Acton, of course, who was supposedly investigating the others but seemed a little too deferential, for Doyle's taste. Why wasn't her husband moving in on the killer? And why did she have the sense that she was standing on the outside, peering into a world where there were no laws and no explanations-only birthrights, forged in ancient blood.