Amelia, working tirelessly, pursued her leads. She spent days discreetly circulating among the railway workers and union organizers she already knew, dropping veiled hints about industrialists and their ‘foundations of fortune.’
One evening, a trusted labor source, a tired but resolute man named Mr. Finch (no relation to Mrs. Finch, thank goodness), arranged a clandestine meeting.
“There’s a clerk,” he whispered, meeting Amelia in a dim corner of a public library. “Works for Lockhart, but he’s sickened by what he sees. Especially since your article, Miss Harding.”
The clerk, a young man named Samuel, was nervous, his hands fidgeting. He spoke in hushed tones, describing Marcus Holloway’s heavy-handed tactics and Silas’s demands for absolute loyalty.
“He showed me the… the *real* ledgers,” Samuel confessed, his voice trembling. “Not the public ones. He was boasting about how far back Mr. Lockhart’s genius goes.”
He pulled a thick, rolled-up sheaf of papers from beneath his coat. “I made copies. It’s the original family ledger, exact pages. The ones from… from the mill acquisition.”
Amelia’s breath caught in her throat. It was a precise, verified copy of the very ledger Thomas had found. The same damning entries, detailing the fabricated five thousand dollar debt, the forced sale of the rival mill, the unethical origin of Silas’s wealth.
It wasn’t just a family secret anymore. It was documented fraud, and it was in her hands, confirmed by an independent, verifiable source.
This was the proof they needed, secured by an unseen, unlikely ally.
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