The two men considered the object grimly.
“I’m not looking forward to telling my wife we let him get away,” said Janushek wryly.“She was hoping to get a whack at him herself.”
“If it comes to that, mine probably was, too,” Simon admitted, rumpling his dark hair at the thought.
“That does not surprise me,” Janushek commiserated.
Leaving the horse in the stables, they headed into Wormwood Abbey.
“What do you make of all this, Simon?”
“I’m not altogether sure.We’ve had a lot of publicity—more than I feel comfortable with at times, but I suppose we chose that, didn’t we?”He gave Janushek a thoughtful glance.“What do you think of Una’s idea that he was after the relic?Would it be worth someone’s time?”
“Ah, I see you are asking myprofessionalopinion,“ Janushek said.
Though they could not have been more different in upbringing or temperament, the years that had made the two men fathers had also made them intimate friends.Most (if not all) of Janushek’s chequered past had unfolded over tumblers of port, library firesides, and restive nights waiting for a doctor to arrive or a baby’s fever to break.
“Frankly, it’s an odd thing to attempt to steal,” Janushek admitted after a moment’s reflection on the question of the relic.“The provenance would be impossible to prove.Unless a collector hired him to do it.”
Simon nodded.“Yes, it’s puzzling.If he needed money, a dragon would be easier to sell on the black market, I would think.Tallantire tells me the sky’s the limit on what the wealthy will pay for one these days.”
Janushek took a moment to silently appreciate the generosity of his friend, for Simon was far too gracious to mention that dragon-snatching was the exact scenario that had brought Janushek himself to Yorkshire all those years ago.
“What bothers me is how easy it was for him,” Janushek said.“How did he even know about the relic at all?That wasn’t in the newspapers.Now that Pip is at home—what do you think of him staying here, at the abbey, to keep an eye on things?”
Simon nodded.“Una’s very good friends with him, isn’t she?She might feel safer with him nearby, at least until Sir George returns.”
A bright voice broke into their conference.“Who would make her feel safer until Father returns?”
The two men looked up.
“What mysterious tête-á-tête have I interrupted?”Edith asked, looking from one to the other.
“We were just trying to decide how to tell you that our man got away,” confessed Simon.
“You might have letmeget away first,“ protested Janushek, stepping behind Simon.
“How witty you are,” said Edith, slipping her arm through her husband’s and rapping Janushek on the arm with her notebook.“I’ve just been with Una, who is quite the budding Sherlock, and I’ve got a description, and a drawing from Pip, too.”She flipped open her notebook to show a lifelike pencil sketch.“Just look at this textbook villain!Between Una and Pip and Mother’s cousin in London with all his government connections, I’ve some hope we can track him down yet.”
“You’ll send it to Stephen Fairweather?Excellent,” said Simon.“And it’s Pip we were just speaking of.We thought he might stay here.”
“Hm,” said Edith, and smoothed down Simon’s hair where it stood on end.
“Hm?”repeated Simon.
“Yes.Hm.”Her eyes flicked to Janushek, then back to her husband.“Come into the sitting room.There’s tea for us and coffee for Janushek.I asked Martha to make it extra vile for him.”
Janushek grinned.“You know me so well.”
The three of them sat together comfortably, Janushek with his feet propped up on a chair, Edith resting her head on Simon’s shoulder.
Simon yawned.“I must go before I fall asleep,” he said regretfully.He rose and dropped a kiss on an errant curl springing from his wife’s chignon.“I’m to meet Dugdale about a broken sheep pen, up at Talbot’s farm.”
Edith groaned.“On aSunday?”
“Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?“ quoted Simon.“And I’m fairly certain it was a wyvern that did it.”
Edith sighed.“I suppose we can’t really expect wyverns to have any consideration for the Lord’s Day.”
