“No—do not!” he pleaded, mopping his brow. “Truly, I had no thought to compromise you. What a ghastly thing!”
“Ruined for a slipper,” she said, waving it merrily. “Gideon, if youknewhow grateful I am that you were able to restore this to me!” And, drawing a bow at random, “I rather fancy Newby wanted to give it me himself.”
Watching him obliquely, she saw the sudden steely look and knew she had guessed rightly. His brother had found her slipper and had cherished far different plans for its return.
Gideon smiled then. “’Twas the least I could do, since I was unable to return the other object you—er lost.”
“The other…?” she echoed, her attention on the whimsical smile she had missed so terribly. Remembering then, she started. “Oh! The chess piece! Which reminds me, Gideon. ’Tis the strangest thing.”
Misunderstanding, he kept one wary eye on the doorway, and pointed out, “I never saw it, but your papa evidently valued it highly.”
“Yes. But that is not what I meant, exactly. You see, I didn’t quite finish telling you what happened at the Dowling Soiree. The chessman I lost is an antique piece, and papa thinks he can never replace it because there is not another set like it. But, Gideon, there is! The gentlemen in that room had one!”
He frowned and sat straighter. “What gentlemen? I thought they were gone by the time you reached the other ledge.”
“No. I had to wait outside until they went away. La, but I thought they would quarrel forever! And then I saw that there was a chessman on the table—almost identical to the one I lost, save that it was green, not red, and looked to be set with emeralds.”
Intrigued, he said, “It must indeed be valuable. Were you able to discover where ’twas purchased?”
“But of course,” she teased, setting her cup aside. “I tripped through the open door in all my filth, and they fancied me an angel who’d flown down from heaven!”
He laughed. “Touché!You little wretch, I deserved that. I wish I might have seen their faces had you done so. Who were they, by the way?”
“I’ve no notion. I could only see the back of one gentleman, and the hand of another. They were behaving in so odd a way. Whispering almost, though they were alone in the room. And then they became angry, or at least, one did, and he said he was perfectly sure about something, and that everyone is different. Which seemed a foolish thing to remark.”
“Hmm. Is that all?”
“No. ’Twas then I really became frightened, for the other man said that somebody was a menace. ‘On both counts,’ he said. And that this menace person must be silenced. Does not that sound grim? And there was something about a meeting that could not be held until six were recovered, and that all their lives were at risk.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed Rossiter. “It sounds grim indeed, and as if you’d stumbled into a proper barrel of hornets. Thank heaven you were not detected! So they finished their game and left, did they?”
“They left, but they had not been playing chess, for there was just the one piece, and no board.”
“And they said no more?”
“No. Only— Wait!” She frowned a little, trying to remember. “There was something… Oh, yes! The second man was grumbling about a delay. And the first man said something about ‘One more try,’ and that then it would behisplan.”
Rossiter muttered, “There’s a deal more here than meets the eye! I wonder if…” He sprang to his feet and paced to the window, his tired mind grappling with possibilities. “’Twas not ’til you lost the chess piece that the robberies began,” he muttered. “It never dawned on me there could be any connection, but—”
Naomi stiffened. “Robberies? What robberies?”
He limped back to her, his eyes alight with excitement. “Why, a whole string of ’em, Naomi. My saddlebags were taken the very first morning I arrived in Town. Then Promontory Point was broken into and ransacked—no, wait! That wasbeforeI reached Town, come to think on it! Just after you came, in fact! Then, the man we sent down to the Red Pheasant was attacked, and Jamie’s home was broken into. And—yes, burn it!—the louts who ambushed me this morning—”
He stopped, because Naomi had come to her feet and was staring at him.
In a rather odd voice she said, “But the men who attacked you were, you said, retaliating ’gainst your enquiries about the bank failure.”
“Yes. But they also were searching for something, and they used the very same expression as all the others! They called their employer ‘the Squire’! Don’t you see, Naomi? It may all be connected!”
She said slowly, “I see. Then you believe this man called the Squire could be responsible for all your father’s troubles.”
“There’s a link somewhere! I’d swear to it! And your plotters in the Dowling ante room are in it up to their aristocratic eyebrows!”
“And it all started when I lost my father’s chessman.” Her voice was ice, her whole demeanour one of frigid hauteur.
“Well—yes, but—”
“Do you, by some chance, mean to imply that mypapais this evil and mysterious ‘Squire’ of yours?”
