Neil’s face was scratched.The side of his jacket was torn.His spectacles were bent.
All of them were soaking wet.
Mr.Chowdhury took it all in with an astonishing degree of aplomb.
“I take it things did not go entirely according to plan?”he commented mildly.
They had not, Ellie acknowledged, gone entirely according to plan.
She and Adam had crawled into the attic above the broom closet, which had indeed been infested with bats.They had been perfectly normal bats, but even bats that were not flesh-eating monsters were problematic when unexpectedly disturbed.
Adam had finally managed to kick through the vent in one of the clubhouse gables.They had descended a vigorous wisteria vine to the golf course, where they had been doused by an abrupt downpour—and then nearly barreled over by an openly fleeing Neil and Constance.
With all the shouts of alarm and searching lanterns behind them, any opportunity to compare notes on the evening’s activities had been cut short.
Mr.Chowdhury swung open the door, allowing them inside.
The hotel suite consisted of a parlor with two attached bedrooms and a private washroom.It was clean, comfortable, and discreet—which was good, as they had hardly been very discreet themselves when they had paraded through the lobby.
“We ran into a couple of old friends.”Adam set down the dog and collapsed into an armchair, sprawling across it without any mind to the havoc he wreaked on the upholstery.
Kalb immediately crawled back up into his lap, where Adam absentmindedly scratched his ears.
Ellie could see where Mr.Chowdhury had been sitting before they came in, the place distinguished by a peaceful cup of tea and a few newspapers.The tall, distinguished solicitor returned there to pluck a throw blanket from the back of the chair.
“Professor Dawson and his handler, I presume?”he filled in as he held the blanket out to Ellie.
Ellie accepted it, wrapping the cloth around her drenched, guano-stained gown.She dropped onto the settee.“You presume correctly.”
“Well, Stuffy and I succeeded in tracking down Colonel Borthwick and bluffing our way into his stronghold.”Constance unwound her turban, shaking out the length of cloth to allow more pieces of shrubbery to tumble onto the carpet.“Everything was going swimmingly until Mr.Jacobs turned up there as well.”
“If by ‘swimmingly’ you mean that Borthwick was obviously suspicious and refused to leave us alone with the manuscript for so much as a minute.”Neil peeled off his dinner jacket with a wince.
A crimson stain lined a tear in her brother’s shirt at the side of his stomach.Ellie stiffened at the sight, still clutching the throw blanket.“Are you bleeding!?”
“Why on earth would I be… oh!”Neil glanced down at his side and went over a bit green.
“Looks like somebody winged you,” Adam commented casually.
“Has Neil been shot?”Constance excitedly pulled at the torn edges of Neil’s shirt.“Let me see!”
“I have not been shot!”Neil protested as he tried to pivot his torso away from Constance.“I fell into a hedge!It’s just a scratch!”
As though to prove the point, Neil yanked the shirt from his trousers and lifted it, exposing a pale sliver of his flank—which was marred by a distinct red welt.
Ellie shuffled over in her throw blanket to examine the wound.“I’m afraid that does look rather familiar.”
“Familiar?!”Neil echoed in alarm.“Why would it look familiar?!”
“She’s seen this sort of thing before,” Adam cheerfully asserted, scratching Kalb’s ears.“Haven’t you, Princess?”
He punctuated the remark by giving Ellie a wink.
Ellie blushed at the memory of examining Adam’s close encounter with a bullet in a dark, watery cenote—very shortly before he had kissed her senseless.
“But there isn’t any hole!”Neil squirmed to try to get a better look at his own side.“How can it be from a bullet if it didn’t make a hole?”
“When it just sorta skims you,” Adam replied authoritatively.
