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All the better, Esme told herself as she got up and pulled on her dressing gown. The family would sleep the more heavily for their overindulgence. This would not only simplify her task, but give her an earlier start.
Esme opened the door fully and listened. The house was utterly silent.
She padded quietly down the hall and opened Percival’s door first. She heard no stirring from his bed, only the sound of steady breathing. In the faint moonlight, she spied his trousers and shirt set out neatly on a chair by the window. After considering for a moment, she slipped in, took the clothes, and quickly slipped out again, noiselessly closing the door behind her.
The dowager’s room was as peaceful as Percival’s. From the bed came the low burr of heavy slumber. Esme got down on all fours, crept to the bedstand, quickly freed the container, removed the black queen, then returned the box to its hiding place.
In less than a minute, she was back in her room. After covering the narrow opening at the threshold with pillows, she lit a candle. Though she’d little packing to do, she’d rather not fumble about in the dark.
With steady hands, she braided her hair and pinned it into a coil about her head. Then she donned Percival’s shirt and trousers, wishing she’d brought her own. His were rather thin, and more snug than she liked. Still, they were preferable to a frock. In England, lone females were subject to every sort of annoyance.
Her packing took little time. The small heap of garments rolled up easily in a shawl. The queen and several hairpins she wrapped in a handkerchief, which she stuffed in her waistband. After arranging the pillows under the bedclothes to resemble a sleeping form, she put out the candle. A moment later, she was creeping down the back stairs, her boots under one arm, her bundle under the other.
Despite the darkness and an unfamiliar house, it was not so difficult to find the study door. It was the only one Esme expected to find locked. The Brentmor’s studies, Percival had told her, were constructed like vaults, with walls and doors of double thickness. When she and Percival had tried to eavesdrop from within the house, they’d been unable to make out more than a murmur, even with their ears pressed to the door or to the wall of the adjoining salon. Had the study window been securely closed, Esme would never have learned the truth about her wicked, selfish grandmother.
Kneeling at the study door, Esme felt no qualms or pricks of conscience whatsoever. The chess set was rightfully hers. Soon, she would put it into Varian’s hands. Then she’d learn for certain whether it was simply his poverty that kept them apart. If the truth turned out to be painful, she would endure it. Always, it was better to know the truth.
The lock yielded at last. Esme opened the door…and froze, her fingers still on the handle. There was light in the room.
A quick glance assured her there was no one within. The candle had been forgotten, that was all. It was a wonder if this was all the drunken servants had neglected.
Esme studied the door for a moment, then closed it again. Yes, it was the same at the country house: the bottom fit snugly against the threshold. No wonder she’d not seen any light. Yet how careless of her uncle to leave a candle burning in a locked room. The house might have burnt down about his ears…unless he had meant to return here.
She’d hear him coming, she told herself. He was a large man with a heavy footfall. Leaving the door open a crack, she made for the chess set.
She unknotted the shawl and began wrapping the chess pieces in the assortment of garments she’d brought. She didn’t want a single piece damaged in transit. She was about to knot up the shawl again when she remembered the black queen, which she’d stuffed in her waistband after getting the hairpins.
As she was pulling the chess piece out, one of the gemstones at the base caught on the wool. Esme eased it free very gently. All the same, she must have damaged it, for the base was coming loose.
Swallowing an oath, she brought the queen nearer the light. Then she stood a while, frowning at what looked like threads in the metal. She turned the base. It unscrewed smoothly.
It was very clever, she thought. She’d never have guessed the queen was made of two pieces. Wondering why anyone would bother, she turned the queen upside down. She was hollow. Or would have been, if a twist of paper weren’t wedged in the cavity.
Even while telling herself she hadn’t time for idle curiosity, she was removing the scrap and smoothing it out. Then she stared at the four lines in bafflement.
It wasn’t possible, she told herself. Even if it was possible, it made no sense.
She looked up and listened. The house was still as a crypt, and she’d need only a minute or two to learn if she’d guessed correctly.
Moving to the desk, she found a pen and paper, and quickly began replacing the letters with their counterparts, as Jason had shown her years ago. The code had been one of his games to make her Latin lessons more interesting. In his own boyhood, he’d learned the game from his tutor.
This was the same game, she saw, for the letters did form a few words of ungrammatical Latin:
Navis oneraria Regina media nox Novus November Prevesa Teli incendere M
Merchant ship. Queen…midnight. New November…but ‘Prevesa’ wasn’t Latin. It was a port in southern Albania. Teli were javelins, darts, or just offensive weapons of some sort. Incendere was ‘to burn, to fire.’ Burn a thousand weapons?
She clicked her tongue impatiently. Then something clicked in her mind. In Corfu, she’d heard that in late October or early November British authorities had captured several ships en route to Albania. Ships bearing stolen British weapons.
This was the conspiracy Percival had told her about. Ismal’s conspiracy. The last line referred to firing weapons, like rifles or cannon. A thousand of them.
But Ismal couldn’t have obtained weapons on his own, not so many. He’d had help. Esme had only to glance about the desk, strewn with samples of Sir Gerald’s handwriting, to realize who the helper was.
There’s a stench about Gerald since he come back.
Had the dowager known? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But Percival must know.
Esme stuffed the message back into its hiding place, screwed the queen back together, and wrapped it up with the other pieces. She’d have plenty of time to solve the remaining riddles on the way home.
She held to the candle the paper on which she’d decoded the message and tossed the burning sheet in the empty grate. When nothing remained but ashes, she put out the candle and left the room.
Ismal frowned when the light in the study window went out. “He signals trouble, yet there should be none. Every other room is dark.”
“Perhaps it’s a trick,” Risto answered
.
“He can’t be fool enough to try to betray me now. Stay here and keep watch. I’ll speak to Mehmet.”
Ismal slipped out of the garden and into the street. Moments later, he found Mehmet at his post near the servants’ entrance.
“Ah, master, you answer my prayers,” Mehmet whispered. “You told me to remain, yet—”
“What’s wrong?”
Mehmet gestured upwards. “Her window was dark. Then, some while ago, there was light for a brief time. Then darkness again.”
“No light elsewhere?”
“None. The servants scarcely waited for the family to retire. I looked in, right after I saw the light in her window. Several never reached their beds. Two lie upon the floor in the dining hall, and one sits with his head upon the table. Another lies curled like a babe upon the rug by his bed.” Mehmet chuckled softly.
“Yet something is amiss.” Ismal gazed at Esme’s bedroom window. “She was listening at the study window earlier. I wonder what she heard.”
Mehmet shrugged. “The servants will be helpless for hours. No strangers have entered. That leaves only one fearful man, an old woman, a boy, and the little warrior. Even if the four of them set upon us at once, the battle would be amusing, that’s all.” He looked at Ismal. “You’d like to do battle with her, perhaps.”
“Tsk. Even to look at her window...” Ismal tore his gaze away. “Best I keep far from her. She makes me stupid.”
“We might steal her easily and be gone from England long before the others wake.”
“Nay. I’ll not risk everything for a female. Not a second time. She—” Breaking off, he waved Mehmet back and flattened himself against the wall of the house.
A moment later, they heard the click of the door handle. The door opened, and a small figure stepped into the shadows. Esme, curse her…with a leather pouch slung over her shoulder. Clothes only...or the chess set? There was but one way to find out. He waited until she pulled the door closed. Then, drawing his pistol, Ismal leapt.
It was only a nightmare, Percival assured himself. That huge ugly man had not bashed out his eyes with an immense stone in the shape of a chess piece.
