the door opened to admit the owner and Lord Peter Masterson.
“What ho!” said Randy, searching their faces. “News?”
“None,” said Lord John. “You?”
“No sign of her at any of the Channel ports; no rumor in Paris. And you know, old fellow, that if she were there—”
“Yes,” agreed John morosely. “The salons and boutiques would be buzzing.”
“No luck at all in Ireland?”
“ ‘Devil a bit,’ ” quoted Peter grimly. “I’ll swear she never got as far as Liverpool.”
“The dresser?”
“We heard that Donner had been back to Brionny, but she wasn’t there when we arrived,” John said heavily.
Randy was too shocked by the expression on his friend’s face to continue the discussion. He did have one slender clue, but before he shared it with this troubled man, he wanted to discuss the situation with Peter. Sound man, Peter. For all his great size he had plenty in his bone-box. Randy fidgeted nervously until Lord John sighed wearily. “We’re all too tired to think straight. I’m going to bed. I’ll see you both tomorrow. And about the help you’ve given me—you know how I feel—”
“Don’t say it!” begged Randy, who had a horror of being thanked especially when he was concealing a clue which might wipe the desolate look off his friend’s face.
As Peter and Randy went down the steps to Randy’s waiting carriage, Peter said abruptly, “He hasn’t slept a wink since we left London. Nor has he eaten enough to keep a bird alive. This is bad business, Randy.”
“It’s worse than that,” said Randy gloomily.
“Why do you say that? And what in Heaven’s name possessed you just now? You were as nervous as a nun in a crib.”
“Don’t be vulgar,” said Randy. “The thing is, I think I know where she is.”
“You think you know—!” began Peter incredulously. Then with a roar that startled an approaching pedestrian, “And you didn’t believe it important enough to mention? Why, you miserable little cockerel—”
“Oh, be quiet,” said Randy. “And use the brain you’re supposed to have. If I’m right, and we find the lady, then what?”
Lord Peter gaped at him, then slowly closed his mouth. “Yes. I begin to see the dilemma. Has she run off with another man?” He enunciated a vicious oath. They had not been easy nor pleasant, these days spent with his friend in the fruitless search. “How the devil can we protect him from this bitch? Who is the man, by the way? Do I know him?”
Randy colored. “I don’t know that there’s a man involved, exactly . . . well, at least . . . there’s got to be, wouldn’t you say? I told you I got back from Paris yesterday. I came at once to John’s house to discover if you two had returned from Dublin. Old Burl wasn’t much help, so I waited for an hour or so, on the chance of news. While I was strolling around, I noticed that damned great portrait of Nadine was gone from the landing. I asked Burl what had happened to the portrait, and he said his lordship had sent it to the Manor. Well, I caught a flash of an expression on the face of one of the footmen, so when old Burl had gone back to his pantry, leaving me to await a non-existent message from you two,” he interjected sternly, “I bribed the footman to tell me why he’d got that silly conspiratorial look when Burl was talking to me. He said his lordship had sent the picture to the attic the night before you left for Ireland, and then, not ten minutes after you left, Bennet had told Burl his lordship wanted it sent to the Manor. The footman said he’d been in the hall all the time, and no such order had been given.”
Peter was staring at his friend with annoyance and pity fairly evenly mixed. “Have you any idea what you are trying to say, or are these the ramblings of a mind overset by too much fine French brandy?”
“The portrait, idiot! Don’t you remember John telling us he caught his wife and Bennet playing some jiggery-pokery in front of the portrait? That’s why he had it sent to the attic.”
“So?”
“So he surely wouldn’t change his mind and have it sent to the Manor between the time we left him and the time he picked you up.”
“Why not?” argued Peter.
“Because, for one thing, he hadn’t time, and for another, he’d be more likely to want to forget the damnable, seductive thing than to parade