“Who knows?” Pansuela said. “I suppose you could check the guest book. You noble patrons haven’t signed the book yourselves yet, have you? Or did you? I forget things sometimes.”
“Where would the guest book be, if you please?” said Adele more sharply than perhaps she intended. One didn’t want to get between Adele and information, though. “I’d like to look at it now.”
The Count and Flora Pansuela struggled through what was by now a gathering crowd. Given the limited amount of light, it was rather like being in a forest after sunset. Hogg stood nearby—he’d been against the wall behind Daniel’s chair during dinner. Daniel didn’t see Tovera, but then one generally didn’t see Tovera. He had no doubt Adele’s pale reptile was wherever she felt she could best safeguard her mistress.
“Georgi, you see?” Valentina said, holding the buckle toward her husband in her cupped hands. She turned to Daniel and said, “Tsetzes always appeared in public in a white uniform with appointments of platinum picked out with gold: the braid, the buttons, and this buckle of course. He even had a pistol of platinum, they say.”
“And the Earth Diamond,” the Count said. He caressed the buckle with his fingertips but didn’t try to take it from his wife’s hands. To his host he went on, “Master Pansuela, have you perhaps in this potpourri—”
A sweep of his left arm indicated the egg-crate shelving which held the curio collection on this side of the room.
“—a diamond the size of a child’s head, etched with the continents of Old Earth? Because if you do, my wife and I can offer you. . . .”
Pansuela shrugged. “I really don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never seen such a thing. But the last person to take an interest in the cabinet was Uncle Manuel, as I said.”
“Did your uncle leave a written catalogue?” Adele said. She and the Klimovna sounded like a pair of hounds on a very fresh scent. “Or perhaps electronic files? Either would do.”
“I suppose he must have,” Pansuela agreed, wrinkling his brow. “He had a study off the mezzanine.” He nodded toward the railed walk midway to the hall’s coffered ceiling. “I’ll show it to you, but you’d know better than I what sort of thing you’re looking for.”
He turned to the Klimovs. “And you’re welcome to search the collection itself if you like,” he went on. “But a diamond so large, I’d expect to have heard about it. Though perhaps not.”
“You will not be looking at dusty shelves tonight, Georgi,” said Flora Pansuela, pressing her ample form so firmly into the Count that he shuffled sideways to avoid being knocked over. “We have other business.”
“Not tonight, Lady Pansuela,” said the priest who’d been glowering from the moment Daniel first saw him. “You and I will spend tonight in our devotions.”
“No, Rosario, not tonight,” said Flora with an unmistakable edge in her voice. “Perhaps next week—”
“No!” said the priest. He tried to force his way between Klimov and Lady Pansuela, but he was so short that the wide brim of the hat he wore even at dinner brushed the Count’s chin. “I will not permit you to risk your immortal soul by putting off your devotions!”
“Rosario!” said Flora. “You are my chaplain, not my jailer. If you forget that once more, I’ll have the boys put you out the door—and if I do, you’ll not be allowed back, I warn you!”
“Father Rosario,” Enrique Pansuela said, putting a hand on the priest’s shoulder. “Come upstairs with me and Lady Mundy to find Uncle Manuel’s papers. Afterwards you and I can have a nightcap and get some sleep. It won’t seem so important in the morning, I’m sure.”
“Faugh, you complaisant lump!” the priest shouted. He glared at the Klimovna, adding, “And you’re no better!”
“Rosario, these are our guests!” Pansuela said. The priest shoved his way out of the assemblage and tramped toward the doorway at the end of the hall.
Daniel let his breath out slowly. He’d been in enough situations of the sort himself to realize that you couldn’t be sure just where they were going to go in the next few seconds.