It was still a little before noon, and for a long moment they just sat there looking at each other. There was an unspoken something in the air between them. A something-has-changed-but-nothing-has-changed feeling that made Liza feel … not nervous exactly, but ever so slightly on edge.

“So …” Hanna began. “Now we’ve—now that all that’s … do you want to …?”

Liza’s mouth was suddenly quite dry. “Do I want to …?”

“Shall we take a walk around the hotel?” Hanna finished. “See where everybody else is? Maybe make sure people’s alibis check out?”

It was small, but small was sometimes what you needed. And it was a start. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, that’d be good.”

Chapter Eighteen

Lady Tabitha, in the Library, with the Dagger

Sunday evening

Most of the guests had opted, it seemed, for seclusion, but they found the colonel and Sir Richard in the billiard room, putting the tables to their intended use.

“Another game, old man?” asked Sir Richard, cheerfully handing a stack of folded banknotes to his opponent.

“Feels bad to keep taking your money,” Colonel Coleman replied, sipping his brandy.

“Oh, pish posh, don’t think of it. Got heaps of the stuff. Besides, bound to lick you one of these days, eh what?”

Noticing the Blaines’ arrival, the colonel nodded a sharp greeting, and Sir Richard raised his glass cordially.

“Ah,” said Sir Richard, “ladies. Perhaps you’d consider joining us for a game of doubles.”

Liza stared at the table. “Aren’t you missing a lot of balls?” There were only three: one red, one white, and one yellow.

“Billiards,” said Colonel Coleman by way of explanation. “Not pool. Not snooker. It’s a three-ball game.”

“Doesn’t that end rather quickly?” asked Liza.

Hanna stepped in with her I-speak-posh hat on. “You take the balls out the pockets after you pot one. It’s a point system.”

“First to three hundred,” added Sir Richard.

That seemed like a lot to Liza. “Three hundred? How many points do you get for a pot?”

“Two,” said the colonel. “Tell you what, we’ll show you. Line ‘em up.”

Sir Richard set the balls back on their spots. “Another hundred on it?”

“I’d really rather—” the colonel began.

“Oh, come on. Give a chap a chance to win a bit back.”

They started playing. And people started scoring points for things that, ordinarily, Liza wasn’t used to people getting points for in this kind of game, like banging a ball into a different ball. But she guessed that when you were running a chronic ball shortage you needed some extra options to spice things up.