Stupid. She curled her fingers into her palm. “I’m very sorry to hear that. Had we known, we would have paid our respects at his funeral.”

“Oh, it was a quiet affair, and you and your mother would have been at the office. Just his son and a few of us neighbors came.” Mrs. Rourke blinked a few times. “We shall surely miss him.”

“As will I.” And why, if the friendly old man had only been gone for a few days, was his place already filled at that table? Had the scruffy man no respect? She stepped closer to Mrs. Rourke and pitched her voice low. “So who is this newcomer?”

But the lady just shrugged. “Don’t rightly know, dear. First I’ve seen him. But if he sticks about for any length of time, I’ll sure we’ll learn.”

Margot nodded because it was expected. Smiled because it wasn’t Mrs. Rourke’s fault. And then turned back to Dot because her friend looked uneasy. It took a bit of effort to keep the smile on her face. “Sorry for the detour, Dot.”

“Think nothing of it. But hadn’t we better get to your brother’s house?”

Margot nodded and said a quick farewell to the old woman. Of course, turning back to the path meant again walking by the game that wasn’t chess and the man who wasn’t Gregory. Seeing his fingers push another black stone into another stupid move.

Once they were out of earshot, Dot leaned close. “I’m sorry about your friend. Gregory.”

“Thank you.” It wasn’t, of course, just the absence of Gregory and his chessboard that had thrown her. It was the presence of a stranger with Go. No numbers buzzed a warning in her head, but still she couldn’t quite settle her nerves. Couldn’t quite settle her stomach.

“How well do you know the game? The one he was playing?”

Margot squared her shoulders and forced herself to focus on Dot, and then on the path before them. “Fairly well. The officer who occupied our house in Brussels—Gottlieb—liked to play, and I was the only one around to play with him. I enjoyed it.” And had come to realize, through their daily games, that he wasn’t quite the monster she’d thought him at first. That a uniform didn’t make a man by nature a friend or an enemy.

But choice did. And for every ally, one could be mathematically certain that an enemy existed too. Gottlieb had turned out to be a friend, but a fellow Belgian had proven himself an enemy and had nearly gotten Willa killed when she came with Lukas to help Margot and Maman escape.

Gregory Westrom had been a friend. What of this newcomer, with his German game? What were the odds that he, too, was a friend?