Several seconds passed. “It feels worse now than when he stabbed me,” the man finally muttered gloomily. He tugged the tartan blanket around his wounded thigh. “A huge man, and hugely powerful. I suppose adrenaline gave me strength to fight on at first. His blade went deep. Evelyn has stitched it as best she could. I don’t think there is too much damage, but it will be several days before I can do much walking. This wheelchair belonged to my grand-mère.” He nodded sadly to where it stood by the sofa. “The junk one keeps lying around an old house that has seen better times.”

“Indeed.” Alex’s grandfather smiled sadly, then grew serious, watching the pair carefully. “To old junk, then. Tell me: by any chance, does your painting have some connection with nine others that have been stolen over the past few months?”

As the old man began listing the stolen paintings by name, Kingdom and Metz exchanged a panicking look. The woman started to speak, but Metz grabbed at her wrist. “You mustn’t,” he hissed.

Alex’s grandfather considered them, then pulled from his pockets the ammunition he’d removed from their guns, placing it softly on the sofa arm beside Kingdom. “Token of good faith,” he said. “We’d like to help. And we would like your help.”

“You mustn’t,” Metz repeated, staring at Kingdom.

“Oh, Phil,” she said. “Calme-toi. What other choice do we have? Almost all the pictures have been gathered. I’m beginning to have the feeling these two are the only help we have coming.” She turned back to Alex and his grandfather, still cautious. “How much do you know?”

“Ha.” The old man scratched a finger around his shirt collar. “Well, let’s pretend, just for conversation’s sake, we don’t know much at all. But we do know the paintings have been stolen—and we know who’s doing it. Harry and Alex and I have been on their trail. The night you saw Harry outside, he’d followed them here. We’re trying to stop them. We, ah, we’ve tangled with them before, in other matters. They are a strange little group but extremely dangerous.”

He paused and sipped his drink, as though weighing how much to say. “And we also know they aren’t stealing these paintings for, shall we say . . . the usual reasons?”

Metz turned to Kingdom with new alarm. She did a good job of pretending not to notice.

“Not money, for instance,” Alex’s grandfather pressed. “I mean, no offense, but, pleasant as it is, that”—he gestured to the painting hanging above them in its heavy wooden frame—“can’t be worth very much. We know they’re stealing them for something . . . else.”

“Something bad,” Alex added.