Everything seemed very quiet and still, and there was
no sign of Mrs. Barker nor any appearance that she had been that
morning busy about her usual tasks. The kitchen fire was not
lighted, a pile of unwashed crockery stood on the table, there had
apparently been no attempt to prepare any meals.
Frowning uneasily, for all this did not seem to him of good omen,
Rupert Went quickly on to the living rooms.
They were unoccupied and did not seem to have been much used that
day; and in the small breakfast-room Deede Dawson had been accustomed
to consider his special apartment, his favourite little travelling
chessboard stood on the table with pieces in position on it.
There was a letter, too, he had begun but not finished, to the
editor of a chess-column in some paper, apparently to the effect
that a certain problem "cooked," and that by such and such a move
"the mate for the first player that appeared certain was unexpectedly
and instantly transferred in this dramatic manner into a mate for
his opponent."
The words seemed somehow oddly appropriate to Rupert, and he smiled
grimly as he read them and then all at once his expression changed
and his whole attitude became one of intense watchfulness and
readiness.
For his quick eye had noted that the ink on the nib of the pen that
this letter had been written with, was not yet dry.
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