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than just old, though. I do know that research surrounding it had occupied a great deal of his time and energy, these last few years. And just before he passed out, he said—he said, ‘Things about the Seal you don’t know—dangerous things. It’s got to be recovered, at all cost. Call Sir Adam Sinclair and tell him what’s happened . . .”
    “Indeed,” Adam said, cocking his head. “Do you know what he was talking about, saying there were dangerous things about the Seal?”
    She shook her head.
    “I see. Tell me this, then. Do you think the thieves were after the Seal in particular?”
    Rachel shook her head again. “I don’t know,” she said tersely. “If they were, they didn’t hesitate to take all my jewelry as well. And they would have been welcome to every gaudy scrap of it, if only they’d left me my Nathan, safe and sound!”
    As tears welled up and she stifled a sob, releasing his hand to wipe at her eyes with the back of her hand, Adam took a fresh handkerchief of monogrammed linen from the breast pocket of his suit coat and offered it to her. She nodded her thanks and dabbed at her wet cheeks, sniffling miserably, and Adam exchanged a sympathetic glance with Peter.
    “Rachel, from what you’ve told me,” Adam said, “it’s obvious that the Seal has acquired a far greater importance of late than it had all those years ago—or at least Nathan had become aware of a greater importance.”
    As she nodded, he went on.
    “The fact that Nathan asked for me, in conjunction with his worry about the Seal’s theft, also suggests that he intended me to devote my attention specifically to the problem of locating and recovering it before any harm can result from its theft. I have no idea what kind of harm that might be, but I’ll certainly do my best to find out and to carry out his wishes. Tell me: Besides myself, how many people outside the family would have known about the existence of the Seal?”
    Rachel gave him a blank look and turned to her son for inspiration. Shaking his head, Peter gave a helpless shrug.
    “I suppose that any number of people might have known something about it,” he said. “Dad’s never been a particularly secretive man. If you’re talking about anyone having specific knowledge—”
    “How about recent and specific knowledge,” Adam prompted, “perhaps in the last year or so?”
    Peter grimaced and sighed. “I suppose I ought to give you some recent background first, then,” he said. “Since Dad showed you the Seal, he probably also told you that it’s always been something of a family mystery. When I was little, my grandfather used to tell me stories about how the Seal used to belong to the royal house of Israel, and how it had the power to stamp out evil spirits. You know the kinds of tales that grown-ups sometimes tell kids, to embellish.”
    Adam nodded, his face impassive, but the mention of evil spirits had triggered a new apprehension.
    “Anyway,” Peter went on, “over the years, Dad had been trying to find out more about the Seal—probably sparked by the tales his grandfather had told him when he was a boy. It started out as a kind of academic game, I think—and you know how tenacious he can be when he gets his teeth into a research project—but a new factor entered the equation about eighteen months ago.”
    “What happened eighteen months ago?” Adam asked.
    “Well, Grandfather Benjamin died. It wasn’t unexpected—he was eighty-seven, and he went in his sleep, like that. ”He snapped his fingers. “After the funeral, Dad went up to the old house in Perth to clear away the last of Grandfather’s personal effects. While he was about it, he came across a whole chest full of old family papers stored in the attic. Among them was a really battered old parchment document. It was badly yellowed, and the writing was faded brown with age, practically illegible, but Dad was able to make out enough to tell that it was in Latin, and seemed to refer to