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burning down the theatre, I expect he might get away with a bit of bad behavior.”
    “Do you know where he’s come from?”
    “Scotland, I imagine. I never ask too many questions of our actors, for it tends to keep the most talented ones away. Nobody in this profession likes to be known as he truly is; that is why we all put on paint and gaudy costumes and pretend to be someone we’re not. It’s so much more cheerful than life in the real world. I feel obligated to let them all present themselves as they wish.” The men’s garb she wore about the theatre was her own protective costume, as she struggled to shed her past.
    “Scotland would be the consensus, I’ve learned.” Daniel’s tone was so dry it was a wonder his tongue didn’t stick to his teeth. “Specifically Edinburgh. I’ve a friend who has recently returned from two years spent there. He tells me last spring there was a man at Holyrood, posing as a clan chieftain from the far northern Highlands, calling himself Diarmid Gordon and answering closely to the description you gave two days ago. Tall, black hair, ruddy cheeks, and an uncanny ability to present himself as gentleman or rabble at his whim.”
    “This fellow presented himself as rabble? To whom? Your friend said he’d posed as a clan chieftain.”
    Daniel frowned, trying to remember what his friend had said, then replied, “Well, I can’t say as he actually did present himself as rabble. All I’m saying is what was reported to me. I’m told he claimed to be the great-great-great-grandson of George Gordon, who once led a rising against Mary Stuart. He explained that because his lands were so remote he’d made little presence in Edinburgh until last spring. With some mention of several nobles now dead who may or may not have been relatives from one side of the blanket or another, he moved among the Lowland Scottish nobility for some months as a breed of long lost cousin or prodigal son returned to the fold.”
    Though Suzanne found that unsettling, she didn’t take it terribly seriously and made no reply. She pretended to listen to the discussion on the stage below, where it appeared Horatio was explaining to Third Witch his role in the laying and lighting of the gunpowder.
    Daniel continued, “Until, that is, he was discovered for a fraud and vanished overnight with a borrowed horse and tack, as well as several pieces of jewelry belonging to the Ladies Buchanan, Armstrong, and Stewart.”
    “I expect those women were hard put to explain to their husbands how the faux Master Gordon laid hands on their trinkets.”
    Daniel chuckled. “Well, the pieces were well known and when they went missing it caused quite a stir. I’m told there is a bounty on the thief’s head. Large enough to make him a temptation even to me, I say.”
    “And you think this nefarious fellow is our Macbeth?”
    Daniel shrugged. “He fits the description rather neatly, doesn’t he? Right down to his Christian name.”
    “And you think all of Scotland is limited to just one tall, dark-haired man named Diarmid with a talent for acting?”
    “It might very well behoove us to ask my friend to come see the play when it opens to have a glance at him in the flesh, wouldn’t you say?”
    “Or we might just let this sleeping dog lie so long as he keeps his hands off the enormous trunks filled with gold and silver we’ve got standing about the place. Wouldn’t
you
say?” Her eye was on the cluster of actors still on the stage in conference with their director.
    “You would have a thief in your troupe?”
    Suzanne’s brow furrowed and she peered into Daniel’s face as if to determine whether he were joking. She said, “Don’t be absurd. Were I to eject every thief from this troupe, we would be left with myself, Horatio, and possibly Matthew, though I’m none too certain about him.”
    “And Piers.”
    “Of course, Piers. That goes without saying. But you can see how inconvenient it would be for us to maintain