Matthew had barely stepped into the Winter Garden when Ashby saw him from the corner table and waved him over.
The Winter Garden was the hotel’s bar, a long room under a glass roof, with palms in tall pots between the tables.
His father and Ashby had played chess at that corner table every Thursday evening for thirty years.
Through the open doors at the far end, the staff were up on ladders in the ballroom, already decorating it for the Sylvester Ball.
Matthew hadn’t come down here in years, but tonight he had a good reason to.
The only lead he truly had was the chess game someone had left unfinished in 707.
He hadn’t stopped thinking about that board, so tonight he wanted to see a Thursday game for himself.
He had brought his sketchbook to give himself a reason to sit and watch.
It was the first time he had been in a room with his father since the board meeting.
Crossing the bar toward that table made him pretty uncomfortable, so he was glad Ashby had seen him first.
His godfather had always seemed happy to see him, ever since he was a boy.
Ashby was already pulling out the chair at the side of the table, where Matthew would be able to see the whole board.
“Look who’s come to see us,” he said.
“Come and sit, my boy.”
His father looked up from the board.
“Sit down if you’re staying,” he said, then went back to setting out his pieces without another word.
Matthew sat down carefully.
His knee still hurt where it had struck the gutter on the roof, and he didn’t want Ashby asking about it.
His godfather pointed at the carpet beside his father’s chair.
“He used to sit right there on the floor every Thursday, drawing the pieces,” he said.
“Do you remember, Victor?”
“I remember.”
Matthew still remembered those evenings himself.
While Ashby taught Julian how to play, his father would sometimes lean down to explain a move to him.
He had stopped coming when he was sixteen, but he still remembered.
“Have you come to draw us again?” Ashby asked, nodding at the sketchbook.
“If you’ll both hold still.”
Ashby laughed, then made the first move.
He did most of the talking after that, which suited Matthew, as he and his father hadn’t had much to say to each other in twelve years.
His opening moves were pretty much the same ones he had always used.
Early on, he sacrificed a pawn to Victor, and his father left it where it was, as he always had.
“One of these Thursdays you’ll take it, Victor,” Ashby said.
“Not this one.”
Matthew looked down at the board, and what he saw there unsettled him.
The game on the table by the window in 707 had started with these same moves.
He had only looked at that board for a minute, helped by the light of his phone, but he had always remembered pictures better than words.
As a boy, Matthew had often seen the Thursday man walk past the doors of the Winter Garden on his way to the lift, carrying his chess case.
He had come every week for thirty years, on the same evening his father sat down here to play with Ashby.
Not to mention his room was on the same floor as his father’s office.
During all those years, Matthew had kept certain thoughts about his father to himself, and he didn’t like where they were taking him now.
Plenty of people probably began a game like that, he told himself.
He could simply ask his father who used to play chess with Vidal, but then he would have to explain how he knew there was a chessboard in 707 at all.
He couldn’t stop watching his father’s hands after that, so he opened his sketchbook and started drawing them, first resting on the edge of the table, then reaching for a piece.
His father played without hurrying.
Once he had decided on a move, his hand never hesitated.
At one point, his father glanced at the sketchbook, then turned back to the game and said nothing.
Between moves, Ashby sat back with his glass of wine and looked over at the ballroom.
“Will we see you at the ball this year, Matthew? They’ve asked me to give the toast, so I’ll need at least one friendly face.”
“I don’t usually go.”
“I know. That’s why I’m asking.” Ashby smiled at him.
“You can’t stay up on that roof forever.”
As it happened, Matthew did mean to be there this year, because Coco would be wearing the comb he wanted.
That, of course, wasn’t something he could tell the Commissioner of Police openly, though.
There was also a chance that Trouble would be there.
Since she had been to Vidal’s old mansion cellar as well, she might well be after the comb too.
And for some reason he liked the thought of seeing her again.
“I’ll think about it, Uncle Conrad,” he said.
“Speaking of your roof,” Ashby went on, “I hear the new night concierge got you a reindeer.”
Matthew couldn’t help smiling.
“That was my fault, just so you know. I was the one who asked for one.”
“And she actually found it for you? At that hour?”
“Yep. And she managed to bring it up to the roof in the service lift.”
Ashby laughed out loud.
“And the other night, I asked her for mere silence,” Matthew went on, “so she resolved that one by cutting off the power to the Glasshouse.”
He hadn’t told anyone about that night yet, and he found himself enjoying talking about it.
“I like her already.” Ashby turned to Matthew’s father.
“What do you make of her, Victor?”
His father moved a piece.
“Your move, Conrad.”
He didn’t say anything else about her.
“Your father never did like talking about the staff,” Ashby told Matthew, then turned back to the board.
Matthew had expected at least a sharp word about the reindeer, since his father eventually heard about everything that happened in the building.
Somehow his silence worried him more.
The reindeer had been his own idea, and he didn’t want Miss Ellis to be the one who paid for it.
He thought about telling his father that she was the best night concierge the Voss had had in years, then decided against it.
Coming from him, it would probably only make things worse for her.
Later in the evening, Oskar, the waiter who looked after their table every Thursday, brought Ashby a fresh glass.
Ashby took an envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed it to him.
Oskar opened it with a puzzled look.
It was a birthday card.
Matthew caught a glimpse of the words inside, *Many happy returns*, written by hand and signed with Ashby’s initials.
Oskar read it, then laughed and shook his head.
“With all the Christmas parties, I’d completely forgotten, sir. How did you even know?”
“Somebody has to remember,” Ashby said.
Oskar went back to the bar with the card in his hand, and Matthew noticed that his father was smiling.
It had been years since Matthew had seen his father smile, and it hurt a little that it had been Ashby to obtain it.
Still, he could see why.
He had received one of those cards on every birthday himself.
He had always liked his godfather for trying to bring some light and good mood to the place.
Some time later, Ashby held out his hand for the sketchbook, and Matthew passed it over.
Ashby turned the pages slowly.
By then, most of them were covered with his father’s hands.
“You’ve made him look old, my boy.”
“I am old,” his father said, without looking up from the board.
Ashby laughed and gave the sketchbook back.
The game went on until most of the tables around them had emptied.
In the ballroom, the staff were still up on their ladders.
Ashby watched them for a while without saying anything, then raised his glass.
“It’s already twelve years this Sylvester, isn’t it?” he said.
“We’ll toast for the Sisters.”
Matthew knew what he meant.
Everyone at the Voss called the seven pieces from the Empty Case the Sisters, after the seven stars on the roof.
They had been stolen during the same ball twelve years ago, on the same night Sabine disappeared.