Chapter Twelve: Lyewkin

They exchanged words, after which Terrance rounded the bar and scoured the place from where Esselle stood. He opened several drawers, crouched beneath the bar-top, and scanned the floor. Perhaps he searched the cupboards and counter—I wouldn't know. My eyes were glued to her hands.

However brief their interaction, I trusted Terrance to be thorough in tracking down that parchment—that is if Esselle had yet to stash it.

Within five minutes, Terrance returned to the office.

"Well?" I queried, reclaiming my seat from yesterday and kicking both feet up onto one edge of his rounded desk. Terrance tossed his hands in the air, both empty, and shook his head.

"She doesn't have it."

I sighed, pressing down on my eyelids with a thumb and forefinger, unsure what to make of the situation. Surely any evidence of our thief's presence was good, but I did not understand.

"You had it at the bar?"

"I had it at the bar," Terrance repeated, telling the story for the fifth time since fetching me backstage, "Esselle asked me about it, I told her it was nothing, had a drink, came back here, and realized it was gone."

He wasn't the type to let something so precious out of his sight, nor was he a good liar. And Esselle was, thus far, our only person of interest. It all added up.

"This may be our first shred of proof," I said.

"She hasn't had the chance to leave the bar, yet," he began, "The list has to be there somewhere—perhaps I didn't search well enough. It may even be in her pocket!" He was growing more anxious by the minute, pacing from one end of the bubble to the other. After a short pause for thought, he queried, "If we found the parchment on her person, would that be sufficient enough evidence to damn her?"

I nodded. "Yes, but what is it you intend to do—pat her down? In front of an audience?"

The way his brows rose told me he'd certainly be willing.

"No," I declared. His brows lowered.

On the off chance that I was getting ahead of myself in suspecting her, sending Terrance to pat her down would be like screaming from the rooftop that we were on the lookout for a thief. Word would spread of yesterevening's pat-down on the morrow, the day after, and so on.

Not to mention, a spotlight would be cast upon her instantly—even if she did happen to have it in her pocket. Ridding of her in the cloak-and-dagger way I intended would be almost impossible if she were thrown in the gibbets for her newly-publicized crime.

No—a public pat-down would be sloppy.

"There has to be something we can do," Terrance sputtered.

"There is. We'll search the bar from top to toe after close."

"And if it isn't there? If she brings it home with her?"

I sighed again, wondering if the ticketmaster had been informed of the extent of my duties.

"The patrons are always looking for something to gossip about," I warned him, though I was sure he knew that better than anyone by now, "I don't want Esselle, nor the scene that you swarming her at the bar would cause, becoming the talk of the town… especially as I'm shoving a pike through her throat. Surely you'd understand that attention is never a good thing in this business." Terrance gave a hesitant nod. "If it isn't there, we'll follow her home on the morrow. Scout that place next."

Terrance bit his tongue in that moment, huffing and falling back into his chair. When he did, the sound of his derriere to the wood made a strange sound. A sound we both recognized.

The sound of crunching parchment.

He wobbled ever so slightly in his seat, as if taking in the feel of his back pockets, before popping up quicker than he plopped down a breath ago.

The arm he reached back returned with a folded list encased between two fingertips.

I palmed my face and then spat through my hand, "You had it this whole time?"

"I—I—," Terrance stuttered, fell back into his chair, and began tapping his foot hard and fast against the carpeted floor, "I didn't! I swear! I never store anything in my back pockets!"

I held out a palm, an indication for him to pass me the parchment. He did so with trembling hands, and I tugged at its intricate folds to see that it was, indeed, the missing list. Found, at last, in his back pocket.

"I swear on my mother's grave, the parchment was here." He pointed to one of six pockets adorning the ornate suit-coat.

Terrance was no fool. If he was sure that it was taken, I had no doubt that it was. Taken and returned. But my eyes never left her hands, and her hands never left her sides. She hadn't the chance to stick the list into his pocket without me seeing. Unless she happened to do so before he came to fetch me, in which case why even bother stealing the list at all?

No—she couldn't have read it in such a short time and while Terrance sat at the bar. She had to have slipped it back into his pocket when he returned a mere moment ago. But how?

My eyes never left her hands.

Unless it was magic. Was it witchcraft? This case was doing my head in if that was the solution I'd come to—that such thievery was witchcraft—that Esselle was a witch. By Djinn…

I leaned even further into my seat, then swirled it around to watch her through the glass. She was wiping down one half of the bar-top, the half free of revelers and Blondie's coquetry.

The way she had mixed those spirits all evening, the way she carried herself whilst speaking to me proved she had the talent and the mindset to be a natural thief.

I simply couldn't take my eyes off of her, couldn't shake the thought of her, couldn't imagine the culprit being any of the other snooty nobs or static laborers. It had to be her.

So if she indeed stole the list, and if she indeed planted it those moments later—

"It's a tipping point," I mumbled under my breath, soft, like a whisper.

"How so?" Terrance asked, my words exciting the lank.

"I've suspected Esselle since she mixed me that second cocktail, but it's been mere speculation since." I sat up in my chair. And I went on, answering Terrance's query with my thinking-out-loud. "If she stole that list, she knows that you're looking for someone that was present just last night. If she speculates my own involvement, which I wouldn't doubt, judging by her complex reasoning and powers of observation, she's likely already deduced that you and I are working together to find whoever stole my pendant." Terrance's eyes widened.

"That can't be good," he blurted, "If she knows that we're looking for a thief, she'll be even more careful, and we'll never get the evidence we need."

"No," I objected, "Because she'll recognize that I already suspect her." The ticketmaster's brows drew together, so I explained. "I spent the bulk of my evening chatting with the lass about each of the reasons I suspect her in the first place. She'll know," I repeated, "And she will be compelled to divert my gaze elsewhere."

Terrance's eyes widened in realization as I went on. "Any attempt to clear her name will be the most damning of evidence, if you ask me," I smirked, "Considering she truly is the thief and intelligent as I give her credit to be."

The ticketmaster laughed. "So she set her own trap!"

"To this point, the thief has been every form of calculated," I started again, "Whoever it is, they've thought through what they should steal, who they should steal from, how many times they can steal from the same person, and they've done so without a hitch. If it is Esselle, and she attempts some diversion to clear her name, there's no way she will do it without breaking character. So if anything happens, and I mean anything that is the slightest bit suspicious, we will know that she is the thief. Because we will know that she stole the parchment and caught onto our charades."

The two of us relished in the advantages of a ploy we hadn't intended for. And I swirled again in my seat to observe her. She was stacking the beakers under the counter in pristine towers of crystal—crouching to do it, the muscles of her back protruding through the thinness of her gown.

My intuition had yet to let me down.

My query as to why she stuck to the shadows was rhetorical. For I had the answer in my head before I asked it. A woman like her would only seek to blend in if she had something to hide.

I looked down at the list once more, taking notice of Terrance's work throughout its first two columns. Over two-thirds of the names had already been struck through.

"In the meantime, strike through the folks on this list that don't frequent the theater enough," I instructed, "Our thief isn't one of the patrons that show up once every month."

"Of course," Terrance said, snagging the parchment and already going to work on his new task. Again, it would require much flipping through years-worth of ledgers, but he seemed eager. As was I.

Regardless of who, what, where, why, or how, we would find the thief. It was only a matter of time before only one name remained atop that list.