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“Not so fast, miss. How can you mind him and keep the inn? Supposing yer madman slips out while you’re putting on the supper? Supposing he has one of his fits and does a mischief to a passenger? How’s Sir Geoffrey to like that, eh?”

Lucy wanted to say that such a thing could never happen. A brief thought crossed her mind at Findlater’s reference to putting supper on for the stage passengers. She did not recognize the man but wondered if he had been there or had heard about the incident. “I will take all precautions.”

“Trouble, Miss Holbrook?” Harry Clare’s voice caused the parish overseer to twist and look over his shoulder. He still had a hand on Adam’s arm.

The captain came down the three wide steps with an unhurried stride. He stopped between Findlater and the stairs a couple of feet from Adam and his would-be abductor. For a moment the two men looked at each other. The captain’s height and breadth of shoulder put a distinct obstacle in Findlater’s path.

Findlater cleared his throat. “And you are?”

“Captain Clare, a friend of Adam’s. If Miss Holbrook takes responsibility for Adam, your work is done. Best to go on about your other duties.”

Again Findlater shook his head. “Now, Captain. You know I’m just doing my job. I can’t be making exceptions for pretty misses and the gentlemen what are sweet on them.”

“New to your job, aren’t you? Who pointed out Adam to you?”

Findlater’s gaze shifted. “Nobody tells Obadiah Findlater his duty.”

“Someone did. Someone told you to come after Adam. Who set you after a harmless old man minding his own work?”

Findlater glanced around at the onlookers and shifted from one foot to the other, tightening his grip on Adam. He thrust out his chin. “No one set me onto him. Just doing my duty as every man must.”

“Consider it done then, and let Adam return to his work. Unless you want to explain your sudden interest in Adam to his friends here at the inn.” Harry Clare nodded to the bench sitters.

“Here, here, Captain,” cried a voice from the crowd.

For a moment Findlater wavered. Lucy thought his nose actually did twitch. He looked past the captain toward the door. He looked at the bench sitters. Then he flung Adam’s arm aside and strode off. As the door banged shut behind him, a cheer went up and pint pots thumped the tables.

Lucy took Adam by the hand and led him back to his bench. She settled him there with his polish pot and his rags. Queenie jumped down from the mantel and brushed against Adam’s leg, and he reached a hand down to stroke the cat’s back. Lucy picked up the fallen candlesticks, conscious of laughter and talk from the bench sitters, who seemed to hail Harry’s victory over Findlater as their own, and in which the captain’s voice sounded a deeper, more subdued note. The smell of burnt sugar coming from the kitchen made her squeeze Adam’s shoulder and dash for the cake she had left in the oven.

* * * *

Harry momentarily considered the usefulness of a partner like Nate Wilde. It would be easy for the youth to slip out after Findlater and trail the man to wherever he went to report on his failure. Harry waited for the laughter at Findlater’s expense to subside. When the conversation returned to its usual topics, he went in search of Lucy.

“Findlater will be back, you know. A man like him doesn’t forget a public humiliation. And whoever put him up to going after Adam won’t be satisfied with today’s result.”

“What do you mean ‘whoever put him up to it’?”

“Did it never occur to you that your father was hiding Adam?”

“From whom?”

“From whoever harmed him, blinded him.”

“But that was long ago. Adam has lived here in peace for twenty years. Why would that change now?”

“Are you sure that when Adam cries out in his distress that what he says is meaningless?”

“You ask hard questions, Captain.”

“You want to protect him, don’t you?”

“But Adam goes nowhere, and no one in the inn means him any harm. They may laugh, but they are used to Adam’s ways. Oh, you mean a stranger.”

“Think. Did anyone new see Adam’s outburst on Sunday?”

“Now you are insulting. My friends are ladies, and they would not involve themselves with someone like Findlater.”

“Someone did.”