Eppick frowned, clearly not liking the broadness of this escape clause, but Mr. Hemlow said, "That sounds fair to me. I think you will find the task worthy of your skills, but not to include a level of peril that might incline you to forgo what would certainly otherwise be a very profitable endeavor."
"That's good, then," Dortmunder said. "So where is it?"
"I'm afraid I'm not the one who's going to tell you that," Mr. Hemlow said.
Dortmunder didn't like that at all. "You mean, there's more of you in on this? I thought everybody else died or got old or didn't care."
"Except," Mr. Hemlow said, "my granddaughter."
"Now a granddaughter," Dortmunder said.
"It is true," Mr. Hemlow said, "that the generation after mine took no interest in the stolen chess set, nor the ruined dreams of their grandparents. It was all just history to them. However, Fiona, the daughter of my third son, Floyd, takes a deep interest in the story of the chess set, precisely because to her it is history, and history is her passion."
Dortmunder, whose grasp on history was usually dislodged by the needs of the passing moment, had nothing to say to that, so he merely did his best to look alert.
Which was apparently enough, because Mr. Hemlow almost immediately went on, "Fiona, my granddaughter, is an attorney, mostly in estate planning for a midtown firm. She's the one who took an interest in the story of the chess set, came to me for what details my father might have given me, did the research and found, or at least believes she's found, the chess set."