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  When Elsie returned to the Hall, she placed the newly acquired board in the empty display cabinet and was delighted to discover that it was a perfect fit. She thought nothing more of the coincidence, until her uncle Bertie advised her to have it valued – for insurance purposes, he explained.

  Unconvinced, but unwilling to slight her uncle, Elsie took the board up to London on one of her monthly trips to visit her aunt Gertrude. Lady Kennington – she was always Lady Kennington in London – dropped into Sotheby’s on her way to Fortnum & Mason. A young assistant in the Chinese department asked if her ladyship would be kind enough to come back later that afternoon, by which time their expert would have placed a value on the board.

  Elsie returned to Sotheby’s after a leisurely lunch with Aunt Gertrude. She was greeted by a Mr Sencill, the head of the Chinese department, who offered the opinion that the piece was unquestionably Ming Dynasty.

  ‘And are you able to place a value on it –’ she paused – ‘for insurance purposes?’

  ‘Two thousand, two thousand five hundred, m’lady,’ said Mr Sencill. ‘Ming chessboards are fairly common,’ he explained. It is the individual pieces that are rare, and a complete set . . .’ He raised the palms of his hands and placed them together, as if praying to the unseen God of auctioneers. ‘Are you perhaps considering selling the board?’ he enquired.

  ‘No,’ replied Elsie firmly. ‘On the contrary, I’m thinking of adding to it.’

  The expert smiled. After all, Sotheby’s is nothing more than a glorified pawn shop, with each generation of the aristocracy either buying or selling.

  On arriving back at Kennington Hall, Elsie returned the board to its position of honour in the drawing room.

  Aunt Gertrude set the ball rolling. On Christmas Day she presented her niece with a white pawn. Elsie placed the single piece on the empty board. It looked lonely.

  ‘And now, my dear, you must see if you can complete the set in your lifetime,’ the old lady challenged, unaware of the chain of events she was about to set in motion. What had begun as a whim, while attending a car-boot sale in Pudsey, turned into an obsession, as Elsie began to search the globe for the missing pieces. The first Lord Kennington would have been proud of her.

  When Lady Kennington gave birth to their first son, Edward, a grateful husband presented his wife with a white queen. A magnificently sculptured ivory lady adorned in a long, intricately carved royal gown. Her Majesty stared down with disdain on the single pawn.

  The next acquisition was another white pawn, acquired by Uncle Bertie from a dealer in New York. This allowed the white queen to reign over two of her subjects.

  The birth of a second son, James, was rewarded with a red bishop, resplendent in a flowing surplice and carrying a shepherd’s crook. The queen and her two subjects were now able to celebrate Holy Communion, even if they had to travel to the other side of the board to do so. Soon the whole family began to join in the search for the missing pieces. A red pawn was the next acquisition, when it came under the auctioneer’s hammer at Bonham’s. He took up his place on the far side of the board, waiting to be taken. By now, everyone in the trade was only too aware of Lady Kennington’s lifetime mission.

  Next to find its place on the board was a white castle, which Aunt Gertrude left Elsie in her will.

  In 1991 the twelfth Lord Kennington passed away, by which time the white set was lacking only two pawns and a knight, while the red set was short of four pawns, one rook and a king.

  On 11 May 1992, a dealer in possession of three red pawns and a white knight knocked on the door of Kennington Hall. He had recently returned from a journey through the outer regions of China. A long and arduous trek, he told her ladyship. But, he assured her, he had not returned empty-handed.

  Although her ladyship was in her declining years, she still held out for several days, before the dealer finally settled his bill at the Kennington Arms and left clutching a cheque for £26,000.

  Despite following up rumours from Hong Kong, flying to Boston, contacting dealers as far afield as Moscow and Mexico, rumour rarely became reality in Lady Kennington’s unremitting search for the last of the missing pieces.

  During the next few years, Edward, the thirteenth Lord Kennington, came across the last red pawn and a red rook in the home of a penniless peer, who had been on the same staircase as Eddie at Eton. His brother James, not to be outdone, acquired two white pawns from a dealer in Bangkok.

  This left only the red king to be unearthed.

  The family had for some time been paying well over the odds for any missing pieces, since every dealer across the globe was well aware that if Lady Kennington was able to complete the set it would be worth a fortune.

  When Elsie entered her ninth decade, she informed her sons that on her demise she planned to divide the estate equally between the two of them, with one proviso. She intended to bequeath the chess set to whichever one of them found the missing red king.

  Elsie died at the age of eighty-three, without her king.

  Edward had already acquired the title – something you can’t dispose of in a will – and now, after death duties, also inherited the Hall and a further £857,000. James moved into the Cadogan Square apartment, and also received the sum of £857,000. The Kennington Set remained in its display case for all to admire, one square still unoccupied, ownership unresolved. Enter Max Glover.

  Max had one undisputed gift, his ability to wield a willow. Educated at one of England’s minor public schools, his talent as a stylish left-handed batsman allowed him to mix with the very people that he would later rob. After all, a chap who can score an effortless half century is obviously somebody one can trust.

  Away fixtures suited Max best, as they allowed him the opportunity to meet eleven potential new victims. Kennington Village XI was no exception. By the time his lordship had joined the two teams for tea in the pavilion, Max had wormed out of the local umpire the history of the Kennington Set, including the provision in the will that whichever son came up with the missing red king would automatically inherit the complete set.

  Max boldly asked his lordship, while devouring a portion of Victoria sponge, if he might be allowed to view the Kennington Set, as he was fascinated by the game of chess. Lord Kennington was only too happy to invite a man with such an effortless cover drive into his drawing room. The moment Max spotted the empty square, a plan began to form in his mind. A few well-planted questions were indiscreetly answered by his host. Max avoided making any reference to his lordship’s brother, or the clause in the will. He then spent the rest of the afternoon at square leg, refining his plan. He dropped two catches.

  When the match was over, Max declined an invitation to join the rest of the team at the village pub, explaining that he had urgent business in London.

  Moments after arriving back at his flat in Hammersmith, Max phoned an old lag he’d shared a pad with when he’d been locked up in a previous establishment. The former inmate assured Max that he could deliver, but it would take him about a month and ‘would cost ’im’.

  Max chose a Sunday afternoon to return to Kennington Hall and continue his research. He left his ancient MG – soon to become a collector’s item, he tried to convince himself – in the visitors’ carpark. He followed signs to the front door, where he handed over five pounds in exchange for an entrance ticket. Maintenance and running costs had once again made it necessary for the Hall to be opened to the public at weekends.

  Max walked purposefully down a long corridor adorned with ancestral portraits painted by such luminaries as Romney, Gainsborough, Lely and Stubbs. Each would have fetched a fortune on the open market, but Max’s eyes were set on a far smaller object, currently residing in the Long Gallery.

  When Max entered the room that displayed the Kennington Set, he found the masterpiece surrounded by an attentive group of visitors who were being addressed by a tour guide. Max stood at the back of the crowd and listened to a tale he knew only too well. He waited patiently for th