"The Beekeeper's Apprentice" - читать интересную книгу автора (King Laurie R.)

BOOK TWO: INTERNSHIP The Senator's Daughter

FIVE: The vagrantgipsy life

The Monk's Tun case was, as I said, but a lark, the sort of noncase that even a dyed-in-the-wool romantic like Watson would have been hard put to whip into a thrilling narrative. The police would surely have caught Sylvester before long, and truly, thirty guineas and four hams, even in those days of chronic food shortages, were hardly the stuff of Times headlines.

Nonetheless, across all the tumultuous events of the intervening years that one case stands out in my mind, for the simple reason that it marked the first time Holmes had granted me free rein to make decisions and take action. Of course, even then I realised that, had the case been of any earthly significance whatsoever, I should have been kept firmly in my auxiliary role. Despite that, the glow of secret satisfaction it gave me lasted with a curious tenacity. A small thing, perhaps, but mine own.

Five weeks later, however, a case came upon us that put the Monk's Tun affair into its proper, childish perspective. The kidnapping of the American senator's daughter was no lark, but a matter of international import, dramatic, intense, a classic Holmes case such as I had not yet observed, much less been involved with, and certainly not as a central protagonist. The case brought into sharp focus the purpose surrounding my years of desultory training, brought forcibly home the entire raison d'#234;tre of the person Sherlock Holmes had created of himself, and moreover, brought me up against the dark side of the life Holmes led.

That single case bound us together in ways my apprenticeship never had, rather as the survivors of a natural disaster find themselves inextricably linked for the rest of their days. It made me both more certain of myself and, paradoxically, more cautious now that I had witnessed at first hand the potentially calamitous results of my uncon sidered acts. It changed Holmes, too, to see before him the living result of his years of half-frivolous, half-deliberate training. I believe it brought him up sharply, to be confronted with the fact that he had created a not inconsiderable force, that what had begun as a chance meeting had given birth to me. His reappraisal of what I had become, his judgment of my abilities under fire, as it were, profoundly influenced the decisions he was to make four months later when the heavens opened on our heads.

And yet, I very nearly missed the case altogether. Even today my spine crawls cold at the thought of December without the mutual knowledge of the preceding August, for the groundwork of trust laid down during our time in Wales made December's partnership possible. Had I missed the Simpson case, had Holmes simply disappeared into the thin summer air (as he had done with numerous other cases) and not allowed me to participate, God alone knows what we would have done when December's cold hit us, unprepared and unsupported.

Toward noon on a blistering hot day in the middle of August our haying crew reached the end of the last field and dispersed, in heavy-footed exhaustion, for our homes. This year the easy camaraderie and rude high spirits of the Land Girls had been cooled by the presence of a man amongst the crew, a silent, rigid, shell-shocked young man — a boy, really, but for the trenches — who did no great work himself and who started at every sudden noise, but who served to keep us at our work by his mere distressing presence.

Thanks to him we finished early, just before midday on the eighteenth. I trudged home, silently inhaled a vast meal in Patrick's kitchen, and, wanting only to collapse between my clean sheets for twenty hours, instead took myself to the bathroom and stripped off my filthy Land Girl's smock, sluiced off my skin's crust of dust and chaff cemented there by sweat, and, feeling physically tired but glowing with strength and well-being and marvelling in the sense of freedom following a hard job well done, I mounted my bicycle and, hair streaming damply behind me, rode off to see Holmes.

Cycling slowly up the lane to the cottage, my ears were caught by a remarkable sound, distorted by the stone walls on either side. Music, but no music I had before heard emanating from Holmes' house, a gay, dancing tune, instantly invigorating and utterly unexpected. I stood more firmly on the pedals, rode around the house to the kitchen door, and let myself in, and when I followed the sound through to the sitting room, for an instant I failed to recognise the dark-skinned, black-haired man with the violin tucked under a chin scruffy with two days of stubble. The briefest flash of apprehension passed across the familiar face, followed rapidly by a gleam of gold from his left incisor as this exotic ruffian gave me a rakish grin. I was not fooled. I had seen his original reaction to my unexpected appearance in his doorway, and my guard went instantly up.

"Holmes," I said. "Don't tell me, the rector needs a gipsy fiddler for the village f#234;te."

"Hello, Russell," he said with studied casualness. "This is an unanticipated pleasure. I am so glad you happened to stop by, it saves me from having to write. I wanted to ask you to keep track of the plant experiment. Just for a few days, and there's nothing terribly — "

"Holmes, what is going on?" He was entirely too innocent.

"'Going on'? Nothing is 'going on'. I find I must be away for a few days, is all."

"You have a case."

"Oh, come now, Russell — "

"Why don't you want me to know about it? And don't give me some nonsense about governmental secrets."

"It is secret. I cannot tell you about it. Later, perhaps. But I truly do need you to — "

"jigger the plants, Holmes," I said angrily. "The experiment is of no importance whatsoever."

"Russell!" he said, offended. "I only leave them because I have been asked by someone I cannot refuse."

"Holmes," I said wamingly, "this is Russell you're talking to, not Watson, not Mrs. Hudson. I'm not in the least bit intimidated by you. I want to know why you were planning to sneak out without telling me."

"'Sneak out'! Russell, I said I was glad you happened by."

"Holmes, I'm not blind. You're in full disguise except for your shoes, and there's a packed bag in the corner. I repeat: What is going on?"

"Russell, I am very sorry, but I cannot include you in this case."

"Why not, Holmes?" I was becoming really very angry. So was he.

"Because, damn it, it may be dangerous!"

I stood staring across the room at him, and my voice when it came was, I was pleased to note, very quiet and even.

"My dear Holmes, I am going to pretend you did not say that. I am going to walk in your garden and admire the flowers for approximately ten minutes. When I come back in we will begin this conversation anew, and unless you wish to divorce yourself from me entirely, the idea of protecting little Mary Russell will never enter your head." I walked out, closing the door gently, and went to talk with Will and the two cats. I pulled some weeds, heard the violin start up again, this time a more classical melody, and in ten minutes I went back through the door.

"Good afternoon, Holmes. That's a natty outfit you're wearing. I should not have thought to wear an orange tie with a shirt that particular shade of red, but it is certainly distinctive. So, where are we going?"

Holmes looked at me through half-shut eyes. I stood blandly in the doorway, arms folded. Finally he snorted and thrust his violin into its disreputable case.

"Very well, Russell. I may be mad, but we shall give it a try. Have you been following the papers, the Simpson kidnapping case?"

"I saw something a few days ago. I've been helping Patrick with the hay."

"Obviously. Take a look at these while I put your persona together."

He handed me a pile of back issues of The Times, then disappeared upstairs into the laboratory.

I sorted them by date. The first, dated the tenth of August, was a small item from a back page, circled by Holmes. It concerned the American Senator Jonathan Simpson, leaving to go on holiday with his family, a wife and their six-year-old daughter, to Wales.

The next article was three days later, the central headline on the first page of the news. It read:

I went and perched my shoulder against the door of the laboratory as Holmes measured and poured and stirred.

"Who called you in?"

"Apparently Mrs. Simpson insisted."

"You don't sound pleased."

He slammed down a pipette, which of course shattered.

"How could I be pleased? Half of Wales has trudged the hillside into mud, the trail is a week old, there are no prints, nobody saw anyone, the parents are hysterical, and since nobody has any idea of what to do, they decide to humour the woman and bring in old Holmes. Old Holmes the miracle worker." He stared sourly at his finger as I fastened a plaster to it.

"Reading that drivel of Watson's, a person would never know I'd had any real failures, the kind that grind away and keep one from sleeping. Russell, I know these cases, I know the feel of how they begin, and this has all the marks. It stinks of failure, and I don't want to be anywhere near Wales when they find that child's body."

"Refuse the case, then."

"I can't. There's always a chance they overlooked something, that these suspicious old eyes might see something." He gave a sharp bark of cynical laughter. "Now, there's a morsel for Watson's notes: Sherlock Holmes trusting in luck. Sit down, Russell, and let me put this muck on your face."

It was horrid, warm and black and slimy like something the dog left behind, and had to go up my nose, in my ears, and around my mouth, but I sat.

"We will be a pair of gipsies. I've arranged for a caravan in Cardiff, where we'll see the Simpsons and then make our way north. I had planned to hire a driver, but since you've been practicing on Patrick's team, you can do it. I don't suppose you've picked up any useful skills at Oxford, such as telling fortunes?"

"The girl downstairs from me there is a fiend for Tarot. I could probably imitate the jargon. And there's the juggling."

"There was a deck in the cupboard — Sit still! I told Scotland Yard I'd be in Cardiff tomorrow."

"I thought the ransom note said they had one week? What can you expect to do in two days?"

"You overlooked the agony columns in the papers," he scolded. "The deadline was as much a pro forma demand as the insistence that the police be kept out of it. Nobody takes such demands seriously, least of all kidnappers. We have until the thirtieth of August. Senator Simpson is trying to raise the money, but it will come near to breaking him," he added in a distracted voice, and smeared the repulsive goop onto my eyelids. "A senator, even a powerful one like Simpson, is not always a rich man."

"We're going to Wales. You think the child is still there?"

"It is a very remote area, no one heard an automobile after dark, and the police had every road blocked by six o'clock in the morning. The roadblocks are still up, but Scotland Yard, the Welsh police, and the American staff all think she's in London. They're busy at that end, and they've thrown us Wales as a sop to get the Simpsons out from under their feet. It does mean that we'll have a relatively free hand once we're there. Yes, I think she is still in Wales; not only that, I think she's within twenty miles of the place from which she disappeared. I said sit still!" he growled. He was rubbing the sludge into my ear, so I could not see his face.

"A cool character, if that's the case," I offered, not meaning the child.

"Cool, as you say. And careful: The notes are on cheap, common paper, in common envelopes, typed on the second most common kind of typewriter, three or four years old, and mailed in busy post offices across London. No fingerprints. The spelling, choice of words, and punctuation are consistently atrocious. The layout on the page is precise, the typist indents exactly five spaces at the beginning of each paragraph, and the pressure on the keys indicates some familiarity with typing. Other than the window dressing of illiteracy, the messages are clear and not overly violent, as these things go."

"Window dressing?"

"Window dressing," he said firmly. "There is a mind behind this, Russell, not some casual, uneducated lout." In his face and in his voice a total abhorrence of the crime itself fought a losing battle with his constitutional relish for the chase. I said nothing, and he continued to coat my hands and arms past the elbow with the awful stuff. "That is why we will take no risks, assume no weaknesses on their part. Our disguise is assumed the instant we step outside of that door over there, and not let down for a moment. If you cannot sustain it, you'd best say so now, because one slip could mean the child's life. To say nothing of the political complications that will result if we allow a valued and somewhat reluctant Ally's representative to lose his child while on our soil."

His voice was almost mild, but when he looked into my eyes I nearly quailed before him. This was no game of putting on Ratnakar Sanji's turban and a music-hall accent, where the greatest risk was being sent down; the penalty for failure in this r#244;le could be a child's life. Could even be our own lives. It would have been easy, then, to excuse myself from the case, but — if not now, I asked myself, when? If I refused now, would I ever find the necessary combination of courage and opportunity again? I swallowed, and nodded. He turned and put the beaker on the table, where it would sit, undisturbed, to greet our weary eyes when we returned.

"There," he said. "Let us hope it doesn't stop up the plumbing again. Go have your bath and rinse this through your hair."

I took the bottle of black, viscous dye across the corridor to the bathroom, and some time later stood looking in the mirror at a raven-haired young woman with skin the colour of milky coffee and a pair of exotic blue eyes, dressed in a multitude of voluminous skirts from Holmes' trunks, draped with colourful scarfs and a hotchpotch of heavy yellow gold and bright, cheap trinkets at my neck and wrists. I put on my spectacles to study my reflection in the glass, decided that my standard ones were too scholarly and exchanged them for a pair with heavier gold rims and lightly tinted lenses. The effect was incongruous, but oddly appropriate — a modern variation on the conspicuous wealth I already wore. I stepped back to practise a seductive, flashing smile, but only succeeded in making myself giggle.

"Fortunately, it is Mrs. Hudson's day off," was all Holmes said when I swirled into the sitting room. "Sit down, and we shall see what you can do with these cards."

We left after dark to meet the last train going east. I telephoned from the cottage to let my aunt know that I had decided to spend a few days with my friend Lady Veronica in Berkshire, her grandmother had just died and she needed the assistance of her friends, not to expect me back for a week, and I rang off in the midst of her queries and protests. I should have to deal with her anger when I returned, but at least she was not about to complicate matters by calling in the police over her missing niece.

At the station we climbed down from the wheezing omnibus and took our multiple parcels over to the ticket window. I slipped my spectacles from my nose into my pocket, lest the familiar Seaford agent think to look twice at me, but even half-blind there was no mistaking the expression of dislike on his face, held in by the thin rein of his official manners.

"Yes, sir?" he said coldly.

"First class to Bristol," Holmes muttered.

"First class? I'm sorry, there won't be anything suitable. You'll find the second class quite comfortable this time of night."

"Naow, s'got to be first class. 'S me daughter's birfday, she wants a first class."

The agent looked at me, and I smiled shyly at him (which was, I thought, a bit like schoolgirl braids on a lady of the evening, but it seemed to soften him).

"Well, perhaps, it being night we might be able to find something. You'll have to stay in your compartment, though. No wandering about, bothering the other passengers."

Holmes drew himself up and glared blackly at the man.

"If they'll not be bothering us, we'll not be bothering them. How much is it?"

Scandalised eyes looked away as we climbed colourfully aboard with our various bags and parcels (I imagined letters going off in the morning post to the editorial page of The Times, but as we were busy for the next few days I do not know if they actually appeared), and we had a compartment to ourselves for the trip. I opened the case file Holmes handed me, but the long day's work under the hot sun and the tension conspired against me. Holmes woke me at Bristol, where we found rooms in a sleazy hotel near the station and slept until morning.

The remainder of the trip to Cardiff was decidedly less luxurious than the first part, and Holmes had to help me off the train, as my leg had fallen asleep with the weight of the bags and the woman wedged in beside me. When I could walk, he put his whiskered face against my ear and spoke in a low voice.

"Now, Russell, we shall see what you can do on your own. We have an appointment with the Simpsons in the office of Chief Inspector Connor at half-twelve. It would not be the best of ideas to go in through the front door, as I told you, so we are going to be arrested. Kindly don't manhandle your persecutor too badly. His bones are old."

He picked up the two smallest bags and walked away, leaving me to deal with the remaining four. I followed him to the exit, past a uniformed constable watching the crowd — and us, closely no doubt. The crush at the door grew thick, and Holmes stopped suddenly to avoid stepping on a child. I bumped into him and dropped a parcel, and as I struggled to retrieve it it was kicked away by various feet, beginning with a pair of garish gipsy boots. By dint of elbows and shoulders I followed the parcel, and as I reached down to pick it up something suddenly slammed me against the wall, where I collapsed in a heap of skirts and baggage. A voice snarled loudly above my head.

"Aw for God's sake, can you not 'ang on t'yer bags? I shoulda brought your brother; at least he can stand up straight." A hard hand seized my arm and jerked me upright, but when it let go too soon I stumbled into a group of elegantly dressed men. Gloved hands kept me from falling, but all movement through the doors had come to an abrupt halt.

"Damn you, girl, you're worse than your mother for falling into the arms of strange men. Get over here and pick up your things," he yelled and, hauling me out of the supporting hands of my rescuers, shoved me hard towards the bags. Tears had come into my eyes with the pain of the wall's initial impact, and now I groped blindly for the handles and strings. A murmur of properly accented voices protested my mistreatment, but none moved to stop my "father."

"But Da', they was only tryin' to help me — "

I saw his hand coming towards me and moved with it, but it still connected with a crack. I cowered against the wall with my arms over my head and cried out piteously when his shoe kicked the valise beneath me.

Finally a police whistle rang out.

"Stop you that, man," cried the Welsh voice of authority. "There's shameful, there is, hurting a child."

"She's no child, and she needs some sense beat into her."

"That you will not, man. No," he shouted, and grabbed Holmes' upraised arm. "We'll not be having that. There's to the station with the both of you; we shall see if that cools your tempers." He looked at me more closely and then turned to the group of men. "Perhaps you gentlemen might care to check your pockets, see if there might be anything missing?"

To my relief there was nothing, although I would not have put it past Holmes to add that bit of verisimilitude to the proceedings. The constable made good his threat anyway, and as my voice joined with Holmes in vociferous abuse we were bundled into the back of a police van and taken away. Once inside the wagon we did not look at each other. I sniffed occasionally. It concealed the smile that kept creeping onto my lips.

At the station a PC seized Holmes' handcuffed arm and led him roughly away. My own young constable and the matronly sort he handed me over to both seemed undecided as to whether I was an innocent victim or a worse scoundrel than my father, and it required an enormous amount of effort and a tedious amount of time before I could make myself sufficient of a nuisance to be granted my request, which was a brief interview with Chief Inspector Connor. Finally, I stood outside the door that held his name on a brass plaque. The tight-lipped, over-corseted matron hissed at me to stay where I was and went to speak with a secretary. Matron glared at me, secretary raked me with scandalised eyes, but I did not care. I was there, and it was only twenty past twelve.

To my dismay, however, the secretary decided to stand firm. She shook her head, waved her hand at the closed door, and was very obviously refusing me access to the man inside. I dug out a pen and a scrap of paper from my capacious pockets and, after a moment's thought, wrote on it the name of the child whose fate brought us here. I folded it three times and walked over to hold it out deferentially to the secretary.

"I'm terribly sorry, Miss," I said. "I shouldn't think of bothering the chief inspector if I weren't absolutely certain that he would want to see me. Please, just give this to him. If he does not wish to see me after that, I shall go away quietly."

She looked at the folded scrap, but perhaps the uplifted syntax got through to her, because she took my note and went resolutely through the door. Voices from inside cut off short, then came hers in tones of apology.and then an abrupt and stifled exclamation was all the warning I had before a florid, middle-aged man with thinning red hair and an ill-fitting tweed suit stormed out of the doorway, growling magnificently in the rumble and roll of his Welsh origins.

"If the Pharaoh in Egypt had been so plagued by Moses as I have been by all the troublemakers of the world he would have delivered the children of Israel in his own carriage to the very gates of Jericho. Now look you here, Miss," he pinned me down with a pair of tired, brilliant blue eyes, "there's pitiful, there is, the sly ways of your sort, coming by here and — "

I leant into the gale of his speech and contributed two low, forceful words of my own.

"Sherlock Holmes," I pronounced. His head snapped up as if I had slapped him. He took a step back and ran his eyes over me, and I was amused to see him think that even a man famous throughout the world for his skill at disguise was not likely to be the person before him. His eyes narrowed.

"And how are you knowing about — "

He stopped, glanced at the startled woman in the doorway, went back to close his door, and then led me away into a smaller, shabbier office than the one I had caught a glimpse of — an interview room, with three doors. He closed the door behind us.

"You will explain yourself," he ordered.

"With pleasure," I said sweetly. "Would you mind awfully if I were to sit down?"

For the first time he actually looked at me, drawn up short by the thick Oxford drawl emerging from the gipsy girl, and I reflected upon the extraordinary effect gained by speech that is incongruous with one's appearance. He gestured to a chair, and I took possession of it. I sat. I waited. He sat.

"Thank you," I said. "There is a certain Romany gentleman being held in your cells — my 'father'. That is actually Sherlock Holmes. I understand that he did not wish it known that he was being called in on the Simpson case, so we chose to arrive for the appointment through the back door, shall we say, rather than the front. Your officers were very polite," I hastened to reassure him, not altogether truthfully.

"Jesus God," he swore under his breath. "Sherlock Holmes in the lockup. Donaldson!" he bellowed. A door opened behind me. "I want here the gipsy they arrested by the train station. You will bring him, yourself."

Heavy silence descended, until Connor abruptly recalled the two Americans in his office and scrambled away. His voice vibrated through the intervening space for several minutes. He then came out of his office and spoke in a low voice to his secretary.

"We will drink tea, Miss Carter, biscuits, whatever. A tray in to the Simpsons, if you please. And by here, three teas. Yes, three."

He came back into the interview room, lowered himself cautiously into the chair across from me, and folded his hands together on top of the table.

"Nah," he said, "there's funny there is. Why was I not told — " He stopped, and with an effort shook the Welsh from his tongue and put on English like a uniform. "That is to say, I did not know that there would be someone accompanying him."

"He himself did not know it until yesterday. My name is Mary Russell. I shall be his assistant on the case."

His mouth slid out of control, but he was saved from further conversation on the matter by the arrival of Donaldson and Holmes. The latter was still in handcuffs, but his eyes sparkled with amusement, and he was patently enjoying himself despite the bruise darkening the ridge of his already dusky cheek and the puffmess to the left side of his mouth. Connor looked at him aghast.

"Donaldson, what does this mean? What has happened to his face? And take those cuffs from his hands."

Holmes cut in with his roughened voice.

"Naow, cap'n, there bain't no problem. They was just doin' their job, like."

Connor looked hard at Holmes, then glanced at his sergeant.

"Mister Donaldson, you will go down into the cells and you will tell the men with the ready fists that I will have no more of that thing. I do not care what the man before me permitted or encouraged; there will be no more of it. There's bad, that is, Donaldson. Go, you."

Miss Carter came in as the sergeant slunk out and put a tray with three cups and a plate of cakes on the table, keeping her eyes to herself but positively radiating curiosity. Evidently we were not Connor's normal variety of tea guests.

The door closed behind her, and Holmes came to sit in the chair next to mine.

"You are quite to time, Russell. I trust I did not harm you?"

"A few bruises, nothing more. You managed to miss my spectacles. And you?"

"As I said, there were no problems. Chief Inspector Connor, I take it you have met Miss Russell?"

"She — introduced herself. As your 'assistant’. I ask you, Mr. Holmes, is this truly necessary?"

There were multiple layers insinuated into his question but, innocent that I was, I did not immediately read them — until I saw the way Holmes was just looking at the man, and suddenly I felt myself flush scarlet head to toe. I stood up.

"Holmes, I think you would be better off alone on this case, after all. I shall return home — "

"You will sit down." With that note in his voice, I sat. I did not look at Chief Inspector Connor.

"Miss Russell is my assistant, Chief Inspector. On this case as on others." That was all he said, but Connor sat back in his chair, cleared his throat, and shot me a brief glance that was all the apology I would have, considering that nothing had actually been said aloud.

"Your assistant. Fine."

"That is correct. Her presence makes no difference with the arrangements, however. Are the Simpsons here?"

"In the next room. I thought you and I might have a word, before."

"Quite. We shall leave the city immediately we have seen them. I assume that the roadblocks are still up but that your men are away from the area, as I specified."

"As you asked," Connor agreed, though the resentment in his voice said clearly that he had been forced to follow direct orders from above and was none too happy about it.

Holmes looked up sharply, then settled back deliberately into his chair, his long fingers laced across his stained waistcoat and a thin smile on his lips. "Perhaps we need clarify this matter, Chief Inspector. I 'asked' for nothing. I certainly did not 'ask' that this case be wished upon me. You people approached me, and I only accepted after it had been agreed by all parties that my orders take priority in regards to those few square miles of Welsh countryside. Call them requests if you like, but do not treat them as such. Furthermore, I wish to make clear that Miss Russell here is my official representative, that if she appears without me, any message or 'request' is to be honoured, immediately and without cavil. Are we quite in agreement, Chief Inspector?"

"Nah, Mr. Holmes," Connor began to bluster, the Welsh rhythm creeping back into his throat, "I can hardly think — "

"That is eminently clear, young man. Were you to pause for thought you might realise that a simple 'yes' or 'no' would suffice. If you agree, then we shall speak with the Simpsons and get on with the job. If your answer is 'no,' then you may give Miss Russell back her bags, and I in return will hand you back your case. The decision is entirely yours. Personally I should be glad to get back to my experiments and sleep in my own bed. Which shall it be?"

Cold grey eyes locked with brilliant blue ones, and after a long minute, blue wavered.

"Have no choice, do I? That woman'd have my head." He shoved back from the table, and we followed the disgruntled chief inspector through the room's third door and into his office.

The two people who looked up at our entrance wore catastrophe on their aristocratic faces, that stretched appearance of human beings who have passed the threshold of terror and exhaustion and can feel only a stunned apprehension of what will come next. Both of them were grey, unkempt.and fragile. The man did not stand when we came in, only looked past us at Connor. The tea on the desk was untouched.

"Senator, Mrs. Simpson, may I introduce Mr. Sherlock Holmes and his assistant, Miss Mary Russell."

The senator reared back like the chief mourner at a funeral confronted by a tasteless joke, and Holmes stepped forward quickly.

"I must apologise for my singular appearance," he said in his most plummy Oxbridgian. "I thought it best for the sake of your daughter's safety that I not be seen entering the station, and came in, as it were, through the servant's entrance. I assure you that Miss Russell's disguise is every bit as sham as the gold tooth I am wearing." Simpson's feathers went down, and he rose to shake Holmes' hand. Mrs. Simpson, I noticed, seemed blind to what Holmes and I looked like: From the moment Connor spoke his name her haunted eyes had latched onto Holmes like a drowning woman staring at a floating spar and followed his every move as he shifted a chair around to sit directly in front of them. I sat to one side, and Connor went around to take up his normal chair behind the desk, separated by it from the amateur and unconventional happenings before him.

"Now," said Holmes briskly, "to business. I have read your statements, seen the photographs, reviewed the physical evidence. There is little purpose served in forcing you to go through it all yet again. Perhaps I might merely state the sequence as I understand it, and you will please correct me if I stray." He then went over the information gained from the file and the newspapers: the decision to strike off into the hills of Wales with only a tent, the train to Cardiff and the car up into the hinterland, two days of peace, and the third day waking to find the child vanished from her sleeping roll.

"Did I miss anything?" The two Americans looked at each other, shook their heads. "Very well, I have only two questions. First, why did you come here?"

"I'm afraid I — insisted," said Mrs. Simpson. Her fingers were twisting furiously at a delicate lace handkerchief in her lap. "Johnny hasn't had so much as a day off in nearly two years, and I told him — I told him that if he didn't take a vacation, I was going to take Jessie and go home." Her voice broke and in an instant Holmes was before her, with that compassion and understanding for a soul in trouble that was so characteristic of him, yet which for some reason always took one by surprise. This time he went so far as to seize her hand, in order to force her to meet his gaze.

"Mrs. Simpson, listen to me. This was not an accident," he said forcibly. "Your daughter was not kidnapped because she just happened to be on that hill at the wrong time. I know kidnappers. Had she not been taken here in Wales, it would have been while out with her nurse at the park, or from her bedroom at home. This was a deliberate, carefully planned crime. It was not your fault."

She, of course, broke down completely, and it took copious supplies of handkerchiefs and a judicious application of brandy before we could return to the point.

"But why here?" Holmes persisted. "How far in advance did you plan it, and who knew?"

The senator answered. "Because we wanted to get as far from civilisation as we could. London — well, I know I'm not being diplomatic, but London's a god-awful place: The air stinks; you can't ever see stars, even with the blackout; it's always noisy; and you never know when the bombs won't start up again. Wales seemed about as far from that as a person could get. I arranged for a week off, oh, it must have been the end of May we started planning it, just after that last big bombing raid."

"Did anyone suggest this area to you?"

"Don't think so. My wife's family came originally from Aberystwyth, so we knew the country in a general sort of way. It's hilly like Colorado, where I grew up, no real mountains of course, but we thought it'd be nice to walk into the hills and tent for a few days. Nothing strenuous because Jessie was — because Jessie's so small. Just someplace quiet and out of the way."

"And the arrangements — the equipment, transportation — an automobile dropped you, did it not? and you arranged for it to meet you after five days — notifying the police and newspapers. Who did all that?"

"My personal assistant. He's English. I believe his brother knew where to hire the tent and whatnot, but you'd have to ask him for the details."

"I have that information for you, Mr. Holmes," growled Connor from his desk. "You'll have it before you leave."

"Thank you, Chief Inspector. Now, Senator, that last day. You went for a walk, bought sausages and bread from a farmhouse, cooked and ate them at five o'clock, stayed inside the tent reading after that because it began to rain. You were asleep by eleven and woke at four o'clock to find your daughter missing."

"She didn't go!" Mrs. Simpson broke in. "Jessica didn't go out of the tent by herself. The dark frightens her; she wouldn't go outside even for the horses. I know she loved those ponies that wander around wild, but she wouldn't follow them off, not my Jessie."

Holmes looked directly into her shell-shocked features.

"That brings me to my second question. How did you feel when you woke up the following morning?"

"Feel?" The senator looked at Holmes with incredulity, and I admit that for an instant I too thought the question mad. "How the hell do you think we felt? Waking up to find no sign of our daughter."

Holmes halted him with a pacifying hand.

"That's not what I meant. Naturally you felt panic and disorientation, but physically? How did you feel phys ically?"

"Perfectly normal, I guess. I don't remember." He looked at his wife.

"I remember. I felt ill. Thickheaded. The air outside felt so good, it was like breathing champagne." The great lost eyes stared at Holmes. "Were we drugged?"

"I think there's a very good chance. Chief Inspector, was anything done on the sausages?"

"Analysed, of course. Nothing there in the two that were left, or in the other food. The old couple on the farm seemed harmless. It's in the report as well."

For another half-hour Holmes continued to question both the inspector and the Simpsons, with little result. No known enemies, they'd seen no strangers the day before, the ransom money was being brought in from America, a loan from his father. At the end of it Mr. Simpson was pale and his wife shaking. Holmes thanked them.

"I deeply regret having put you through this painful ordeal. At this point in an investigation one never knows which small detail will be of vital importance. Russell, have you any questions?"

"Just one, about the child herself. I'd like to know how you think she's taking it, Mrs. Simpson. How do you think she's reacting to having been spirited away by what may well be complete strangers?" I was afraid my question would break her, but oddly enough it did not. She sat upright and looked straight at me for the first time.

"Jessica is a very self-contained, determined child. She is highly intelligent and does not panic easily. To tell you the truth, assuming she is being treated well, she is probably less upset than her mother is." A ghost of a smile flickered across her bare face. There was no more questions.

Connor saw them out and returned with a thick, bound folder.

"Here's the full report, everything we've found, copies of the prints, interviews with the locals, everything. Most of it you've seen already. I imagine you'll want to take it with you, not stop to read it now."

"Yes, I want to be away as soon as possible. Where's the caravan?"

"The north end of town, on the road to Caerphilly. Stables run by Gwilhem Andrewes. He's not what you might call a friend of the police, and I wouldn't trust him with my back turned, but he's what you wanted. Shall I have a car take you?"

"No, I don't think that would be appropriate treatment for a pair of gipsies, do you? And you'll have to have a talk with Miss Carter and Sergeant Donaldson. We do not want the whole police force to know that Senator Simpson spent an hour with two arrested gipsies, do we? No, I think we'll just carry on as if you've let us off with a warning, if you'd be so good as to arrange my release. You know where we'll be; if you need to talk with me, have one of your constables stop me. No one will think twice of a copper rousting a gipsy. But, if he needs to arrest me, have him do it gently. I do promise not to beat up my daughter in railway stations any more." Connor hesitated, then forced a laugh. Perhaps only the circumstances had rendered him humourless.

We rose to take our leave. Connor rose with us, and after a small hesitation, came around the desk and held out his hand to Holmes.

"There's sorry I am, Mr. Holmes, for what you found here in my building. I am newly come here, but I say that in explanation, not in excuse." Holmes took the hand and shook it.

"I found good men here, Mr. Connor. Young men, it is true, but I think from the look of you they will age quickly."

"They will that, Mr. Holmes. Now, I'll be wishing you Godspeed, and a good hunting to you. And to you, Miss Russell."

We were soon out on the street, carrying three bags apiece, working our way up to the outskirts of town where we soon located Andrewes Stables. Holmes left me in the office and went to find the owner. I cooled my heels by juggling for half an hour, desperate for something to read (though strictly speaking I should be barely literate) until I heard voices outside the door, and in came a shifty, greasy character followed by the marginally less disreputable figure of Holmes, smelling strongly of whisky and flashing his gold tooth. Andrewes leered at me until Holmes distracted him by holding money under his nose.

"Well, then, Mr. Andrewes, that's settled. I thanks you for holdin' my brother's wagon for me. Here's what I owes you. Come, Mary, the wagon's out in the yard."

"Just a minute, Mr. Todd, you're a shilling short here."

"Ah, terrible sorry, I must a dropped it." He laboriously counted out three pennies, a ha'penny, and six farthings. "There it is, now we're quit. Get the bags, girl," he snarled.

"Yes, Da'." I meekly followed him, laden with the four largest bags again, through the muck-slimed yard to the gipsy caravan standing in the back. A rough-coated, heavy-legged horse was being introduced between the traces. I deposited my load and went around to help with the process, blessing Patrick's tutoring as I did so, and found that though the arrangement of the harness was different from that of a plough or a hay cart, it was logical and quickly mastered. I climbed up beside Holmes on the hard wooden seat. He handed me the reins, his face a blank. I glanced at the two men standing nearby, arranged the thick straps in my hands, and slapped them hard across the broad back in front of me. The horse obligingly leant forward, and we pulled out onto the road north, on the trail of Jessica Simpson.