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."