"Holmes? Do you think they'll catch the person behind this?"
"It's possible but not, I think, likely. He's been very cautious. He was not seen — he has certainly never been here, he'd never have overlooked the tree branch, or the curtains. These five were hired and paid anonymously, had no address or telephone number, no means of contacting him other than the newspaper, and received their orders from postboxes all over London: The ones I saw were all from the same typewriter, which will soon be lying on the bottom of the Thames. The Yard may have luck with tracing the money, but something tells me they won't. However, sooner or later he'll put his head up again, and perhaps we'll see him then. Russell? Come, Russell, don't fall off under the wheels, I beg you. Hand me those reins and go to sleep. No, go on. I've been driving horses since before you were born. Get on wi'ya, Mary." So I got on.
I woke up many hours later in stillness and heard the little caravan's back door open. Boots thumped gently onto the wooden floorboards, outer clothing rustled, and Holmes climbed into his bunk. I turned over and went back to sleep.
It was a blessing that we were saddled with the caravan and horse and were forced to make our way slowly to Cardiff. If we had gone off by car and plunged immediately into officiai business and then whisked ourselves back home by train, it would have left me, and perhaps even Holmes, gasping and stunned. As it was, two long days of plodding travel forced us to put the case into its proper place. We rode and walked, Holmes alternated between pipe and gentle, lyrical violin pieces. We talked, but not of the case, or of what I had taken upon myself to do. Leaving the horse and caravan with Andrewes, we piled our assorted bags into a cab and were driven to the best hotel that the driver thought might accept us. It did. The baths were sheer sybaritic pleasure, deep and hot, and four rinses later I was again blonde, with a definite tan colour remaining on my skin. I stood in front of the mirror, tying my necktie, when two taps came at the door.
"Russell?"
"Come in, Holmes, I'm nearly ready."
He let himself in, and I saw that he too remained slightly brown, though the grey had reappeared around his ears. He sat down to wait as I pinned up my still-damp hair, and it occurred to me that he was probably the only person I knew who could simply sit nearby and watch me without one or the other of us needing to make conversation.
I finished and picked up my room key.
"Shall we go?"
The Simpsons, as might have been expected, were grateful and fragile. Mrs. Simpson kept touching her daughter gently as if to reassure herself of the child's presence. Mr. Simpson looked rested and apologised for having to rush about — his words — instead of talking, as he was needed urgently in London. In the midst of it sat Jessica. She and I greeted each other solemnly. I noticed the faint shadow of a fading bruise on her cheekbone that I hadn't seen in the dark. I asked after her doll, and she replied seriously that she was quite well, thank you, and would I like to see her hotel room? I excused myself and followed Jessica down the hallway. (The Simpsons' suite and hotel were considerably more upstage than ours.)
We sat on the bed and talked to the stuffed person, and I was introduced to a bear, two rabbits, and a jointed wooden puppet. She showed me a few books, and we spoke of literature.
"I can read them," she informed me, with the barest trace of self-satisfaction.
"I can see that."
"Miss Russell, could you read when you were six?" Oddly enough there was no overtone of pride here, just a request for information.
"Yes, I believe I could."
"I thought so." She nodded her head in prim satisfaction and smoothed the skirt of the rag doll.
"What is your doll's name?"
I was surprised at her reaction to this simple question. Her hands went still, and she concentrated on the battered face in her lap, biting her lip. Her voice when she answered was quiet.
"Her name used to be Elizabeth."
"Used to be? What is her name now?" I could see that this was important but failed to grasp just how.
"Mary." She spoke in a whisper, and after a few seconds her eyes came up to mine. Light dawned.
"Mary, is it? My name?"
"Yes, Miss Russell."
It was my turn now to look down and study my hands. Hero worship was not one of the topics Holmes had thought fit to tutor me in, and my voice was not quite steady when I spoke.
"Jessica, would you do something for me?"
"Yes, Miss Russell." No hesitation. I could ask her to throw herself from the window for me, her voice said, and she would do it. Gladly.
"Would you call me Mary?"
"But Mama said — "
"I know, mothers like good manners in their children, and that is important. But just between the two of us, I should like it very much if you were to call me Mary. I never — " There was something blocking my throat and I swallowed, hard. "I never had a sister, Jessica. I had a brother, but he died. My mother and father died, too, so I don't have much of a family any more. Would you like to be my sister, Jessica?"
The amazed adoration in her eyes was too much. I pulled her to me so I did not have to look at it. Her hair smelt musky-sweet, like chamomile. I held her, and she began to cry, weeping oddly like a woman rather than a young child, while I rocked us both gently in silence. In a few minutes she drew a shuddering breath and stopped.
"Better?"
She nodded her head against my chest. I smoothed her hair.
"That's what tears are for, you know, to wash away the fear and cool the hate."
As I suspected, that last word triggered a reaction. She drew back and looked at me, her eyes blazing.
"I do hate them. Mama says I don't, but I do. I hate them. If I had a gun I'd kill them all."
"Do you think you really would?"
She thought for a moment, and her shoulders slumped. "Maybe not. But I'd want to."
"Yes. They are hateful men, who did something horrid to you and hurt your parents. I'm glad you wouldn't shoot them, because I shouldn't want you to go to gaol, but you go ahead and hate them. No one should ever do what they did. They stole you and hit you and tied you up like a dog. I hate them too."
Her jaw dropped at so much raw emotion aired.
"Yes, I do, and you know what I hate them for most? I hate them for taking away your happiness. You don't trust people now, do you? Not like you did a few weeks ago. A six-year-old girl oughtn't to be frightened of people." The child needed help, but I was quite certain that her parents would greet the suggestion of psychiatric treatment with the standard mixture of horror and embarrassment. She would, for the present, have to settle for me. Physician, heal thyself, I thought sourly.
"Mary?"
"Yes, Jessica?"
"You took me away from those men. You and Mr. Holmes."
"We helped the police get you back, yes," I said carefully and not entirely truthfully, and wondered what was on her mind. I did not wonder for long.
"Well, sometimes when I wake up, I think I'm still in that bed. It's like — I can hear the chain rattle when I move. And even during the day, sometimes I think I'm dreaming, and that when I wake up I'll be in bed, with one of those men sitting in the chair with his mask on. I mean, I know I'm back with Mama and Papa, but I feel like I'm not. Do you know what I'm talking about?" she asked without much hope.
The experiential reality of the residual effects of a traumatic experience, I thought, in the precise Germanic tones of Dr. Leah Ginzberg, M.D., Ph.D., and then went on almost automatically as she would have, with a push for more truth.