"Mummy, look at the baby," she says, leaning over the edge to peer down at the child.
The parents, an unremarkable lower-middle-class couple, are taking a first vacation since the birth of their son the year before. The father, Alois, is a customs official, the mother, Klara, a simple country girl from Bavaria.
"Look at the eyes, Mummy," says Mary. "Doesn't it have the most beautiful eyes?"
The baby's eyes are indeed beautiful. Inviting. Transfixing.
"Yes, he does, dear. Die Augen ist ... sehr schon," says Louise to the young parents, in her schoolgirl German.
"Thank you," says Klara politely.
"Wo kommen Sie heraus?" asks Louise.
"We come from Austria," answers Alois, uncomfortable with any foreigner, let alone an English gentlewoman.
Doyle, with the guard at the rail forty feet away, fails to notice their conversation.
"Braunau," adds Klara. "Braunau am Inn."
"We must go," says Alois, and with a brusque nod to Louise he takes Klara by the arm, turning her back the other way.
"Auf wiedersehen," says Louise.
"Auf wiedersehen," says Klara, with a sweet smile for Mary.
"Say good-bye now, Mary," says Louise.
"Bye-bye."
Mary spies her father and runs to tell him all about the baby with the extraordinary eyes, but by the time she reaches him, the thought has fled from her mind, like the mist rising from the falls below.
As Klara turns the pram around she leans down to straighten her son's bedding. She smiles at him, and says softly:
"Komm mit, Adolf."
THE END
(Tale Continues in Book Two: The Six Messiah)