a brutal fist of a man, and became the virtual ruler of Algiers. When he died, his brother took over, and consolidated their base of power. He was every bit as merciless as Aruj had been, but he was also a sophisticate, educated, capable of seeing beyond the reach of a pirate ship.”
“Holmes, the length of time I wish to linger out here is limited.”
“I suspect that we may be caught up in a re-establishment of the Barbarossa empire.”
“What, in this little place? The smallest gunship of the British Navy could flatten Sale in an afternoon.”
“With thirty-four European citizens within its walls?”
He had a point. “So how do we remove His Majesty’s citizens from harm?”
“Having had a plenitude of time in which to reflect, I believe I have identified Mycroft’s agent here.”
“You don’t sound terribly pleased.”
“It’s Bert.”
“Really? But that’s good, isn’t- Ooh. Bert, who may be fond of Samuel’s younger son. I could be wrong,” I offered.
“I, too, have seen reason to believe that there are emotional ties there, ties that could make Bert less than wholehearted in his support of an escape.”
“If he’s Mycroft’s man, he’d never side against his countrymen.”
“Not consciously, I agree, but a slip of the tongue? A moment’s hesitation?”
I dangled glumly and had to agree: Mycroft’s undercover agent had best be considered a broken reed, and should not be brought into any plans. “For my part, the only person on my side of the wall with a degree of native wit is Annie, and I consider her judgment clouded by affection for Adam. Certainly, she seems to have a suspect degree of curiosity about the actions of others – you saw how every time one turns around, there she is, blinking her pretty blue eyes.”
“It is true, beauty and reliability rarely go hand in hand.”
Which rather trod underfoot the compliment with which he had greeted me. “Thank you, Holmes,” I muttered.
“Beg your pardon?”
“I said, It looks as if it’s up to the two of us, yet again.”
I remained at his window for another ten minutes or so while we discussed options and signals, then reluctantly I told him that I had to go or risk falling. He ordered me to give him one hand, which he massaged back to life, then the other. Feeling restored, I dug out my pocket-knife and held it into the inner darkness, then set about climbing back up the wall to the rooftop. Behind me, the metal shutter swung shut on silent hinges, and I reflected that Holmes had contrived to grease them, probably with a pat of butter from his breakfast. That he had done so spoke of his confidence in me.
As I set my hands upon the rope, there came a melodramatic whisper:
I nearly fell off the rope laughing.
Warmed by his hands and his attitude, I walked up the wall to the rooftop. There I hung for a couple of minutes, peering over and waiting for motion, but the area was still deserted. I swung up and onto the rooftop, retrieved the rope and bound it around my waist, then clambered to the top of the high dividing wall to stretch my foot down for the bench, left against the wall.
Except that it was no longer there. Dangling, I craned to look over my shoulder, and saw two figures stand up from their seats on the bench, now ten feet distant.
They did not rush to seize me. After a moment’s thought, I let go and dropped to the roof, then turned to face my captors.
There came the scrape of a match, and a flame gave light to our tableau: Annie holding the flame to a candle, with at her side a smaller person. Oh, God: Edith.
All in all, I’d rather have confronted a pair of armed guards.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
SERGEANT: This is perplexing.
POLICE: We cannot understand it at all.
EDITH HAD DISCOVERED me missing first.
She, or he, had been lying awake in the room she shared – or, he shared … oh, dash it all, call the diabolical brat a female – in the room she shared with her mother, lingering over the day’s events and the basic dreadful pain of adolescence heaped high with the unutterable shame and anguish of being a boy in a dress, when she heard a faint whisper of sound from the hallway. By the time she dressed and figured out the person had been going up rather than down, I was no longer on the roof, and she was too short to reach the top of the wall from the bench- top.
Annie, whose attention had been caught by the sound of Edith going through two doors and up the stairs, caught the child arranging a chair atop the bench. And although Edith tried hard to convince her that it was the only place the mysterious person could have gone, Annie had the sense to keep Edith from throwing herself on top of the wall and, for all either of them knew, into range of that Purdy shotgun.
She tried to convince Edith that she had been hearing things, that there was no sign that any intruder had passed here, that the bench had, in fact, been against the wall when they went to bed (even though Edith was adamant that it had not been, and Annie herself not at all sure). In the end, she offered to sit with Edith and wait, thinking that half an hour of staring into nothingness would be enough to convince the child to return to bed.
But Edith was made of sterner stuff; although I had been gone over an hour, she’d been determined to wait me out.
“And so you did,” I told her in that jollying voice one uses towards children, which had about as much impact on her as it had on any other child.
“I’ll rat on you.”
“Edith, what kind of English is that! You’re not going to give me away.” The warning note was clear in my voice – although, with Annie standing there, I could not very well be more specific about my own side of the threat.
“I don’t care, tell them if you want, I’ll do the same on you.”
“Now, why would you do that?” I chided desperately. What could I use on the child to keep her mouth shut? I really did not want the entire household to know that I’d shinnied down the walls at night. For one thing, half of them would promptly demand that I take them along the next-
Ah.
“Do you want to go out?”
Her expression made for a sharp contrast to the warm little light Annie held, being cold and very adult.
“I’m not going to take you over to the men’s house, because there are armed guards over there who might come at any minute. But the next time I go down into the town at night, you can come. If, that is, you don’t mind dressing up as a boy.”
“I-” She caught her tongue before it gave her away to Annie. “No, I don’t mind. When?”
“Probably not tomorrow night, but possibly the next.”
“That’s too long!”
“Sorry, but I’m not going to put everyone else in danger just to take you on an outing.”
“You’ll probably go without me.”
“I promise,” I said, and when the young face continued to eye me with mistrust, I added, “I give you my word as an Englishwoman.”
“The next time you go down to the street, you’ll take me, too?”
Annie started to object, but I put up a hand to stop her. “I will take you.”
