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?'
