“The ‘noble lie’ has to convince the rulers themselves.”

I rejected the sadness in his voice by making mine louder. “I think I prefer the sentiments of Phaedo to those of The Republic: ‘False words are not only themselves evil, but they infect the soul with evil.’”

“Do you not imagine that my brother is well aware of that? Do you not see that thirty years ago, he consciously chose to shape a life of virtue on top of that one act?”

“What I’d imagined was that Mycroft was above such things. What I’d hoped was that he did his best to counteract the slimy deeds that Intelligence spawns, the bribes and blackmail and God knows what death and misery. What I’d hoped-” I broke off and slammed the drawer. What I’d hoped was that Mycroft was better than that.

“Good men may be driven to unethical decisions. I have been, myself.”

I grabbed a comb and began to drag it through my hair, trying to ignore the figure in the edge of the looking-glass.

“Are you and I arguing,” Holmes asked eventually, “or are you arguing with yourself?”

I threw the comb into its drawer, kicked my shed garments into the corner, and jammed one of the wider cloches over my head. I looked at my reflection, but after a time, I had to look away.

Mycroft had always been a bigger-than-life presence, even before I met him; to find… this at the man’s core shook me. When it came to Mycroft, I had somehow decided that he managed to undertake the business of Intelligence without the unsavoury aspects of the craft, even though I myself was regularly driven to house-breaking, lying to the police, assault… Holmes was right, I was being simplistic. Childish.

Fortunately, he had the sense not to say so.

“All right,” I said. “Yes, he pays. That doesn’t make it right, but it’s a brutal world and the work he does is necessary. I am disappointed. Profoundly disappointed. But I will help.” I picked up my purse.

“I left Damian at the Hotel Delft in Bleumenschoten,” Holmes said. “And Dr Henning, of course. Under the name Daniel de Fontaine.”

I flagged down a cab on Piccadilly, went to the Standard’s offices to leave the advert, then walked down the street to a quiet public call-box.

It took ten minutes to achieve a connexion with the hotel in Tunbridge Wells. The man who answered was friendly and sounded intelligent, but he assured me that no one by the name of Javitz had checked in the previous day. My heart instantly tried to climb up my throat.

“Not-” I forced myself under control: Shouting at the man would not help me. I took a deep breath, and changed what I had been about to say, and the way in which I said it. “Oh dear, perhaps they were forced to use another hotel. Were you full up, yesterday?”

“No, madam, we were not.”

“Well, perhaps-” Perhaps what? They didn’t like the looks of the place? Estelle threw a tantrum and demanded to be returned to Goodman’s family home? They’d had a mechanical breakdown on the road to Tunbridge Wells, a flat tyre, a deadly crash?

They’d been picked up by Mycroft’s foe?

Do not panic. Do not. “Perhaps if I describe them, you can tell me if you’ve seen them. He’s tall, American, has an injured leg, and the child-”

“Ah yes, you mean Mr Russell.”

I found I was leaning against the wall, and the box was full of a rushing sound.

“Madam? Hello, Exchange, have we been cut off?”

“No,” I said. “Yes, I’m here, sorry. Yes, Mr Russell. He came in yesterday?”

“With the child, yes, charming little thing. What was the name you used?”

“Oh, nothing, it’s just one-he occasionally uses another name so his step-father doesn’t find him. The step-father doesn’t, er… doesn’t care for the child.”

It was the best I could do at the moment, but the voice over the telephone line was as indignant as I could have asked. “I see. Well, I shall take care to forget the other name.”

“Whatever it was,” I added.

“Indeed.”

“May I speak to Mr Russell, then?”

“I am sorry, madam, they are not in the hotel at present.”

“When did they leave?” I asked sharply.

“Not ten minutes ago,” he answered, to my relief. “I believe the little girl expressed a desire to paddle in the sea, so he arranged a car and driver until the afternoon.”

“Very good,” I said. “May I leave a message for him? To say that his cousin Mary will ring again at tea-time?”

“I shall let him know the moment he returns,” the man assured me. I thanked him and rang off, resting my forehead against the telephone’s black body. Had the hotel man been in front of me, I would have rested it against him.

The “object of our affection” to be traded on Westminster Bridge was not Estelle, at any rate. Was it Damian?

I waited for an hour before the exchange put my call through, only to be cut off not once, but twice, each time having to begin the process anew. Then when I reached the Hotel Delft, the woman who answered the telephone spoke only Dutch; she broke the connexion a third time. On the fourth attempt I used French instead of English, which delayed her long enough that I could try German, as well, and although she seemed to speak neither with any fluency, she did recognise words of both languages, and I could guess from her voice if not her words what answers she was giving.

Yes, she knew M de Fontaine and his something companion. (Redheaded, perhaps? Did Dr Henning have red hair?) They were there for two nights and then not. Friday and Saturday? I asked-vendredi et samedi? Mais pas le dimanche?

There followed a rattle of Dutch, which I took to be the affirmative but linked to a question of-I pressed the telephone into my ear as if it might aid comprehension. Then I heard a word in the torrent that sounded familiar in several languages.

“Valise?” I asked. “Did you say ‘valise’?”

Thirty seconds of something that meant: yes.

“What about his valise?”

The voice paused, then came out with six laborious and heavily accented syllables. “Sa valise sont ici.”

“Whose valises are still there?” I demanded. “His, or hers? Or both?”

But precision was beyond her abilities, or even agreement in case and gender. She rattled on, her voice climbing, and then the telephone went dead.

I did not have the heart to attempt a fifth connexion.

I made two more calls. The first was to Sophy Melas, who was at home and sounded puzzled but unworried when I asked her if she’d had any unexpected callers other than Goodman and me the other night. The answer was no; I rang off before she could question why I called. The other was to my own house in Sussex. Its buzz continued in my ear, although there was no knowing if that was because Mrs Hudson had gone, as she’d been told, or because she’d stayed and been abducted.

I put the earpiece into its rest, and tried to think what else I could do, what other hostages to fortune lay out there.

I could think of none.

I bought eggs, cheese, and a loaf of bread on my way back to Pall Mall, retraced my laborious path through Mycroft’s flat and into the dumbwaiter shaft, hanging the portrait over the hole as I came. In the Melas kitchen, I left my contribution on the table.

I found Mycroft in a dressing room whose furniture testified to Mrs Melas’ taste. He was standing at the window, hands clasped behind his back, staring intently at the narrow crack between the two halves of the curtain. I cleared my throat, and he turned, startled.

“Ah, Mary. Good. What news?”

“Is there something out there?” I asked.

He gave an uncomfortable laugh and brushed past me. “Merely the air. I find myself longing for a glimpse of the sky, having exchanged one prison for another.”

“It won’t be long,” I said, an attempt at reassurance.

Holmes and Goodman were missing, although the smoke in the air told me Holmes had been there until recently.