I trusted that Holmes was safely concealed under dye and clothing, but my spectacles, which I tended to leave off only when comparative blindness was preferable to the needs of disguise, would be a dead giveaway when it came to the Goodhearts. What the hell were they doing in Simla? I paused just around the building with my ear bent to listen.

Mrs Goodheart’s distinctive voice rang stridently through the streets, bouncing off the brick and stone buildings. “. . . not get me into one of those jampani machines again, I thought we’d end up at the bottom of the hill. And here I thought we were coming to the tropics! If I’d wanted snow I’d have stayed in Chicago. Really, Thomas, couldn’t we have gone to your maharaja directly? There’s nothing at all to see in this town.”

“Mother, I thought the Teacher’s message said that hard experiences took one on the road to enlightenment.” The young man sounded a bit snappish.

“And what would you know about that? Sunny, watch you don’t get too close to that beggar.”

Holmes obligingly started up the whine for bakshish, although he was hardly dressed for the part, and beggars rarely juggled mirrored balls. I could only hope the Goodhearts did not find it peculiar for a white man to be carrying on a conversation with a beggar. However, Mrs Goodheart’s next words reassured me, for they were spoken in a politer tone than she had used for her son.

“Pardon me, sir, but I wonder if you can recommend a place to get a cup of tea that won’t poison us?”

“Poison you?” Nesbit asked, his voice nicely puzzled.

“You know what I mean. My son informs me that at this altitude it is necessary to boil water for considerably longer than in the lowlands, and I can’t get the waiter at the hotel to understand it. That may be fine for local constitutions, but I fear that ours won’t survive. My daughter is too delicate to risk it.”

I smiled at Mrs Goodheart’s unsubtle nudge of her daughter in the direction of this apparently eligible male. Sunny’s constitution was about as delicate as a tornado.

“Certainly, I’d be more than happy to show you a dependable tea shop. Perhaps you would be my guests?”

Pressed back into a doorway, I peered cautiously at their retreating backs, Mrs Goodheart’s arm through her son’s, which more or less forced Nesbit to offer Sunny his. At the place where the road opened out, young Goodheart turned to look back. I was in shadow and therefore invisible, but I could only hope that Holmes had continued with his act in their absence. One sharp glance over his shoulder, and then Nesbit was ushering them through a gaily painted doorway, a cloud of lovely warm steamy air billowing into the frigid outside world at their passage.