“I’m so sorry, I should have been here with you. Something came up and I had to leave in a hurry, but it was thoughtless of me not to let you know that I was all right.” This of course was partially a lie. I’d been kidnapped and bundled into a train. Not exactly all right, then. But I smiled at her brightly. “I’ve been working on your behalf, trying to find out what might have happened to your husband,” I said.

“Is there any news yet?”

“I have none, I’m afraid. I don’t know how the police are getting on,” I said. “Let’s just hope for the best, shall we? Have you eaten anything?”

“I didn’t feel like food.”

“You should eat. I’ll ask your mother-in-law to make you something nourishing. I’m sure she’d like to be busy at a worrying time like this.”

“Okay.” She nodded, then seemed to realize that I was kneeling beside the bed with the suitcase in front of me. “What are you doing?”

“I was wondering if we might find any clue to Harry’s disappearance inside this suitcase,” I said. “Are you sure you have no idea where we might find the key?”

“But Harry wouldn’t want anyone going through that suitcase,” she said in a shocked voice. “He’d never let anyone see the diagrams for his illusions.”

“Look, Bess, do you want your husband found or not?” I demanded. “I’m not interested in his illusions. I’ll make sure nobody sees his diagrams. But it’s just possible he kept other personal things in there while he was traveling. So where do you think we’d find the key?”

“I really have no idea,” she said. “Honestly.”

I rummaged through the drawer where I’d found the passport. So that was why his passport showed him as a natural-born citizen, rather than as a European Jew. I thought—so that he could pass more easily into countries like Germany and Russia. Very useful for Mr. Wilkie. Then I looked in his stud box, and all the places where one keeps keys.

“Of course he could have carried it on his person all the time,” Bess said. “The police parceled up his suit and delivered it to me this afternoon. It’s hanging up.”

“And you didn’t go through the pockets?” I asked, marveling at this lack of curiosity.

“The police said they were keeping the contents of his pockets as evidence for now,” she said. “You’d better ask them if they’ve got the key.”