I found Jenny sitting at her breakfast of bread and butter cut into fingers, and a soft-boiled egg. I waited until she had finished eating before addressing her. She seemed to be little worse for her kidnap, but then of course she had no idea that the threat of that again, and worse, awaited her.
She looked at me guardedly, but without alarm, as long as her nursemaid stayed close to her.
"Good morning, Dr. Watson," she replied when I had introduced myself. I sat down on one of the small nursery chairs, so as not to tower over her. She was a beautiful child with very fair hair and wide eyes of an unusually dark blue.
"Are you all right after your adventure, yesterday night?" I asked her.
"Yes, I don't need any medicine," she said quickly. It seemed that her last taste of medicine was not one she wished to repeat.
"Good," I agreed. "Did you sleep well?"
The question did not appear to have much meaning for her. I had forgotten in the face of her solemn composure just how very young she was.
"You did not have bad dreams?" I asked.
She shook her head.
"I'm glad. Can you tell me what happened?"
"I was in the garden," she said, her eyes downcast.
"What were you doing there?" I pressed her. It was important that I learn all I could.
"Picking flowers," she whispered, then looked up at me to see how I took that. I gathered that was something she was not supposed to do.
"I see." I dismissed the subject and she looked relieved. "And someone came and spoke to you? Someone you did not know?"
She nodded.
"What did he look like? Do you remember?"
"Yes. He was old. He had no hair at the front," she indicated her brow. "His face was white. He is very big, but thin, and he talked a funny way."
"Was his hair white?" What was her idea of old?
She shook her head.
"What did you call him?" That might give some clue.
"Fessa," she replied.
"Fessa?" What an odd name.
"No!" she said impatiently. "P'fessa!" This time she emphasized the little noise at the beginning.
"Professor?" I said aghast.
She nodded. A ridiculous and horrible thought began to form in my mind. "He was thin, and pale, with a high forehead. Did he have unusual eyes?" I asked.
She shivered, suddenly the remembered fear returned to her. The nursemaid took a step closer and put her arms around the child, giving me a glare, warning me to go no further. In that moment I became convinced within myself that it was indeed Professor Moriarty that we were dealing with, and why he had kidnapped a child and returned her with a fearful warning, would in time become only too apparent.
"Where did he take you?" I asked with more urgency in my tone than I had intended.
She looked at me with anxiety. "A house," she said very quietly. "A big room."
How could I get her to describe it for me, without suggesting her answers so they would be of no value?
"Did you ride in a carriage to get there?" I began.
She looked uncertain, as if she could have said yes, and then no.
"In something else?" I guessed.
"Yes. A little kind of carriage, not like ours. It was cold."
"Did you go very far?"
"No."
I realized after I had said it that it was a foolish question. What was far in a child's mind? Holmes would chastise me for such a pointless waste of time.
"Was it warm in the room? Was there a fire?"
"No."
"Who was there, besides the Professor? Did they give you anything to eat?"
"Yes. I had teacakes with lots of butter." She smiled as she said that, apparently the memory was not unpleasant. But how could I get her to tell me something that would help find the place where she had been taken, or anything whatever which would be of use in preventing Moriarty from succeeding in his vile plan? "Did you go upstairs?" I tried.
She nodded. "Lots," she answered, looking at me solemnly. "I could see for miles and miles and miles out of the window."
"Oh?" I had no need to feign my interest. "What did you see?"
She described an entire scene for me with much vividness. I had no doubt as to at least the general area in which she had been held. It was a tall house, from the stairs she climbed, at least three stories, and situated a little to the west of the nearby village of Hampden. I thanked her profoundly, told her she was very clever, which seemed to please her, and hastened away to tell my friend Hunt of our advance in information. However I did not mention that I believed our enemy to be the infamous Moriarty.
"I have reason to think that the matter is of great gravity," I said as we sat in his study, he still ashen-faced and so beset with anxiety he was unable to keep from fidgeting first with a paper knife, then with a quill, scribbling as if he had ink in it but merely damaging the nib.
"What does he want?" he burst out in desperation. "I cannot even comply! He asks for nothing!"
"I would like your permission to go into the village and send a wire to my friend Sherlock Holmes," I replied. "I think he would involve himself in this matter willingly, and I know of no better chance in the world to detect any matter than to have his help."
His face lit with hope. "Would he? So simple a thing as a child who has been taken, and returned, with no ransom asked? It is hardly a great crime."
"It is a great crime to cause such distress," I said quite genuinely. "And the fact that he has asked no price, and yet threatened to do it again, is a mystery which I believe will intrigue him."
"Then call him, Watson, I beg you. I will have the trap sent around to the front to take you immediately. Ask him to come as soon as he may. I will reward him any and every way in my power, if there is any reward he will accept."
But I knew, of course, that the name of Moriarty would be sufficient to bring him, and so it turned out. I received a return wire within a few hours, saying that he would be there by the late train that evening, if someone would be good enough to meet him at the station. I spent the rest of the afternoon searching in the village of Hampden until I was sure that I had found the house Jenny had described, but I was careful to appear merely to be passing by on my way somewhere else, so if any watcher saw me it would cause no alarm.
In the evening I went to meet the train, and the moment it drew in and stopped amid clouds of steam, one door flew open and I saw Holmes' lean figure striding along the platform toward me. He looked a different man from the miserable figure I had left behind me in Baker Street. He reached me and said the one word, as if it were some magic incantation, his eyes alight. "Moriarty!"
I was suddenly afraid that I had miscalculated the situation, perhaps been too quick to leap to a conclusion. He so often charged me with precisely that fault. "I believe so," I said somewhat cautiously.
He gave me a quick glance. "You are uncertain. What makes you doubt, Watson? What has happened since you wired me?"
"Nothing!" I said hastily. "Nothing whatever. It is simply a deduction, not a known fact that it was he who took the child."
"Has any demand been received yet?" There was still interest in his voice, but I thought I detected a note of disappointment all the same.
"Not yet," I answered as we reached the gate to the lane where the trap was waiting. He climbed in and I drove it in silence through the winding, steep-banked roads, already shadowed in the sinking sun. I told him of my conversation with Jenny and all I had learned from it, also my location of the house, all of which he listened to without comment. I was certainly not going to apologize to him for having called him out on a matter which may not, after all, involve his archenemy. It involved the abduction of a child, which as far as I can see, is as important as any single case could be.