Mr Montgomery nodded serenely, as if nothing could have been more natural.
‘And before she was taken from your care, she had the power of speech?’
Vaughan nodded.
‘And Mr Armstrong’s daughter – did she have the power of speech?’
‘She did.’
‘I see. Now do not be offended, remember, if I appear to treat the little Amelia as if she were a cargo gone astray and returned to sight, it is the way my experience goes. What I know is this: much weight is given to the last sighting of the cargo before it disappeared and the first sighting when it reappeared. That is what will tell us as much as can be known about the cargo while it was out of sight. Taken together with as complete a description as possible of the cargo as it was before and as it was afterwards, it will generally be enough to cast a decent enough light into the muddle to ascertain ownership within the law.’
He proceeded to ask a number of questions. He asked about Amelia before the kidnap. He asked about the circumstances in which Alice Armstrong was lost. He asked about the circumstances in which the cargo – ‘Amelia,’ he said, more than once, with emphasis – was found. He noted all and nodded.
‘Armstrong’s daughter has, to all extents and purposes, disappeared into the blue. These things happen. Yours has returned out of the blue. Which is more unusual. Where has she been? Why is it now that she has returned – or been returned? These are unanswered questions. It would be better to have an answer, but if there is no answer to be had, then instead we must rely on other evidence. Do you have photographs of Amelia from before?’
‘We do.’
‘And she resembles those photographs, now?’
Vaughan shrugged. ‘I suppose so … In the way little girls of four resemble their own selves aged two.’
‘Which is to say …?’
‘A mother’s eye can see it is the same child.’
‘But another? A more judicial eye?’
Vaughan paused, and Montgomery, as if he had not registered the pause, sailed blithely on. ‘I take your point entirely about children. They change. A cargo of cheese lost on Wednesday does not transform into an equivalent weight of tobacco when it reappears on Saturday, but a child – ah! another matter entirely. I take your point. Still, to be ready, keep the photographs safe, and keep note of everything – every little detail – that tells you that this Amelia and that Amelia from two years ago are one and the same child. It is as well to be prepared.’
He took in Vaughan’s glum face and smiled cheerily at him. ‘Beyond that, Mr Vaughan, my counsel to you is this: worry not about young Mr Armstrong. And tell Mrs Vaughan she is not to worry either. Montgomery and Mitchell are here to do the worrying for you. We will look after everything for you – and for Amelia. For there is one thing, one very great thing, that stands in your favour.’
‘And what is that?’
‘If it comes to court, this case will be very long, and it will be very slow. Have you ever heard of the great Thames case between the Crown and the Corporation of London?’
‘I can’t say I have.’
‘It is a dispute over which of them owns the Thames. The Crown says that the Queen travels upon it and it is essential for the defence of the nation, hence the river is in its possession. The Corporation of London argues that it exercises jurisdiction over the comings and goings of all goods upstream and down, and that therefore it must own the Thames.’
‘And what was the outcome? Who owns the Thames?’
‘Why, they have been arguing it for a dozen years and they have at least a dozen years of argument to go! What is a river? It is water. And what is water? Essentially it is rain. And what is rain? Why, weather! And who owns the weather? That cloud that passes overhead now, this very minute, where is it to fall? On the one bank, or on the other, or into the river itself? Clouds are blown by the wind, which is owned by nobody, and they float over borders without letters of passage. The rain in that cloud might fall in Oxfordshire or in Berkshire; it might cross the sea and fall upon the demoiselles in Paris, for all we know. And the rain