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"Maybe it fools the British, but not two hungry Americans."
    "Right now I'm more worried about lost Americans." Joe looked at his watch, frowning. "Frank should have been here when we arrived. Now he's almost forty-five minutes late."
    He dug some money out of his pocket to pay for the almost-untouched burgers.
    "Something's wrong here, very wrong. I think Frank's in trouble - and I know the first place to check."

Chapter 7
    The world was faded, woolly, and full of dust. At least, that's how it seemed to Frank Hardy as he came to. He sneezed on the dust and regretted it. Sneezing isn't smart when you're dizzy, sick, and have an awful headache.
    Frank was just getting his face out of the old carpet when he heard footsteps approaching. He struggled to his feet.
    Ian Fisher-Stone - or whoever it was - wasn't going to get away with it a second time. Catching a blurry glimpse of legs, Frank lunged into a tackle.
    "Hey!" a voice burst out.
    "Nice play, Frank," said another voice.
    Frank was down on the rug again, where he discovered he'd just tackled a young woman wearing jeans.
    His brother, Joe, stood just beyond the tangle, grinning. He helped Karen up and said to Frank, "Glad to see you're conscious. Let me introduce you to Karen Kirk."
    "Sorry about that," muttered Frank as Karen helped him up.
    Karen looked at Frank and said, "That's okay. I'm getting used to being jumped by men I've never seen before. You take after your brother in that respect." Then she asked, "What happened? When you didn't show up for lunch, your brother and I hurried over here. Why were you on the floor?"
    Frank touched his head carefully. "I was dumb," he answered. "So I got rapped on the skull because of it."
    "By Fisher-Stone?" Joe asked.
    "By a guy who wasn't Fisher-Stone but tried to convince me he was."
    Joe looked carefully at his brother. "You'd better see a doctor. Maybe at the hotel ... "
    "I'll be okay."
    "You could have a concussion," said Karen.
    "I've been hit on the head before, and this doesn't feel like a ... Hey, what's that?"
    Lying on the rug where he'd been sprawled was a crumpled piece of paper. "Looks like a railroad timetable - whoa!" Bending to pick up the paper, Frank suddenly felt woozy.
    Joe caught his wobbly brother and guided him to a chair. "Even if you don't have a concussion, sit down for a while."
    Karen gathered up the fallen timetable, straightened it out, and leafed through it. "This might mean something." She pointed to one of the station names - circled in pencil.
    Joe squinted. "Whoever bopped you noted down the train departure times for Beswick."
    "That's down in Kent, I think. About a hundred miles from London," Karen said.
    "Beswick ... Beswick," murmured Joe. He snapped his fingers, grinned, and tugged out the news magazine he'd slipped into his back pocket. "That's the town where Emily Cornwall is supposed to go - No, by now she's living there, at the Talbot estate."
    "Maybe I'm groggier than I realized." Frank gave him a look. "I don't seem to know what the heck either of you is talking about. And who is this Karen Kirk?"
    "Oh, she's the redhead - urn, the auburn-haired young woman I met last night," Joe said. "You know, the one who was walking a dog - except there was no dog."
    "Oh, sure, that's clear so far."
    "I'm a friend of Jillian Seabright's," Karen told him. "I'm looking for her, too."
    "Karen's a reporter from Connecticut. She was supposed to room with Jillian while she's over here on vacation."
    Frank rubbed his forehead. "How long was I out? You learned her entire life story, and - "
    "A good investigator asks the right questions," Joe told him. "You can get a lot of information quickly that way."
    "Fine - so now suppose you tell me who Emily Cornwall is. And why Beswick is suddenly the hottest town in England."
    "Read." Joe set the open magazine on the edge of the cluttered desk. "That's Emily Cornwall in the picture - the thin one."
    "I can read the caption." Frank glared at his brother.