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while Dany struggled with an overwhelming desire to burst into tears, and was only restrained from this course by a strong suspicion that Mr Lashmer J. Holden, Jnr, was quite capable of boxing her ears should she try it.
    She sat down weakly on the nearest chair, her brain feeling as numb and useless as wet cotton wool. The whole thing was impossible and horrible and fantastic: she must be dreaming and she would wake up suddenly and find herself back in her snug, safe bedroom at Glyndarrow. This could not be happening …
    But it was Lashmer J. Holden, Jnr, who woke up.
    â€˜I’ve got it!’ he announced. ‘By God, what it is to have a brain! Can you type?’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Dany, bewildered.
    â€˜What about shorthand?’
    â€˜A — a little.’
    â€˜Secretarial college?’
    â€˜No. Class at school. Why ____ ’
    â€˜Never mind. It’ll have to do. O.K. Consider yourself engaged.’
    â€˜W- what! ’ gasped Dany.
    â€˜Oh — in a purely secretarial capacity. Nothing personal. I’m through with women. Now listen, kid; here’s the layout — and is it a lily! If someone thinks they’re going to use you as a red-herring to cover up their own get-away, let’s wreck the scheme. I’ve been travelling with a secretary — Miss Kitchell. But Ada has developed mumps, and I haven’t so far been able to get hold of a suitable substitute who possesses a valid passport and the necessary visas and forms and whathaveyou to enable her to leave pronto. So what do we do? We take you!’
    â€˜Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Dany crossly. ‘You know quite well that I haven’t got a passport either! That’s the whole point.’
    Mr Holden made an impatient noise that is normally rendered in print as ‘Tcha!’
    â€˜Use your brain, girl! I’m not taking you as you. I shall take you as Miss Kitchell. You aren’t too unlike her. Height about right. Eyes roughly the right colour. Shape a whole lot better, but they don’t include that in the photograph. She’s older of course, and her hair’s red, but she wears glasses and a fringe and about a million curls. The thing’s a gift! We dye your hair red — it’s a pity, but one must suffer for one’s art — get it fringed and frizzed à la Ada and buy you a pair of glasses. It’s a cinch!’
    â€˜But — but … No! it isn’t possible! She won’t agree.’
    â€˜She won’t be asked,’ said Mr Holden firmly. ‘I have all her documents right here in a brief-case with my own, and all the files and things we need. She sent ’em to me along with the bad news, and forgot to take her own stuff out. So there we are. Masterly, I think. And what’s more it will enable me to put a long-cherished theory to the test.’
    â€˜What theory?’ asked Dany faintly.
    â€˜That no one ever yet looked like the photograph on their passport, and that anyway no official ever really glances at the thing. Well, we shall know tomorrow.’
    â€˜We can’t do it,’ protested Dany, though with less conviction. ‘We can’t possibly do it!’
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜Well — there’s this secretary of Tyson’s — Nigel Ponting. He’s meeting the plane at Nairobi, and he’s bound to have seen photographs of me, and ____ ’
    â€˜By the time I’ve finished with you,’ said Mr Holden blithely, ‘you will have ceased to resemble any photograph ever taken. Except possibly the libel that is pasted to Ada’s passport, and that only remotely. And he will not be expecting you, because we will cover that contingency by sending your parents an express cable to say ‘Sorry. Delayed — writing.’ That’ll hold ’em! As for this Ponting, he is an elegant tulip of the precious and scented variety that your great and glorious country