She bent over, picked him up, and put him in the carrier. “Now you stay there,” she told him, in a tone that brooked no argument, and snapped the lid shut to give him no choice in the matter. “You can’t con them into it,” she explained. “You have to get physical. Ready, Bern?”

“I guess so.”

“I hope that coat’s warm enough. The temperature must have dropped twenty degrees since lunch. And the forecast’s calling for snow north of the city.”

“It’ll warm up,” I said.

“You think so?”

“It’s March already. I know the groundhog saw his shadow, but the extra six weeks of winter are almost up. Even if we do get a little snow, it won’t stick around long.” I took my suitcase in one hand and Raffles’s carrier in the other and let Carolyn hold the door for me. Outside, I went through what you have to go through to close up a store in New York, hauling the steel gate across, fastening innumerable padlocks. These chores are best performed barehanded, and by the time I was done my fingers were numb.

“It’s cold, all right,” I admitted. “But we’ll be cozy at Cuttleford House. Snow on the roof, a fire on the hearth-”

“Kippers for breakfast. Afternoon tea with cream and clotted scones.” She frowned. “Is that right, Bern? Or should it be the other way around?”

“No, it’s right. Kippers for breakfast, scones for tea.”

“I know that part’s right,” she said. “It’s just a question of which is supposed to be clotted, the cream or the scones, and I’m pretty sure it’s the cream. ‘Scones and clotted cream.’ Yeah, that sounds better.”

“Either one sounds good about now.”

“And all those other great English dishes. Bangers and mash, bubble and squeak, toad-in-the-hole. What exactly is toad-in-the-hole, Bern, do you happen to know?”