"but can't you get the police to help? this place is overflowing with them, it seems.' hugh james broke a piece of bread in half and took a hearty bite. 'what a dreadful thing to have happen in a foreign hotel.'

"'we've called the police,' i assured him. 'at least i think we have, because the hotel clerk did it for us. he said no one could come until late tonight or early tomorrow morning, and not to touch anything. he's put us in new rooms.'

"'what? do you mean miss rossi's room was ransacked, too?' hugh's great eyes grew rounder. 'was anyone else in the hotel hit?'

"'i doubt it,' i said grimly. "we were seated at an outdoor restaurant in buda, not far from castle hill, where we could look out over the danube toward the parliament house on the pest side. it was still very light and the evening sky had set up a blue-and-rose shimmer on the water. hugh had picked out the spot - it was one of his favorites, he said. budapestians of all ages strolled the street in front of us, many of them pausing at the balustrades above the river to look at the lovely scene, as if they, too, could never get enough of it. hugh had ordered several national dishes for me to try, and we had just settled in with the ubiquitous golden-crusted bread and a bottle of tokay, a famous wine from the northeastern corner of hungary, as he explained. we'd already dispensed with the preliminaries - our universities, my erstwhile dissertation (he chuckled when i told him the scope of professor s