Page 16 of The Missing Maid
7
Mr Sherlock Holmes
221b Baker Street
London
NW1 6XE
5, The Cottages
Foxley
Surrey
21st November 1932
Dear Mr Holmes,
I must offer you my sincerest apologies for wasting your time but I know you will be glad to hear the happy news I am about to share, which is that my sister, Mildred, has written at long last. She has not shared much of her experiences since she left Lady Finchem’s employment but assures us she is well and has secured a new position in a good London household.
I am certain more details will be received in due course but I wanted to write to you post-haste to release you from anyobligation to us and allow you to lend your remarkable skills to others. We are, of course, grateful and honoured for your attention, and most thankful to Miss Moss for her visit.
Yours faithfully,
Miss Esme Longstaff
Harry read the letter at least three times before it sank in. Her first thought was that she was glad she had thought better of sending the letter she had written immediately after her visit to Tea Cutter Row. The encounter with Mildred had troubled her for days and she had been reluctant to heap more misery on the Longstaffs by revealing her current situation. But now it appeared Mildred’s conscience had been jogged by Harry’s words and she had written to set their minds at rest. Quite how much of her letter had been true was not for Harry to decide – she found it a little difficult to believe the savage girl she had encountered could have secured a domestic position in one of the city’s doss houses, let alone with a respectable family, but she decided that was neither her nor Sherlock Holmes’ concern. The maid was no longer missing: the case was closed.
Over the weeks that followed, letters continued to arrive demanding the help of Sherlock Holmes.
Dear Mr Holmes, I suspect my lodger is a German spy…
Dear Mr Holmes, I fear my sister’s husband is under the thrall of a witch doctor…
Dear Sherlock Holmes, I am convinced my budgerigar has been stolen and replaced by one that is almost identical…
Harry was not moved by any of the desperate entreaties. With her usual diligence, she read each one, typed the standard response in duplicate, and sealed the original in an envelopefor Bobby to collect on his rounds. There was no further correspondence from the Longstaff family and Harry tried not to think about them too much. Her short-lived career as a detective had not concluded entirely to her satisfaction, even though the mystery had been solved, and she preferred not to allow her misgivings space to grow, especially when there was nothing she could do to resolve them. Finding herself in need of distraction, she reluctantly accepted her brother Sebastian’s invitation to dinner with the Honeywells.
‘Oh, do come, Harry. Mama has set me up and I can’t get out of it,’ he’d begged on the telephone and she’d felt honour-bound to accept, even if it did mean enduring Eugenia Honeywell’s clumsy attempts to matchmake. She sat through it with polite but determined resolve, while trying not to make eye contact with either the poor unfortunate Philip or her visibly amused brother.
The only interesting point in the evening occurred when the conversation turned to the mystery posed in the latest Agatha Christie novel, featuring the detective Hercule Poirot. ‘I don’t know how she does it,’ Mrs Honeywell said, her cheeks flushed as she took a generous gulp of wine. ‘I can never work out who the killer is, even when little Mr Poirot has explained it all.’
Julian Honeywell patted his wife’s hand. ‘It’s always the most unlikely person,’ he said loftily. ‘Work out who couldn’t possibly have done it and they’ll be the guilty party.’
‘But if they couldn’t have done it, how can they be guilty?’ Eugenia asked, her forehead creasing in puzzlement. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Does it really matter if you don’t understand?’ Philip asked from across the table. ‘Just enjoy the story.’
Eugenia sighed. ‘Oh, I do. It just makes one feel so dull, that’s all.’ She took another mouthful of wine and brightened. ‘I found myself in the middle of a mystery of my own a few weeks ago.I received a letter from an employment bureau asking about a maid we used to have.’
Philip yawned. ‘Nothing mysterious about that.’
His mother gave him a reproachful look. ‘I haven’t finished, dear. The peculiar thing was that the maid never worked for us.’
‘Mistaken identity,’ Julian harumphed but Harry stiffened in her seat. She had all but forgotten her visit to Mrs Haverford but it couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? ‘How strange,’ she said, after a moment. ‘Did you ever solve the mystery?’
Eugenia Honeywell shook her head. ‘Not to my satisfaction, no. I rang the agency and spoke to someone, who insisted the girl had worked for me. I insisted I’d never heard of her and things got somewhat heated.’ She glanced around, her expression almost imploring. ‘Domestic staff come and go, of course, but I do try to remember their names.’
