Page 37 of The Missing Maid
He opened his mouth to answer and she knew – just knew – he was going to suggest she was mistaken.
‘Don’t,’ she warned.
Oliver ran a hand through his hair. ‘Harry, we cannot do this alone. It’s too dangerous.’
She held up her notebook. ‘And it might cost Mildred her life if we don’t.’ They glared at each other for a moment, locked in a battle of wills, then Harry sighed, suddenly weary. ‘Just think about it, Oliver. That’s all I ask.’
He pressed his lips into a hard, thin line. ‘Fine, I’ll think about it. As long as you promise you won’t go tearing off to Elephant and Castle without me.’
Grudgingly, she nodded. ‘I promise.’
‘I’ll speak to the prison first thing tomorrow, arrange a visit for early evening, if you’re free?’
‘Oh, I’m free,’ Harry said, remembering the pinched anxiety on the faces of Mildred’s parents, the fear in her sister’s eyes. ‘Just tell me when.’
Oliver nodded at the message she held. ‘That’s good work, by the way. Credit where credit is due.’
As much as she hated herself for it, his praise made Harry feel warm inside. ‘I knew there was something there but I’d never have figured it out without the code,’ she said. ‘As you keep reminding me, I’m not Sherlock Holmes.’
Oliver gave her a lopsided smile. ‘Well quite,’ he said as he began to walk up the stone staircase. ‘You actually exist, for a start.’
Harry found it almost impossible to concentrate at work on Monday. Her fingers were clumsy on the typewriter keys, meaning she had to start each letter several times, and her thoughts kept returning to Mildred’s hidden message. Had Oliver been in contact with the prison yet? The telephone remained stubbornly silent, which was not unusual, but Harry’s nerves thrummed with expectation, creating the almost oppressive sense that the room was holding its breath. When Bobby knocked at her office door, mid-morning, she jumped so violently that the peace lily on her desk was sent clattering to the floor. ‘Blimey,’ Bobby said when he poked his head around the door and saw the mess. ‘You having a smashing time in here or what?’
‘Ha ha,’ she said, kneeling down to gather up the plant. ‘I knocked it over – that’s all.’
He shrugged. ‘Accidents happen.’ He placed a bundle of envelopes on her desk. ‘I reckon you’re getting on top of things now. Sherlock Holmes should have had you as his secretary when he was doing his detecting, instead of that boring doctor.’
Harry looked up, surprised. She was under the impression that Bobby wasn’t much of a reader but his comment suggested he knew a little bit about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s books. Perhaps he’d been visiting the library. ‘Dr Watson wasn’t really his secretary,’ she said, straightening up. ‘He was more of an assistant.’
‘Same thing, innit,’ Bobby said, wrinkling his nose. ‘He wrote down everything that happened. I reckon you’d be good at that too.’
She settled the lily back on the desk, patting the soil back into place. It was an extraordinary thing, the way people half believed, or in some cases fully believed, that the adventures of Holmes and Watson had been real. Even Bobby was not immune, it seemed. And yet wasn’t she embroiled in a real-life investigation of her own? The Case of the Missing Maid. Perhaps Bobby was onto something. Maybe she ought to chronicle events the way Watson had – the way the police must do now. It would not be for publication, of course, but it might help her spot something she had missed – the tiny detail that cracked the case and won Mildred her freedom. ‘Thank you, Bobby,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘That’s very kind of you.’
The boy nodded at the bundle of envelopes beside her typewriter. ‘You’d never be short of ideas.’ He stepped back, patting the brass trolley in the doorway. ‘Anyway, I’d better get moving. This lot won’t deliver itself.’
Once she had opened the latest batch of envelopes, Harry opened the notebook she always kept in her handbag and began to skim its pages. Before long, she had a rough timeline of events, along with a list of persons and places of interest. Arrows bisected the paper, linking Mildred to the Finchems, the Finchems to Polly, Polly to Mrs Haverford, Mrs Haverford – or Mrs Jones, as Harry suspected she had called herself – to the Longstaffs. There was no doubt of the connections; Harry could sense the strands binding everything together like an invisible web. But who was behind it all? she mused as she tapped her pen on the paper. Who was the spider tugging on the silk?
When the telephone rang, Harry leapt again and almost sent the peace lily crashing for a second time. Thrusting out a hand, she caught it as it teetered on the edge of the desk and steadiedit, before getting up to answer the shrill cry of the phone. No sooner had she said her name than Oliver’s voice was in her ear. ‘Harry, we’ve got trouble,’ he said, without preamble.
Her heart sank into her shoes. His tone was so grim that it could only be bad news. ‘What is it? Is there more evidence against Mildred?’
‘It’s worse than that,’ he said. ‘She’s been attacked. I don’t know how bad it is yet.’
‘Attacked!’ Harry gasped, clutching at the filing cabinet as the room lurched. ‘By who?’
‘I don’t know,’ he replied grimly. ‘Another inmate, I think, but there aren’t many details.’
‘Is she…’ Harry trailed off, unable to say the words.
‘She’s alive,’ Oliver said. ‘They’ve got her in the hospital wing and Deputy Governor Short has agreed to keep her under guard.’
‘Can we see her?’
‘Not tonight,’ Oliver said. ‘I’m hoping for tomorrow, if she’s conscious and able to talk about what happened.’
The thought of Mildred hurt and vulnerable made Harry’s stomach churn. ‘But what if they try again? She said they have eyes everywhere. What if that includes the prison authorities? What if the guards are part of the gang?’
There was a brief silence. ‘No, that can’t be the case,’ Oliver said, his tone firm. ‘Bridget Short is a very respected professional – she wouldn’t stand for that. She cares about the welfare of the inmates.’
