Page 7 of The Missing Maid
‘Papa—’ Esme began but her father cut her off.
‘None, I tell you,’ he said, his expression darkening. ‘As Miss Moss here suggests, there were bound to be one or two who guessed correctly. It doesn’t mean they had seen Mildred.’
Mrs Longstaff pressed a hand to her mouth. ‘I refuse to believe it was her.’
Harry looked between the three of them, taking in Mr Longstaff’s forbidding glower, Mrs Longstaff’s distress and their daughter’s obvious discomfort. What was it they did not want to reveal? ‘Mr Holmes often finds the least consequential detailto be the most vital clue,’ she said quietly. ‘Perhaps you should allow him to be the judge.’
It wasn’t actually a lie – Sherlock Holmes did solve his cases by observing something that seemed trivial to everyone else – and it got the desired result. Mr Longstaff scowled for a few seconds longer, then waved a despairing hand at Esme. ‘Tell her, then. Not that it will help, since it was not our girl.’
‘We received a letter from one of the park keepers in Hyde Park,’ Esme said. ‘A Mr Blunt, of Serpentine Lodge. He claimed to have seen a young woman in the park, around the time Mildred would have been leaving Lady Finchem’s. He described her well and said she was clearly upset.’ She paused, her eyes grave. ‘And she was not alone.’
That changed things, Harry thought. A park keeper was a more credible witness than a member of the public. ‘I see. May I ask who she was with?’
‘An older man, supposedly,’ Esme replied. ‘They were arguing, which was what caught Mr Blunt’s attention in the first place. The man had taken hold of the young woman’s arm, and she was trying to pull away.’
Alarm bells began to ring in Harry’s head. ‘Go on.’
‘Of course, Mr Blunt continued to investigate,’ Esme said, her gaze downcast. ‘But as he got nearer, the girl pulled herself clear. She took off through the park and disappeared.’
‘Did Mr Blunt discover what the argument had been about?’ Harry enquired, making notes.
‘Yes—’
‘Mildred is not a thief,’ Mr Longstaff broke in. ‘The park keeper was mistaken. It couldn’t have been her.’
Harry turned her eyes to Esme once more, who sighed. ‘Mr Blunt said the man accused her of picking his pocket. He caught her red-handed and was about to march her to the Royal Parks police when she got away.’
Mr Longstaff shook his head. ‘That’s how we know it wasn’t Mildred. She wouldn’t have the first idea how to pick a pocket.’
It was on the tip of Harry’s tongue to say that the girl in Hyde Park had not known how to pick a pocket either, given that she had been caught, but she judged it best to keep the observation to herself. Esme cleared her throat. ‘I agree that it cannot have been my sister, but I can give you Mr Blunt’s letter, if you think it will help.’
‘Thank you,’ Harry said, and the girl got up to rummage in a dresser. She handed an envelope to Harry, who tucked it into her notebook to read later. It was important she kept an open mind, she reminded herself. Mildred’s family evidently could not bring themselves to think the worst of her, but as Sherlock Holmes was fond of saying, when the impossible had been eliminated, whatever remained, however improbable, must be the truth. And it was certainly possible that the Longstaffs’ love for Mildred had blinded them to her descent into crime…
‘I must say again how grateful we are that you came,’ Esme said as she took her seat on the settee once more. ‘It seems nobody cares about finding Mildred. Nobody except you and Mr Holmes.’
Shaking away her dark thoughts, Harry glanced at Esme Longstaff, so capable beyond her years, and then at her parents, paralysed by sorrow and despair, and shook off the last vestiges of guilt at deceiving them. She would find out what she could, and present her findings no matter what they revealed. ‘Please give me the address in Mayfair,’ she said, pen poised purposefully over her notes. ‘I’ll start there.’
4
The grandeur of Abinger Hall always took Harry’s breath away. Viewed from the ornate, wrought-iron entrance gates, attended on either side by rearing stone stags, the house was initially dwarfed by the twin rows of silver beech trees that stood sentry along the long avenue. It drew the eye, even in the distance, but Harry supposed that was the whole point of the avenue – to encourage visitors to contemplate the magnificence of the building as it loomed to full size before them. With three storeys of sandstone splendour, punctuated by rows of windows and dotted with decorative carved crests and swags, it announced that this was the home of a family with wealth and status. To Harry, it was where all her worries usually fell away.
After parking the MG beside the winged stone steps that swept upwards to the double doors, she gave the bonnet an affectionate pat and then removed her driving gloves. Driving was a pleasure she missed, living in London, but she had little need of a car in the city. Between the Underground, regular buses and the ubiquitous London cabs, Harry found she could easily get wherever she needed to go. But outside of London, a car meant freedom, which was why she had nagged her parentsinto letting her learn to drive in the first place. Perhaps one day she would follow in the tyre marks of Baroness Campbell von Laurentz and drive across Europe with nothing but a map and the spirit of adventure to guide her. She’d need her own car for that.
‘Good Lord, you actually brought her back in one piece.’ Her brother, Sebastian, was making his way down the left-hand staircase, an expression of mock surprise on his face.
‘You knew I would,’ Harry replied, holding out the key. ‘I’m a better driver than you, Seb. That’s why you let me borrow her.’
He cast an eye over the gleaming red bodywork and silver trim. ‘Can’t argue with that. Don’t tell Rufus, though. He’s asked to take her out for a spin a few times and I’ve fobbed him off with tales of an unreliable fuel line.’
Harry smiled. At twenty-two, their youngest brother had yet to develop a sense of responsibility, relying instead on impish charm and a smile that was hard to resist. His siblings had long ago learned not to lend him anything they wanted to see again. ‘Sensible,’ she told Sebastian. ‘I’m doubly honoured you didn’t try that on me.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ he replied mildly. ‘You’d demand a mechanic’s report and then I’d be caught out in a terrible fib. Much less trouble to let you have your way. Did you have a successful jaunt?’
Harry thought back to the pale, anxious faces of the Longstaffs as she had taken her leave. ‘I think so, yes. Listen, you wouldn’t happen to know where Mama is, would you?’
‘In the drawing room, I think. But ask Chesterton when you get inside – he always knows where everyone is.’
Chesterton had been the family butler for as long as Harry could remember and he did have an uncanny awareness of everything that occurred within his domain.
