Page 2 of The Cursed Writer
‘Not my attention,’ she corrected gently. ‘The attention of Sherlock Holmes, who is unable to help, for obvious reasons.’
‘But what if it really is murder?’ the boy persisted. ‘Shouldn’t you tell the peelers?’
Harry thought about the hundreds of letters she had read, alleging everything from embezzlement to grave robbing, and it was true that several had claimed to have uncovered the darkest crime. But in those cases, they had only turned to Holmes after the police had refused to entertain them and Harry felt certain their accusations must have already been investigated. Besides, she did not want to encourage the idea in Bobby’s head that she might do anything other than answer the letters in the way Mr Babbage had instructed her. She liked the post boy, but she had no idea whether she could trust him, or anyone else at the bank.
‘The people who write to Mr Holmes are not – well, let us say they are confused about what is real and what isn’t.’ She held up a hand as Bobby opened his mouth to object. ‘But it isn’t my job to pass judgement on them, nor to consider the truth of what they say. I open their letters, I read them and I send astandard reply.’ She crossed her fingers under the desk. ‘Without exception. Not even telegrams.’
He frowned. ‘You must get some real nutters writing to him.’
‘Some of them are a little strange,’ Harry conceded. ‘But I suppose it’s simply a testament to the excellence of the stories. They draw the reader in, make them want to believe someone as brilliant as Sherlock Holmes could be real.’
‘Maybe,’ Bobby said. ‘Do you reckon other detectives get letters, then? Miss Marbles and that?’
Harry smiled. ‘Possibly. But not all of them have such a famously recognisable address.’
‘Lucky for you that he does,’ Bobby observed, then blinked nervously as Harry stared at him. ‘After… well, after what happened and all. With your last position, I mean.’
Harry knew her expression must be glacial but she couldn’t seem to unfreeze it. She hadn’t realised the reason for her move to the post room was common knowledge. ‘What exactly do you mean?’
He shifted from one foot to the other. ‘I don’t mean nothing, Miss White. Except that it’s a good thing there’s all these letters to answer and this little room, so you can keep out of his way. I don’t doubt that he didn’t dare give you the sack, not after what happened the last time.’
He trailed off, staring at the floor as Harry’s thoughts jumbled together and cleared. ‘The last time,’ she repeated slowly. ‘You’re telling me there was someone Mr Pemberton harassed before me?’
But even as she said it, she knew it must be true. A man like Simeon Pemberton had a lecherous eye and a great opinion of his own worth; he would undoubtedly have used his position of power to bestow his attentions on other young women at the bank.
Bobby cleared his throat and glanced over his shoulder into the corridor as though checking he could not be overheard. ‘A secretary in the typing pool. She didn’t – what I mean to say is, she left of her own accord. But the other women all knew what had happened.’
He eyed Harry expectantly. She drew in a breath and forced herself to be patient. ‘Which was what?’
‘That she didn’t say no like you did,’ Bobby said in a low voice. ‘People started to talk. She couldn’t keep working at the bank then. Not with him being married.’
She shook her head. ‘How long ago was this?’
Bobby pursed his lips. ‘Must have been six or seven months ago now. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it.’
But Harry was not surprised. As Mr Pemberton’s personal assistant, she had kept herself to herself on the bank’s upper floors, preferring not to indulge in gossip. She’d known some of the women in the secretarial pool by name, recognised more to nod to in the corridors, but she wouldn’t have known if one had left, even under such a cloud. And then Harry herself had fallen victim to Mr Pemberton, although her own experience hadn’t been anything like as terrible. Even so, it appeared she had been the subject of gossip too. ‘But what happened to her?’ Harry asked.
‘No one knows,’ Bobby said, shaking his head. ‘One of the secretaries who’d been friends with her called at her lodgings and discovered she’d left. Maybe she went back to her parents.’
Which would probably have meant admitting she had lost her job, Harry thought. ‘Poor girl,’ she murmured. ‘And Pemberton forced her out?’
Bobby gave a short laugh. ‘Not directly – he made it seem like it was her choice to leave. But that’s why he couldn’t risk sacking you, see? If you’d started blabbing – well, the gossip would havebeen even worse. The higher-ups might have heard about it and questions might have been asked.’
Harry nodded to herself. Hadn’t Pemberton said as much when he’d despatched her to the basement?I would remind you that everything occurring within these walls remains highly confidential…And she had kept quiet, determined not to let him force her out even though the repetitiveness of typing the same letter almost drove her mad. Until she’d opened the letter from Mildred Longstaff’s sister and everything had changed.
‘I reckon he thought you wouldn’t last a week down in the post room,’ Bobby went on. ‘But Mr Babbage was too sharp for him – he found you this place instead. That’s what I mean by lucky, see?’
Harry stared at him, then gave herself a mental shake. It wasn’t his fault – compared to the other secretary, she had got off lightly. And she still had a job, albeit considerably less well paid, as she’d discovered when she received her first wage slip after her altercation with Mr Pemberton, but that didn’t matter so much. Bobby couldn’t know Harry worked because she wanted to, not because she needed to; the granddaughter of a baron was not expected to earn a living. But the alternative was submitting to her mother’s well-meaning efforts to find her a suitable husband and the very thought of that made Harry shudder. Married women were expected to give up their jobs to devote themselves to their husband, and the kind of match Harry was expected to make also came with the distinct requirement of providing an heir. It wasn’t that she was against marriage, if she met the right person, but she was not ready to give up her freedom yet. Working at the bank allowed her to live in London and enjoy some independence, away from the watchful eye of her mother. It had also enabled her to reunite Mildred with her family and reveal the criminal gang who had set her up. Perhaps Bobby was wiser than he knew, Harrythought ruefully. She had enjoyed an awful lot of luck in her life so far.
‘Yes, I do see,’ she said quietly. ‘I am very grateful to Mr Babbage, and to you too, for helping me to settle in so well.’
He nodded, although she thought his chest puffed up a little under the smart burgundy jacket. ‘You sure you can’t give me a hint about what’s in that telegram?’
Harry smiled at his persistence. ‘Quite sure. See you later, Bobby.’
‘Maybe,’ he said, and turned towards the door with a melodramatic sigh. ‘If the lads in the post room don’t kill me first.’
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