The Missing Boy (Lady Eugenie's School for Girl Sleuths Book 1)

by V. Penley

  Marchioness Carlyle then floated back to her bedroom.

  *

  Alone with her thoughts, Eugenie found it impossible to sleep. When she was worried about something, she talked it over mentally with herself, long conversations in which she tested hypotheses. But she didn’t feel worried about Phillip. She felt instead…what? Intrigued?

  She knew one thing that intrigued her: Miss Castlefork. Eugenie tried to imagine what she was like. Young, apparently. Unburdened with any concerns. Sheltered, probably. Mousy, also—although what the Marchioness meant by “mousy” could mean anything.

  Next, Eugenie tried to imagine her appearance: undoubtedly creamy skin, with a shock of dark hair and dark eyes. Vulnerable—yet mysterious. A woman Mr. Singer Sergeant would paint. Wasn’t that the type of woman all the painters put on their canvases?

  Docile. Surely that word applied. Miss Castlefork probably was not someone who would argue with a host who had generously provided dinner.

  “Oh, rubbish,” Eugenie said, flipping over onto her side. “You are not interested in the Duke, Eugenie. You have other…concerns….”

  Lying in the dark, Eugenie saw how stupid she was being. Her mother, though an obvious sharp judge of character, was clearly imagining that Phillip was drawn to the Marchioness’ daughter. There was no reason to believe the Duke had any real feelings for her. He had asked for her address for business purposes, probably.

  Had she ever been young and vulnerable? Eugenie somehow doubted it. She had felt a sense of duty marrying her father’s business partner seven years ago. Not that she hadn’t felt affection. He was the first man to take her seriously. Such an accomplished man, too. It had been exciting in its own way, for a girl of 17.

  Eugenie remembered the first time she had felt stirrings for William Conyers. Her father had been away from the estate, travelling to Scotland to make new contacts, when Bill had visited. He had ridden up to the house on a horse because he needed to ask her father business questions. Unfortunately, he had forgotten about the trip to Scotland and so arrived only to find the daughter home.

  That afternoon, Eugenie had been reading in her father’s study. In fact, she had been sitting at her father’s desk. Her father had kept his history books in his office instead of in the library, and Eugenie had fallen into the habit of reading Gibbon, slowly, whenever her father was away from home. She used a train ticket stub to mark her place, which she slid secretively into the book before returning it to the bookshelf. When her father rode off for his Scotland trip, she had snuck back into the library and retrieved her book. She had been sitting at her father’s desk, reading the book, when her father’s business partner had stormed in.

  There had ensued an awkward moment—an older man, a girl reading contraband history, no one else in the house apart from servants.

  Bill apologized for walking in unannounced, and Eugenie pretended to be unperturbed, though she quickly covered up the decline of the Roman Empire with papers.

  “I had questions to ask your father. I…I had hoped…” He looked around, as if hoping that her father was hiding behind one of the thick curtains.

  Eugenie explained the Scottish trip, which caused the older gentleman to nod, embarrassed. “Yes. Right. I had forgotten, though he had certainly told me….”

  Because her father had talked business with her, Eugenie possessed a working knowledge of most of her father’s contacts and contracts. She saw a chance to be helpful.

  “Is there something in particular you needed?” She gestured at the papers on the desk. “If it’s right here, we can certainly find it…” Her own voice trailed off, hopeful.

  “Well,” Bill said, stepping further into the study. Bill Conyers had plump cheeks which reddened from exertion. They were scarlet now. “I have a meeting with one of our clients tomorrow, a Mr. Bales.”

  “From Virginia,” Eugenie blurted out. She was very familiar with Bales Plantation, in the United States. They had tobacco, which they shipped three times a year to the London docks. In return, they bought her father’s diamonds.

  “Why, yes,” he said, tilting his head. He looked at her oddly. It was as if he was trying to place her in a box but couldn’t find the right one.

  “And you are wondering whether they have put in an order for diamonds?”

  “Ye…yes…” He paused. “I think your father mentioned correspondence from the Baleses, which I never saw. At some point last week, they wrote to him.”

  “If they did, the letter must be here,” Eugenie said. “We can look for it together, if you like.” She stood, to look around the desk, and as she did so a curtain of hair helpfully fell over her face, shielding the burning sensation of her cheeks.

  Bill had approached the desk cautiously, perhaps afraid of the girl wearing a thin summer shift who was going through her father’s papers. He was at least 30 years older than she. Being in a room alone with her was scandalous in itself.

  Eugenie looked through her father’s correspondence in the desk drawer, keeping her eyes hidden behind the curtain of hair. She tried to maintain her composure.

  “Here it is,” Eugenie said, removing the Bales Plantation file. As she handed it to Bill, she bravely kept her chin jutting forward for fear that it would begin trembling.

  “Ah, yes,” Bill had said, accepting the file. He then went to the sofa and sat down. From his pocket, he took out his spectacles and spread the papers in front of him on the low table.

  Boldly, Eugenie had gone to sit on the sofa across from him as Bill flipped through the papers. He attempted to avoid looking at Eugenie’s bare legs. He failed—twice. “Yes, yes,” he said. “It’s what I thought.” He waved a piece of paper, which must have been the letter.

  “They want to discuss the price of diamonds?” Eugenie asked. Actually, she had read the letter two weeks ago, when it had arrived. You couldn’t focus on Gibbon for more than fifteen minutes at a time, and as a break she would read her father’s business correspondence.

  “How did you know?” Bill asked, sitting back and staring intently at her over the rim of his spectacles.

  “There’s a new business,” Eugenie said. “They’ve been trying to undercut you on price over the past nine months.” Eugenie bit her lip. But she couldn’t help herself. She had been trying to warn her father about the new diamond merchant which had opened in London, but he wouldn’t listen to her. Suddenly, she lept up and bound over to her father’s desk again. Moving quickly, she collected all the papers she had strategically placed around the desk, hoping her father would notice.

  Now she brought them to her father’s business partner. She spread them out on the low table so they could go through them individually.

  And there, in her father’s study, as she sat barefoot, she explained to her future husband how they could remain competitive by cutting their shipping costs by 25%. It would allow them to pre-empt the upstarts in London and maintain their dominant position in the market.

  Bill had listened silently, stunned, and then thanked her, muttering “Really, quite extraordinary…quite…I…I had no idea we were losing market share….”

  And after that day, he had returned to her house each week for a year, always to discuss business with her over tea, until she had agreed to marry him.

  Eugenie crossed her arms over her chest. She wondered what Miss Castlefork discussed when Phillip visited her. If what the Marchioness said was true, then Eugenie doubted Miss Castlefork excitedly shared business information with the Duke. Instead, she was probably girlish. Sharing gossip about friends.

  Then Eugenie realized: maybe that’s what a man like Duke Phillip wanted.

  Eugenie sighed, and reminded herself why she had come to Barnardshire: to solve a potential murder mystery at her mother’s request. She had discharged those duties. Now it was time to sleep before heading home. She had thought about Duke Phillip quite enough already, and now she would stop.

  “Sleep, Eugenie,” she told herself. She shut her eyes.


  Moments later, bored, she opened them and sat up so that she could look out the nearest window. Clarendon Grange, still lit up, blazed away at even this late hour. Eugenie wondered why Phillip hadn’t gone to bed himself. What did he do so late? She knew he claimed to run a school for boy sleuths, but somehow she couldn’t imagine that he needed to spend so much time concentrated on it. Certainly, he wouldn’t have to worry constantly over it like Eugenie did. After all, Eugenie needed her school in order to eat. Phillip, by contrast, owned multiple castles. He also had a partner, Michaels. Whatever work he needed to do could wait for the morning, surely.

  At various moments, someone would appear in a window on the top floor of Clarendon Grange, stand still for several seconds, as if looking across toward Mrs. Todderham’s cottage, and then disappear. Eugenie always dipped her head down, fearful that she could be observed.

  “You’re acting absurd,” she told herself, and then began to laugh. Whoever stood at the window could not see her inside the cottage. And why would anyone be looking?

  With a sigh, Eugenie laid back down on the sofa and rested her hands on her stomach, lacing the fingers.

  It was very late indeed before Eugenie’s eyelids stilled and became heavy. What followed was a shallow sleep, without any valleys or peaks. Just a smooth skimming, the air slowly filling her nostrils before being blown out.

  She stayed this way for a long time. No dream interrupted her sleep. Instead, she heard only noise, a steady sound like the ocean, though Barnardshire was nowhere near it. And it was in this state, with dawn approaching, that she heard something loud outside Mrs. Todderham’s cottage.

  **

  A thump. Or thud. Something like a heavy sack hitting the side of the building. It was followed by a whisper coming through the wall. Eugenie opened her eyes and, at the same time, heard something like a voice, a sibilant “s.” The sound quickly evaporated as soon as it penetrated the wall.

  Eugenie struggled to sit up, to hear better. Was someone outside? Or had the noise come from inside? Eugenie rubbed her eyes and waited for them to adjust to the darkness, which was rapidly disappearing.

  Nothing moved inside the cottage. In the distance, the Marchioness snored as she slept, and a clock ticked in unison. But other than the knock against the wall and the shadow of a whisper, nothing else could be heard.

  Perhaps it is only Puss, Eugenie thought. Cats sometimes got into scrapes outside with other wild cats. With luck, Puss had gotten the better of his enemy.

  But then Eugenie looked down the length of her body: Puss was actually asleep at the foot of the sofa, curled up on the fringe of her blanket. Dead asleep. So, no: Puss had not been outside.

  Eugenie quietly slid out from under the blanket and crept to the window. Unfortunately, only gray light and vague shapes greeted her. She couldn’t see a person or anything other than the scrap of lawn that ran away from Mrs. Todderham’s cottage, as well as a flower garden attempting to rise out of the mists.

  Eugenie returned to the sofa—but she remained unsettled. So unsettled that she couldn’t sleep. She had definitely heard something. In fact, she was quite sure that humans had been on the other side of the wall. It was a human voice she had heard, possibly even a cry. What could people be doing outside this early in the morning?

  She decided to find out. With bare feet, she tip-toed toward the kitchen, intending to look outside. Along the way, she passed the Marchioness’s bedroom, whose door was shut, and then paused at the room where her two girls slept. Pippa lay flat on her back with her hands crossed neatly on her stomach, while Maisie lay diagonally across the bed on her stomach. Her arms were thrown out and one leg kicked out from beneath the covers. Gently, Eugenie shut their door.

  It was lightest in the kitchen, which lacked shades. Eugenie found the door easily, undoing the lock. A cool mist greeted her face as she poked her head out.

  Again: there was absolutely nothing. She couldn’t see a thing. Although she knew it sat directly west, Clarendon Grange was also hidden from view, the morning mist as heavy as smoke. Eugenie stepped out to look around, for a body or something, but she came up empty.

  Nothing. The area was deserted.

  Shaking her head, she hurried back inside, settling back onto the sofa and carefully nudging Puss out of the way, just in time for Mrs. Todderham to rise.

  Eugenie had the good sense to leave the woman alone to her morning rituals, so she closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep. After Puss hopped off the sofa, Eugenie gradually drifted back into a shallow doze, which was without the ocean sounds and without rest. When she finally sat up again, she smelled breakfast: bacon and fried potato.

  The smell had brought the girls awake, and Eugenie rose to join them. She pulled a blanket around her shoulders and greeted the troupe in the kitchen.

  “Good morning!” Mrs. Todderham said. “I have your plate right there, Eugenie, already on the table.”

  The girls were already seated. Pippa cut a piece of toast with a knife and fork while Maisie ate strips of bacon with her fingers.

  “Did you sleep well?” Mrs. Todderham asked.

  “Very,” Eugenie lied. She sat beside Maisie and poured herself a cup of coffee.

  The Marchioness appeared briefly, to tell Mrs. Todderham that she would breakfast in her bedroom. Mrs. Todderham chirped her agreement, then began the complicated task of settling food on a tray. She arranged everything and, with a grunt, hefted it up and carried it in to her friend.

  Eugenie took advantage of the silence to discuss the errors her girls had made the other day during the game. Early morning was the most effective time to give instruction, well before you could get your guard up. Whenever Eugenie needed to discipline her girls, she got them up early and did it.

  “You didn’t follow through with your discovery of who was at the castle,” Eugenie said quietly. “You must always remember that, in detection, we study people, not utensils. You went and studied the items in the kitchen. Instead, focus on motivation. Who would be motivated to help Miss Ashley escape? And why? That should have been your focus.”

  The girls nodded, eating and listening intently.

  “And also opportunity. Often, we can eliminate everyone because they did not have the opportunity to commit the crime. In that way, motivation becomes irrelevant.”

  Pippa looked down at her plate while Maisie continued to chew her bacon.

  “Well, then,” Eugenie said. “Other than that, you acquitted yourself nicely yesterday.”

  “We did?” Maisie asked, after swallowing. “Though we lost to the boys?”

  “You won’t always lose to the boys,” Eugenie said. “There will be plenty of victories over boys in the future, I promise. Now finish your breakfast.” Eugenie drained her own cup of coffee and then plunged into her fried potato.

  *

  As they ate breakfast, young Jimmie Styles’ mum came to the cottage. Mrs. Todderham greeted her at the door.

  “Have you seen Jimmie?” she asked, only just stepping into the threshold. Eugenie was enjoying her second cup of coffee after sending the girls back to the bedroom to change and make their bed. Eugenie heard the anxiety in the woman’s voice and looked over her shoulder.

  “No,” Mrs. Todderham said. “Not at all. He hasn’t come yet, I don’t think.”

  “Did you receive your paper?”

  “Let me think,” Mrs. Todderham said, holding a hand to her head.

  Eugenie turned around fully to watch the women.

  “No,” Mrs. Todderham finally said. “At least I don’t think. Did we get a paper this morning?” she asked Eugenie.

  “I don’t think so,” Eugenie said. “I haven’t seen anything on the table.”

  Mrs. Styles was a plain woman of average height. In addition to her simple dress, she wore a look of intense worry. “He hasn’t been home yet,” she said. “It isn’t right normal for him to still be gone at this hour.”

  Eugenie tried to remember whether a paper h
ad been on the steps when she snuck outside earlier. But she hadn’t seen anything. “Maybe I left the paper outside,” Mrs. Todderham said. She laughed. “I am so forgetful these days, since my dear husband passed.”

  The two women then stepped outside, leaving the door open. They had been gone only seconds when Eugenie heard a frightful cry.

  Wrapping the blanket around her shoulders, Eugenie followed them, carrying her mug of coffee.

  The two women were studying a bicycle propped up against the cottage. Jimmie’s mum clutched at her throat as she stared, open-mouthed, at it.

  “I assume this is your son’s bicycle,” Eugenie stated. Mrs. Styles nodded.

  The bicycle was an ordinary children’s bicycle. There was no identification mark that she could see. It was propped up against the back of the building. Eugenie looked around, for foot marks, but didn’t see anything.

  “Perhaps he decided to deliver papers on foot,” Mrs. Todderham said, slowly backing away from the bicycle. Mrs. Styles continued to stare at it, and soon she began to shake her head in a dreadful manner.

  “Oh dear,” Mrs. Todderham whispered.

  Duke Phillip, who was outside inspecting his grounds, saw the three women and walked over.

  “Nothing the matter, I hope,” he called. “A bicycle shouldn’t warrant the attention of three ladies.” He smiled, pleased with his comment—but the smile was wiped away at the sound of Mrs. Styles.

  “My boy!” Mrs. Styles cried out, and now her face was truly ugly. “He’s missing! I…I haven’t seen him this morning!”

  “And this is his bicycle,” Eugenie told Phillip. She then turned to the mother. “I assume he delivered his papers by bicycle?”