by V. Penley
Mrs. Styles nodded her head.
“And what is his route,” Phillip asked, “if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Root?” Mrs. Styles asked, confused “We’re local people.”
“Where does he deliver papers?” Phillip asked mildly.
Eugenie glanced over his clothes. He was freshly pulled together, in a different suit than the one he had worn the day before. His hair was blazing blond in the sunlight. She hugged her blanket more tightly around her, to hide her wrinkled blouse and skirt. She could feel her blouse hitching up in the back. The blanket was not long enough to cover her bare feet but she hoped Phillip wouldn’t notice.
“He goes up the road. All the way to the end. That’s why he couldn’t have walked the entire way,” she said. “It’s miles and miles.” She turned to Mrs. Todderham, as her one ally. “He just couldn’t!”
“Oh, I’m sure he couldn’t,” Mrs. Todderham said, taking the woman in her arms. “We all believe you. I’m sure. This is all so dreadfully confusing.” They hugged as Mrs. Styles continued to cry that Jimmie couldn’t be missing, he was only thirteen.
“Well,” the Duke whispered over the heads of the two women toward Lady Eugenie. “I think we know how to find where he must have disappeared.”
Eugenie nodded. “I’ll get my shoes.”
*
She did more than get her shoes. Once inside, Eugenie ran to find Mrs. Todderham’s hot iron and set to ironing her clothes, the girls sitting in the corner of the bedroom watching their teacher in her knickers.
The Marchioness called from her bedroom “What is that noise, Eugenie?” but she never came in to interrupt her daughter. Eugenie quickly got back into her skirt and blouse and then stepped into the hallway to put on her shoes.
Mrs. Todderham and Mrs. Styles were now in the kitchen, silently holding hands. “What is happening?” the Marchioness asked, stepping from her bedroom. “There is so much noise in this house it is difficult to rest properly after breakfast.”
Eugenie slipped a trench coat around her and bent to tie her boots. She whispered: “The young boy has gone missing. The paper boy.”
“Oh no,” the Marchioness said. “How do we know?”
“He hasn’t come home. And his mum’s in the kitchen with Mrs. Todderham. I’m going out with the Duke to see if we can find any clues up the road.”
“What a good idea,” Marchioness Carlyle said, and repaired to her bedroom—where she knelt near the window, to watch the Duke and her daughter walk over to Clarendon Grange and get into the Duke’s motor car.
“Yes,” she whispered to herself. “Yes.” Inviting her daughter to Barnardshire had been the absolute right thing to do.
Eugenie, however, approached the motor car warily.
“Never ridden in one?” Phillip asked, when Eugenie got into the passenger’s side and shut the door behind her.
“Several times,” she said. Actually, she never had. In London, a lack of money prevented her from going anywhere. She could walk to the store and pay her bills. Still, she didn’t want to seem unsophisticated. She imagined Duke Phillip driving Miss Castlefork around the city.
“Delightful,” the Duke said, and then he looked at Eugenie’s hands. “I guess you always clutch onto the dashboard with white knuckles. From excitement at being back in a motor car, I presume.”
He laughed; and Eugenie stifled a smile herself. He certainly was observant. But she was dealing with a detective, she reminded herself.
“In a minute you’ll have a reason to grab on for safety,” he said. “Would you like a pair of goggles? The wind comes in through the sides.” He was adjusting a black pair over his own eyes.
“No, why?” Eugenie asked.
Phillip smiled. “No reason.” And then he started the Wolsely, which made a loud sound, and soon they were tearing off down the road.
Chapter Eight: In the Roadster
Because the car had a glass windshield, the wind did not hit Eugenie full in the face. Instead, the wind poured in through the sides, where there were no windows, and Eugenie had to let go of the door to cover her eyes and mouth. She started shouting to ask where the goggles were, but Phillip ignored her. Instead, he focused on piloting the car down the road, which was empty at that hour. Their first stop was less than a mile: Marchioness Carlyle’s house, at Vinegar Hill.
It rose stately like the Marchioness herself, with enormous pretension only if you probed. Constructed in the Georgian style, it had been built for a former coal magnate, whose wife had aspired to a life of royalty. The Marchioness had purchased it with the money Eugenie’s father had made in his business. Vinegar Hill suited the Marchioness perfectly. It was large enough to allow her to entertain but too small for her son and his family to visit overnight.
Phillip pulled the motor car into the gravel yard and rolled nearly to the front door.
Eugenie, taking her hands away from her eyes, slowly pulled the hair out of her mouth and ears. A thin layer of dirt covered her face and was gritty in her pores.
“The goggles are in the back,” Phillip said in an off-hand manner as he got out of the car.
“Thank you,” Eugenie murmured. She waited only for him to gain the entrance to the house before she rooted around the back seat, which was covered with papers and books that had become disheveled during the drive. From the corner poked a leather strap, and Eugenie strained to reach it. Once she secured the goggles, she turned her attention to the books and was shocked to find, laying on top of everything else, a novel by Austen!
At last. Now Eugenie knew what Phillip read in his spare time. She had been disappointed not to find anything of a personal nature in the library at Clarendon Grange. But when Eugenie opened the cover, she was shocked to see the name “Castlefork” stenciled in the corner of the fly leaf. Perfect, beautiful, feminine script. Eugenie quickly shut the book and threw it back.
When Phillip returned, he gave her the news: “The paper is there, by the door.”
“So he delivered it,” Eugenie said. “Even after he left the bicycle at Mrs. Todderham’s. He must have walked down and continued his delivery.”
“It would appear so,” Phillip said. “We’ll keep going and check the others along the way.”
At the next house, the woman who answered the door affirmed that she had received her paper that morning, and she brought it out for Phillip to inspect. The same scenario played out at every house on down the road. In fact, everyone had received their morning paper, at every house, until they had reached the county limit.
“I guess he made it all the way to end,” Phillip said. “On foot, apparently.”
“Or someone delivered the papers in place of him,” Eugenie said. “To make sure that no one was tipped off early to the disappearance.”
“You mean, you are thinking he could be kidnapped?”
“Aren’t you?”
“I’d rather think he ran away,” Phillip said. “At least, since he is a young boy, I first thought that he would sooner run away than be kidnapped.”
Eugenie didn’t know how to respond to that. She had never been a young boy.
“But if he ran away,” Phillip said, “he probably would have needed his bicycle.”
“Precisely,” Eugenie said. “It would certainly have helped. By contrast, a kidnapper would have taken their own carriage or motor car.”
“Hmmm,” Phillip said. He drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel, thinking.
Eugenie could not help herself. “I wonder what Miss Austen would say about all of this.”
Phillip, brow creased, looked at her in surprise. “Miss Austen? Is she a lady detective in London?”
Eugenie nodded to the back seat. This is not the time, Eugenie, she told herself. But she couldn’t help it. She had a need to know.
“Your book,” she said. She reached back and plucked it from the pile before handing to him. Now she, also a detective, would watch his reaction.
“Oh this,” Phillip s
aid casually. He showed no reaction. Instead, he held it in his hand as if it were an ordinary rock or brick.
“Interesting reading material,” Eugenie said. “I had no idea you had a head for romance.”
“I’m returning it for a friend,” he said simply. But instead of throwing it in the back, he let it fall to his lap as he started the roadster.
Wonderful, Eugenie thought, tightening the straps to her goggles. The rubber cut into the skin around her eyes as she chastised herself. You have embarrassed yourself and not gotten any information out of the exchange. She needed to learn to keep quiet.
Phillip cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, we don’t have the resources to do an intensive examination of the road. We’ll have to return to Mrs. Todderham’s, and talk to the boy’s mother. Maybe she knows something important.”
“Yes,” Eugenie said and held on tight.
*
“He’s a simple boy,” Mrs. Styles said, smiling to herself. “Never complained. Not good at school, but neither was me or his father.”
Lady Eugenie had taken the lead in the conversation. She sat close to Mrs. Styles at the kitchen table, while Mrs. Todderham and Duke Phillip stood on the perimeter. Even Marchioness Carlyle had finally been roused from her bedroom, though she still had not spoken to anyone.
“Had he made any mention of wanting to leave home? To visit anyone? Does he know anyone outside Barnardshire?”
Mrs. Styles thought on that, but her face showed disbelief the entire time. “Not that I know,” she said.
“Has he ever had a chance to leave Barnardshire before?”
“No,” she said. “Bertie traveled for work, but…. We both grew up here, in the village. We met working at the printing press in ‘98. Were married later that year. We was married a year when I had Jimmie.”
“How did he secure the job delivering papers?”
“Asked for it,” Mrs. Styles said, with pride. “He went in one day to old Mr. Crayton’s office and asked if he needed a boy for assistance. This was when Jimmie had dropped out of school. He went until he was eleven and said he hadn’t learnt anything useful so he might as well work. To be honest, I felt the same way when I was his age. We always had a paper around the house and that is how he learnt to read, I think. Not in the schools. It was probably from reading the Gazette at home that he got the idea to ask for work at the paper.”
“How long had he been delivering papers?”
“A year or two. I couldn’t really say. Every morning he got up, in the dark. I think he rises before his father.” She smiled.
“And did he get paid?”
The smile faded. “I think so.”
Eugenie detected tension at the mention of money. It was always awkward, maneuvering around those tender places people wanted to protect. Nevertheless, usually those places contained the most vital information.
“He kept the money himself, then?” she asked.
Mrs. Styles looked to her friend, Mrs. Todderham, and then back at Eugenie. “What are you asking? That I took his money?”
“Not in the least,” Eugenie said. “That had not even crossed my mind, I can assure you.”
Mrs. Todderham took her friend’s hand. “Joanna. We are trying to understand where he might have gone. If he kept his money, then he could have bought a train ticket somewhere. But if he had no money, then he probably went on foot. If he bought a train ticket, we’ll need to look over a much farther range. That is why Lady Eugenie is asking about money.”
Mrs. Styles nodded her head. “I see.” She was quiet a moment. “To be honest, I don’t know what he did with the money.”
“Why?” Eugenie asked.
“Cause his father controls the money in the house. I don’t.”
“Bertie?” Eugenie asked. “Your husband?”
Mrs. Styles nodded—then quickly glanced away.
“Well,” Eugenie whispered, “we’ve come to a roadblock.”
“I think,” Duke Phillip interjected, “that we will have to call the police.”
“The police?” Mrs. Styles said. “Why? I was led to believe that you were a detective, Lady Eugenie.”
“I am,” she said. “But we may need more assistance, the kind of assistance that the police are trained and employed to provide.” She turned to Mrs. Todderham. “Are you familiar with the local Inspector?”
“Of course,” Mrs. Todderham said. “We will have to send for him. A note, you see.”
“I will take it,” Duke Phillip said.
Chapter Nine: A Bumbling Inspector
The village inspector had not been in, so Phillip had left the note with Inspector Feagley’s secretary, who had propped it on his desk before grabbing her hat and leaving for the day. When the Inspector had returned from his own lunch, he had read the note and immediately repaired to Mrs. Todderham’s cottage.
Coming round the bend, he did not walk up to the front door. Nor did he go to the side door. Instead, the Inspector squeezed between two hedges to get to the old back door, which had been hammered shut and which had not been used for decades. Bizarrely, the Inspector had visited Mrs. Todderham only last week and had been admitted using the front door, but his memory was like a hand without thumbs. He never retained details.
He took off his hat, wiped his brow, and knocked on the door.
“It is certainly warm,” he said. The walk had done him good, but now he felt worn out. Mrs. Todderham’s cottage was over a mile from town.
When no one answered, he knocked again—to little effect—and so he kept knocking. His knocking continued for so long that the Marchioness, alone in her bedroom, finally pushed open her window and popped her head out. “What is that noise?” she barked.
The Inspector quickly removed his hat and blushed. “I’m sorry, Dowager Carlyle. I wasn’t aware I have walked to your house.” He looked around, dazed.
“It is not my house, sir!” the Marchioness barked. “You have come to Bess Todderham’s house!”
“Have I?” the Inspector asked, delighted. He bowed deeply, as he had been trained by his mother always to do to royalty. “I am Barnardshire’s Inspector, here to meet with Mrs. Styles, about her son, whom is missing.”
“I know who you are!” the Marchioness Carlyle said, noting the Inspector’s incorrect grammar—and even worse form. “Go around to the front!” she commanded, and, pulling her head back in, slammed the window shut.
Somewhat flustered, Inspector Feagley made his entrance at the front of the house, warmly greeted by Mrs. Todderham, who welcomed him into her kitchen.
“I wish I could offer you some tea,” she said, “but I don’t yet have a pot boiled.”
“Quite alright, Madame,” he said, which caused Mrs. Todderham to color pleasurably. Only Inspector Feagley ever called her “Madame,” a title reserved for someone of the Marchioness’s rank. “I am here to meet the missing boy’s mother. She is still here, I take it?”
Mrs. Todderham delivered Inspector Feagley to the kitchen table, which was the command post. Mrs. Styles had, by now (mid-afternoon), grown tired, and she rested her face on her fist, with her eyes closed. She came awake with a start as the Inspector accidently kicked the leg of the table while settling his portly frame onto the seat across from her.
“Well, this is comfortable,” he said. “You always keep a pleasant kitchen. One of the nicest kitchens in the village.”
Mrs. Todderham smiled—but then nodded toward her friend. Eugenie and Philip stood on the perimeter, anxious for the investigation to begin. Time was wasting.
“Ah, yes,” the Inspector said. He patted the pocket on his chest and pulled out the note Duke Phillip had written. Adjusting the glasses on his nose, he unfolded the page and held it a good two feet from his face. He read it again, slowly, to make sure that he remembered the gist of it. Then he folded it back up and returned it to his pocket, before resting his hands across his belly.
“My dear,” he said, showing very small teeth, in an apparent a
ttempt to put Mrs. Styles at ease. “Could you, please, tell me everything that has happened, starting at the very beginning?”
“I wouldn’t know where else to start,” Mrs. Styles said. She sat up straight. “My boy’s name is Jimmie; James, actually, which is his given name, though I’m sure you know that since you two have met in the past.”
The Inspector nodded. “Merely securing preliminaries,” he said. He then patted his other pocket and pulled out a small notepad and pencil. Licking the nub of his pencil, he made a short notation in his little notebook, which had a velvet cover and a bookmark sewn into it.
“And you said he was a male child?” he asked.
Mrs. Styles merely blinked.
“And when was he conceived?” Inspector Feagley continued. “Are you aware of the day and time?”
“Perhaps,” Duke Phillip interjected gently, speaking mostly to Mrs. Styles but in such a manner that the Inspector could hear, “perhaps you could start at the beginning of when you realized your son had disappeared. Not at the beginning of all time.” He lifted his eyebrows to the Inspector, as if to ask, “Yes?”
Inspector Feagley nodded his head. “Right. Of course. Not the beginning of time, no. But when you first thought the lad might be missing.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Styles said. And then she told her story: of discovering that he hadn’t returned, and her flight to see Mrs. Todderham, to check to see if the good lady had had her paper delivered; and then the discovery of the bicycle, propped up against Mrs. Todderham’s cottage.
Continually wetting the pencil tip with his tongue, Inspector Feagley jotted random notes in his notebook. The notes seemed to form a paisley pattern. From where she stood, Eugenie thought that the Inspector was doodling rather than recording meaningful information.
“And does he have friends in town?”
“A few.” Mrs. Styles shook her shoulders. “I haven’t seen them around since Jimmie left school. Or, if I see them around, they never come to visit Jimmie.”
