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

by V. Penley

  Phillip quickly grabbed her forearm and held her in place.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, sensing her life having flashed in front of her. They then ascended to the top together, side by side, where Phillip knocked on the door.

  One would think a telegram had been sent, alerting Mr. Styles to the two people crossing the road, because he opened the door immediately, and showed no surprise at the presence of two strangers on his threshold.

  It was the man with the rust-colored beard. Eugenie recognized him immediately. He had been the man stepping out of the bank as they first rode into Barnardshire. He had seemed disorientated then.

  Now he was imposing. He stood at the threshold of the flat, blocking the entire doorway. Eugenie tried to discreetly look over his shoulder, but she couldn’t see anything. He sensed her curiosity and checked it, raising his right shoulder to block her view.

  “Hello,” Phillip said. He took his hat off and kept it off as he addressed the man.

  The man may not have shown surprise, but he didn’t show hospitality either. He was wearing a suit—but an old one. Baggy in the knees and at the waist, it was held up with a piece of string, not even a real belt. The man had a lazy eye which was clouded, and deep in his beard were blubbery lips, that looked wet and were moving as if he was whispering to himself.

  “We’re here from Mrs. Todderham’s,” Eugenie said. “Your wife came to us when your son went missing.”

  Relief flooded his face, but only for a second. He dropped his eyes, but then raised them again. Eugenie thought she saw alarm.

  “Have you…found him?” he asked.

  “No,” Eugenie said. “But we wondered if we might ask you some questions. Your wife was so worried that we are afraid we couldn’t quite understand what she was saying.”

  “Do you work with Inspector Feagley?” he said. His speech sent some spray, with the “s.”

  “No, we’re private detectives,” Phillip said, stepping back slightly.

  “Pri…” Confusion creased the man’s brow, and then he suddenly found full voice: “We can’t afford no private detectives! What has Joanna been doing? Contracting with someone to search for Jimmie?”

  “We are not working for a fee,” Phillip said sternly, cutting him off and waving a hand to disperse the dastardly spray. “Nor will we ask for any money, I can assure you. You needn’t worry about that.”

  “You know my wife, do you?” The bearded man extended a grimy finger and poked Phillip in the chest. “Where is she?”

  Phillip carefully brushed the finger off his lapel and, in the same motion, extended his hand, to shake. But Mr. Styles ignored it. “Can we come in?” Phillip asked.

  “Where’s Joanna?”

  Eugenie tried a different approach. “I know you are worried about your son, Mr. Styles. Your wife feels the same. But we need to ask you questions. Your wife was very worried, and we were unable to get coherent sentences from her. We thought it would be wiser to come directly to you for answers.”

  The man didn’t budge, though his eyes had lazily wandered over to Eugenie’s face. He seemed distant. This was a face, Eugenie thought, that was worn by too many drunks in London, those who would congregate near the river at night and who, in the early morning hours, could be seen vacating themselves in the street. It was a look that masked fear and loneliness, and looked hopefully to more drink, the one thing that could fill them.

  “Or,” Eugenie said, recognizing his lack of interest in getting out of the door, “we can ask our questions here.”

  “I don’t know anything,” Mr. Styles said. He shook his head. “I’m sorry. All I know is that my son should have been home hours ago. Maybe he has just gone off to the next town over.”

  Phillip scratched his nose. “Has he done that before? Just run off?”

  “Likely,” Mr. Styles said. “I think he’s met a woman over in Cambridgeshire.”

  “But he’s thirteen,” Eugenie said.

  Before Mr. Styles could retort, Phillip asked, “Do you have a name for this woman? Anything at all that you could give us?”

  “Nope,” Mr. Styles said, and he moved back inside in preparation for shutting them out.

  Phillip laid a hand flat on the door, holding it in place. “If you can think of anything, anything that might be useful, please let your wife know. Or send a message to Mrs. Todderham. Will you do that?”

  “I don’t have no transport,” the man said, and took another step back.

  “Anything you might remember,” Phillip said.

  He removed his hand, and Mr. Styles slammed the door shut.

  “That was enlightening,” Phillip said, once they had descended the rickety stairs. Eugenie knew precisely what he meant.

  “He seemed rather cagey, didn’t he?”

  They stood together at the foot of the stairs, not sure where to go next. Eugenie thought to look up, over her shoulder. A curtain moved in the window and then was still.

  Phillip chuckled. “I did not for a second believe that Jimmie Styles has a woman in Cambridgeshire.”

  “I guessed that thirteen was a little young.”

  “He was also an undeveloped thirteen-year-old,” Phillip said.

  “How could you tell?”

  “From the bicycle. It’s a child’s bicycle he used. If he were mature enough to have a woman in Cambridghsire, then I would expect him to ride a man’s bicycle.”

  “We will certainly have to check with Mrs. Styles.”

  A sudden wind came up, and Eugenie held her hat down on her head. The wind had whipped up loose paper, sand, bottles and cans, which swirled around. They walked off toward the car. “I wonder what he was hiding,” Eugenie mused. “He wouldn’t even let us into the flat.”

  “That, no doubt,” Phillip said, “was borne of embarrassment. We might have been better served dressing down before coming into the village. I wasn’t aware of how downtrodden most of the people seem to be.”

  Eugenie had seen poverty in London. She hadn’t been forced to live it, but she had come close: the crowded alleyways with the families crammed into flats, several families sharing space at once. Running sewage. Crime. The city under gaslight was not something you could imagine until you had seen it. Even Dickens, in Oliver Twist, hadn’t quite captured its danger. Barnardshire’s poverty seemed rather different. But the people were still skeptical of a Duke knocking on their door, no doubt. The Marchioness would be pleased to know that Eugenie’s negligent stockings helped her pass in the village.

  “But if he were embarrassed,” Eugenie asked, “wouldn’t he still invite two detectives into his apartment? After all, his son has been kidnapped; or, at least, we think he has been kidnapped. He is missing, at any rate.”

  Phillip merely nodded.

  As they walked up the street, they were approaching the children, who rolled a hoop back and forth. Pippa gathered the hoop in her hands and then rolled it across to an unidentified boy.

  Eugenie suddenly stopped. “Great Scott!” She grabbed Phillip’s arm. “I remembered something. When we rode into town, I saw Mr. Styles—or at least I think it was Mr. Styles—coming out of the bank there.” She pointed at the squat building—the only brick one in town.

  Phillip nodded. “Ransom, you mean? You think he was getting money to pay someone who had kidnapped his son.”

  “I wish we could go in and find out,” Eugenie said. “But I rather doubt they would let two strangers know whether a client had withdrawn money.” She thought this over. “We could try, though, since we are here. You don’t have any connections, do you? Being a Duke and all.”

  “No,” Phillip said, laughing. “Why?”

  “Your position has to be good for something,” Eugenie said, but suddenly stopped. “That came out wrong.”

  “Assuredly,” Phillip said. “I think I have proven myself quite useful, actually.” He smirked.

  “I mean your title has to furnish you with some sort of an ‘in.’ Somewhere. Connections, you
know.”

  “Sorry,” Phillip said. “I have no more connections here than does the daughter of a Marquis.”

  Eugenie sighed. He always seemed to get the better of her. She might have to learn to live with it.

  Eugenie rapidly shook her head, to focus. She would not be seeing Phillip again. She was returning to London—soon. “I guess we must ask Mrs. Styles, then,” she said. “We’ll have to ride back with her so that she can scoot into the bank and check to see if funds have been withdrawn. Oh, I do hate it when spouses can’t trust each other!”

  “It is frightful,” Phillip said. “Perhaps the boy sensed something between his parents and split.”

  “A tension?”

  “Something,” Phillip said. “I feel this is well within our grasp, but we don’t know which thread to grab at.”

  Eugenie nodded. By now they were within speaking distance of the children playing with the hoop. Eugenie, raising her hand, hailed them and told them to gather and prepare to head back to Clarendon Grange.

  They sat the way they had coming into town: Pippa in the front between Eugenie and Phillip, the two boys and Maisie in the rear. But there wasn’t sufficient room in the car for the hoop. Cecil held it so that it cut into the back of Phillip’s neck.

  “Oh dear God, Cecil,” Phillip said, turning around. He took the hoop from the boy and handed it to the children they had been playing with, who were now gathered around the Wolsely.

  “A present,” Phillip said, handing it through the window.

  The boys took the hoop gingerly and looked at it, their mouths opened. Cecil knew enough not to protest but crossed his arms. As the Wolseley started up and departed, the boys waved until they couldn’t see it anymore.

  *

  When they returned to Mrs. Todderham’s, the two women met them at the door. The table held the remains of a meal: two tea cups, two plates, and a crock half empty with vegetables and bits of meat. Eugenie tried her best, as soon as they saw her, to dispel any hope that they had found Jimmie while, at the same time, keeping Mrs. Styles sufficiently focused to answer questions that might aid in his location. It was a terrible business having someone missing: every knock on the door carried the promise of reconnection, which was dashed, again and again.

  They all returned to the table, and Phillip stood behind Eugenie again, for support.

  “We went and spoke to your husband,” Eugenie said.

  At that, Mrs. Styles’ face fell. She had trouble forming a sentence. With great difficulty, she finally managed, “You did?”

  Phillip interjected: “He wouldn’t let us in or even talk to us. He said he didn’t know anything.”

  “My husband has fallen on hard times,” Mrs. Styles said slowly. “He’s a shade of the man I married. I think everyone who knows him can agree.” Mrs. Todderham nodded her agreement and clutched her friend’s hand, providing the support Mrs. Styles needed to continue.

  “It was the Railway Strike that did him in,” she said. “Two years ago. I told him nothing good ever comes of a strike, but he said he wasn’t in control of it. It happened and he…he lost his job…” Her voice cracked at the word, and her eyes clenched shut.

  That explains the reduced circumstances, Eugenie thought. It explained why the clothes that Mrs. Styles wore had once been fashionable, years ago, but were now beginning to wear. They were seeing her in her present, reduced state. Her husband had wanted to prevent similar scrutiny of himself.

  “I am very sorry,” Eugenie said. “Do you think that the Railway Strike is connected to Jimmie’s disappearance in any way?” She didn’t quite know when the Strike had happened.

  Mrs. Styles dried her eyes and thought a second, biting down onto the kerchief that her friend, Mrs. Todderham, had gifted her.

  “I can’t see how,” she said. “Bertie lost his job and came home. He had been working in Liverpool at the time. We used to have a lovely house,” she said. Her eyes became cloudy, as the house must have risen on a mental hill. But then she focused to attention. “But we lost it. Even before the Railway Strike. And then we’ve moved into smaller and smaller places. A parade of them: from a house to a flat to a shed to a coffin.”

  “Is Jimmie your only child?” Eugenie asked. It was rare for families to be so small.

  “I had a problem,” Mrs. Styles said. “I…” Her hand moved around her lower abdomen, to explain what her tongue could not.

  “That’s quite alright,” Eugenie said, pressing a hand gently to Mrs. Styles’ arm. “I don’t mean to pry. Please continue about your husband.”

  She swallowed. “He stays home, mostly. No one will hire him. The name of a man who strikes runs from one end of Britain to the other. He is infamous everywhere, whether at a simple tavern or in a mill. No one wants you once they know you participated in a work stoppage. No one wants a troublemaker. Even if you grovel that you have a family to feed, no one cares.”

  Her voice began to crack again.

  Eugenie looked at Mrs. Todderham, who shook her head sadly. “It has been quite trying,” she whispered.

  “The banks have been hounding us,” Mrs. Styles said. “They constantly send someone around with requests for payments. We took a loan, once. Just to tide us over until Bertie found another job. But all loans must be paid back, I’ve learnt. I learn that lesson every time someone comes knocking at the door.”

  “But I saw your husband leaving the bank today,” Eugenie said. “He has at least bought you a little reprieve from your creditors, I should think.”

  Mrs. Styles dropped the handkerchief and left it on her lap. Her hand, which had been pressed to her mouth, stayed where it was, forming a claw. She stared at Eugenie, uncomprehending. She finally whispered, “What?”

  “Your husband. Mr. Styles. With the red beard. I saw him coming out of the bank when we entered the village this afternoon.” Eugenie looked over her shoulder toward Phillip, to confirm it. He nodded his head.

  “We are sure it was him.”

  “That can’t be possible,” she said. “We have no money!”

  “Perhaps he went to talk with them,” Phillip said. “To settle accounts or come to some sort of repayment agreement.”

  “He can’t,” Mrs. Styles said. “We have tried that. Nearly half a year ago. No dice, said the man at the bank. He wouldn’t help us at all. Instead, he sends men to our flat who knock on our door, morning noon and night. Sometimes we must give them things, just to leave us alone. We’ve given away half our furniture that way.” She looked down at her lap, then looked back up. “You didn’t see him taking our bed down to the bank, did you?”

  “N-n-no,” Phillip said slowly.

  Eugenie assumed that Phillip was thinking the same as she. If Bertie Styles had gone to the bank, then he either went to pay money or to take money out. And judging from what Mrs. Styles had just told them, there was no money to be got out. So why would he have gone to the bank, if not to put money in?

  Another question: if he had money, where did he get it?

  At the same time, Phillip and Eugenie asked, “Are you sure your husband isn’t working?”

  Mrs. Styles looked up and down, first at Eugenie and then at Phillip. Her eyes were wide. “Of course, I know he doesn’t. He was at home when you came to talk to him, wasn’t he? How many men of his age did you see on the streets? They work.” She smiled bitterly. “Now sometimes I get piece work, here and there, but that isn’t something Bertie would help me with, I can assure you.”

  “Mrs. Styles,” Eugenie said. “Could you go to the bank with us and see if any money has been deposited into your account?”

  She blinked rapidly. “Whatever for? I know I don’t have even a ha’penny on me.”

  “To check something,” Eugenie said. “I’m sure the bankers will not give you a hard time. The Duke here will speak to them if they do. He can open doors.”

  Phillip raised his eyebrows, but Eugenie maintained her look of seriousness.

  Chapter Eleven: Checking
the Accounts

  Mrs. Styles hesitated at the bank’s entrance. In fact, her body shook so hard that one step forward would have sent her sprawling to the floor.

  Eugenie and Phillip crowded in behind her, and bumped up against her backside as she came to a complete stop on the bank’s threshold. Phillip held the door open while Eugenie carefully squeezed past Mrs. Styles and then, taking her arm, helped ease her into the bank.

  It was dark inside, and completely empty.

  A clerk, sitting on a high stool behind the counter, glanced toward the door and immediately set up crowing, his squawks echoing throughout the room. “Oh!” he cried out. “Oh, now! This is past the limit!”

  He slid off his stool, his mouth agape. Because the bank was empty, Eugenie realized that he was addressing them. “Come to make good on your debts, mum? Huh?” His voice was nasty. Audible poison. Having slid off the stool, he stepped around, unlatching a knee-high door and then carefully locking it behind him before barging up to the group as if he owned the place. “Finally going to pay up on your debts, are you? Well this is a day I never thought I would see!”

  Mrs. Styles, her face beet red, had taken two steps into the bank but would go no further. Her hands clutched her purse.

  Eugenie looked at the clerk, expecting some pity, not this crowing, as if in triumph. He was an ugly little thing—no taller than Mrs. Styles herself, but he sauntered up with his hands on his hips and a voice steeped in moral disapproval.

  “Thank you for saving us the pain of hoofing over to your flat again. I see you haven’t brought a sofa or a table. So I’m not sure how you’ll make your payment.”

  Mrs. Styles could only stand open-mouthed—and quivering. Eugenie thought the clerk should not be one to take pleasure in another’s poverty. Judging by how short his britches were—stopping half-way between ankle and knee—and how generally unkempt he was, Eugenie guessed he was no better off than Mrs. Styles. Clearly, however, his role as guardian of the bank’s money gave him power—and pleasure.

  He stood before Mrs. Styles and looked her up and down. “Or have you come with your hand out, asking for more?” His little rat-like nose quivered with rage.