THE MINISTER’S MISSING DAUGHTER
Victoria Thompson is the author of the Gaslight Mystery Series featuring Sarah Brandt and Frank Malloy, which was nominated for a 2001 Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America. In her previous life, she published twenty historical romances. A popular speaker, Victoria has taught at Pennsylvania State University and currently teaches in the Seton Hill University master’s program in writing popular fiction. She is a cofounder and past president of Pennwriters and New Jersey Romance Writers, and past president of Novelists, Inc.
I have mentioned previously how busy my friend Sherlock Holmes and I were during the years following his miraculous return from being presumed dead at the hands of the villain Moriarty. After selling my medical practice, I was able to devote my full efforts to assisting Holmes in whatever way he needed me, and since his previous clients had rewarded him so generously, he was able to involve himself in any investigation that took his fancy, without regard to financial considerations.
Holmes’s reputation had grown so much by this time that hardly a day passed when someone wasn’t trooping up the stairs at his lodgings in Baker Street, seeking his counsel or assistance. Holmes could hardly bear to turn anyone away without at least hearing about the case in question, and as a consequence, he had very little time for rest or relaxation and was seldom even able to sleep a night through without interruption. I began to fear for my friend’s health and was, at length, able to convince him to travel with me on a holiday.
Holmes had dealt with many Americans through the years, and he had always found them interesting as individuals. He had also frequently expressed his desire that England and America might one day overcome the differences that had separated them and unite as one nation again. I thought he might be intrigued by the opportunity to present his arguments toward this end in person to our former colony, but only after several weeks of persuasion was I able to convince him to make the trip.
I naïvely believed that in America Holmes would find a respite from those seeking his help, but I had not counted on my accounts of his previous cases having made their way across the ocean ahead of us. We arrived in the city of New York to discover that Holmes was almost as well-known there as he was at home. Our only advantage was that the public at large did not know where he was staying, and that saved us from being overwhelmed by entreaties.
Still, those in certain circles were able to locate us, and we had not been in New York a fortnight before we were invited to dine at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt. Mr. Roosevelt was rumored to be considering a position in the administration of the newly-elected American president, William McKinley, but for the moment he was still the commissioner of the New York City Police Department. As such, he felt obligated to entertain the famous detective Sherlock Holmes.
The party was surprisingly small. After meeting Mr. Roosevelt at his office at Police Headquarters and being assured he was dee-lighted with every aspect of our visit, as he seemed to be dee-lighted about nearly everything that happened to him, we had expected to encounter a legion of Mr. Roosevelt’s friends, anxious to make the acquaintance of such an esteemed visitor. Instead, he seemed to have chosen his guests with care, and the party included only those who could converse intelligently with his honored guest and none of whom seemed to stand in awe of his reputation. I had begun to think we had happened upon the only remaining humans on earth who had no need of Sherlock Holmes’s services. Then, halfway through the meal, when the fish course had just been removed, Holmes’s dinner partner finally raised the subject of his unique vocation.
“Are you truly as perceptive as the stories about you would have us believe, Mr. Holmes?” Mrs. Brandt asked. She was an attractive woman of about thirty years of age who had been introduced as an old friend of Mr. Roosevelt’s. “Or has Dr. Watson used more fiction than fact in his accounts to make you seem so?” she added, glancing over to give me a rather charming smile to take the sting out of her question. I returned it to let her know I had taken no offense.
“I have never claimed to have greater powers of observation than any other man,” Holmes replied. “I have simply trained myself to use those natural powers to the fullest extent.”
“May I ask you to demonstrate your abilities?”
Holmes raised one eyebrow at the strange request.
“Oh, dear, I’ve offended you,” she exclaimed. “I’m very sorry. My mother will refuse to take me anywhere with her again.” She glanced at the lady seated at Mr. Roosevelt’s right to see if she had overheard, but she seemed engrossed in whatever our host was saying to her. “You see, Mr. Holmes, it isn’t just idle curiosity. I have a reason for testing you.”
“Very well, Mrs. Brandt,” Holmes said with some amusement. “Shall I tell you what I have observed about you?”
This prospect seemed to please her. “Certainly.”
Holmes took a moment, as if to study her, although I was certain he had long since taken her measure. “You are a widow, Mrs. Brandt. Although you are still a young woman, your husband has been dead for some years, and he was a man your parents considered socially inferior to you. They did not approve of the match, and you married against their wishes. You have chosen to remain in reduced circumstances rather than return to your family, and you have taken pride in your ability to make your own way in the world. Although you have not yet remarried, you have a gentleman friend who has engaged your affections, but he is also your social inferior. Your mother encourages you to mingle with her friends, but you seldom do, preferring your own circle of acquaintances.”
She stared at him in amazement, so thoroughly awed she didn’t even notice when the maid set the next course down in front of her. “How on earth could you know all that about me?” she asked, but then answered her own question. “Oh, of course, Theodore must have told you.”
“I promise you that our host has told me nothing about your background,” Holmes assured her.
“Then how could you possibly have known all that from simply meeting me tonight?” she challenged.
“You asked me to demonstrate my abilities, Mrs. Brandt, so I shall. First of all, I knew you were a widow because you were introduced to me as Mrs. Brandt, yet you are not wearing a wedding ring.” She instinctively looked down at her left hand as if to verify his observation. “If you had been recently widowed, you would be in mourning, but enough time has passed since you lost your husband that you are wearing colors again and have removed your ring.”
“I see,” she said, nodding her approval. “But how could you know anything at all about my late husband’s social standing?”
“The name Brandt is of German extraction, and even Americans are still a bit selective about whom they accept into the upper reaches of society. Your mother is obviously a member of that group.”
“How could you know my parents didn’t approve of my marriage, though?”
Holmes smiled apologetically. “Parents never approve when their daughter wants to marry a man they consider beneath her.”
She conceded the point to him. “But how could you know I didn’t return to my parents after my husband died?”
“I must apologize, but I can see that gown you are wearing, as lovely as it is, has been altered slightly to fit you, which means it was made for someone else. Your mother, perhaps? Did she lend it to you for the occasion because you had nothing suitable of your own and she was determined to take you out in society?”
She was speechless again, so Holmes continued.
“I surmised that you take pride in making your own way in the world because you have that air of confidence about you that women do when they are pleased with themselves.”
“Is that a compliment, Mr. Holmes?” she challenged.
“Some men might not think so,” he admitted.
“You’re right there,” she said. “And finally, what makes you believe I have a . . . a gentleman friend?”
“Because when Mr. Roosevelt introduced you and your mother, your mother made no mention of your many accomplishments or tried in any way to make Dr. Watson and myself think more highly of you.”
“Why would she do a thing like that?” she asked in genuine confusion.
“Mrs. Brandt, Dr. Watson and I are bachelors of independent means. This makes us objects of interest to every woman with an unmarried daughter. The fact that we are also British for some reason makes us even more desirable here in America. You would hardly credit how many poor damsels have been thrust into our notice by their proud mamas since our arrival on your shores. Each and every one of them, to hear the mothers tell it, are paragons of virtue and achievement and perfectly suitable as wives to any Englishman, particularly Dr. Watson or myself.”
By now she was covering her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. When she had recovered herself, she said, “Please accept my apology, Mr. Holmes, on behalf of all the desperate American mothers. I’m afraid they can’t help themselves.”
“Perhaps not,” Holmes said. “But your mother feels no need to thrust you under anyone’s nose, Mrs. Brandt. She knows your affections are engaged elsewhere.”
The color bloomed in her face. “By yet another socially unacceptable man, I assume,” she said, feigning bravado.
“Yes,” Holmes said, “or else he would have accompanied you this evening.”
“Perhaps he was simply otherwise engaged,” she suggested.
“Then our hostess would have inquired about him.”
Before she could reply, Mr. Roosevelt drew everyone’s attention by making a toast to his English guests, proclaiming himself dee-lighted to have us in his home. Apparently, Mr. Roosevelt had been blessed with at least ten more teeth than most humans, and his smile displayed every one of them when he was dee-lighted. As I have already noted, this occurred frequently.
After the change of topic, Mrs. Brandt made no further mention of Holmes’s vocation until much later, when the gentlemen had rejoined the ladies in the parlor after indulging in their brandy and cigars. Mrs. Roosevelt had claimed my attention, but Mrs. Brandt drew Holmes aside, as if by prearrangement with our hosts. After only a few minutes, however, Holmes summoned me to join him in the far corner of the room where he and Mrs. Brandt had found some measure of privacy.
“Watson, I would like for you to hear what Mrs. Brandt has been telling me about a very interesting case,” he said, indicating I should take a seat beside her. “Mrs. Brandt, you may speak as freely in front of Dr. Watson as you would to me alone. Please continue.”
“As I was telling Mr. Holmes,” she began, “a young lady recently disappeared under mysterious circumstances. She is the daughter of one of the most highly respected ministers in the city, the Reverend Mr. Penny of Christ’s Church. She was doing volunteer work in the church basement one morning, and she simply vanished, as if into thin air. No one has seen or heard from her since, and that was nearly two weeks ago.”
“I believe I read something about this in the newspapers,” Holmes said. “Although the accounts were a bit confusing, and some were even contradictory to others.”
Mrs. Brandt shook her head. “The New York newspapers pay very little attention to accuracy, I’m afraid. They are much more interested in sensation, because it will sell newspapers. I’ve seen theories that Harriet Penny was abducted by everything from spirits from another world to Barbary Pirates.”
Holmes smiled indulgently. “What is your theory, Mrs. Brandt?”
“Mine?” she asked in surprise. “I don’t really have one. I only know what the police think.”
“What do they think?” he asked with interest.
“That she was kidnapped and has been forced into a brothel.”
I’m afraid I could not conceal my surprise that a lady of Mrs. Brandt’s breeding would use such a word in polite company.
“I’m sorry if I shocked you, Dr. Watson, but Mr. Holmes was correct when he guessed that I have continued to make my own way in the world, as he so politely phrased it. I am a trained nurse and midwife, and I have seen far more of the world than my parents would have approved, I’m sure.”
By now I had recovered from my surprise, and of course Holmes had not even batted an eye at her candor. “I assume the police are searching for the young woman in the . . . the places where they might expect to find her,” I said.
“Yes, but without success. There are so many of those places in the city, and none of them are likely to admit to keeping an innocent young woman against her will. As you can imagine, her parents are distraught, as are the people in her father’s church. In fact, the sense of outrage by all decent people in the city is growing daily.”
“A serious matter, indeed,” Holmes agreed. “Is Miss Penny a friend of yours?”
“No, I don’t know her personally, but her plight has affected me deeply, as it must affect all who know of it. I have determined to help in any way I can, even to enlisting the assistance of the best detective in the world,” she added with her charming smile. “Do you think you could find her, Mr. Holmes? I know you aren’t familiar with the city, but—”
“I would be glad to be of assistance,” Holmes assured her, “if the police are agreeable to consulting with me.”
“I know one of them will be. Mr. Roosevelt has already said he would give his permission if you were willing. I’ll send word to Detective Sergeant Malloy first thing tomorrow to meet you at your hotel.”
Holmes’s expression never changed, but I knew he was thinking, as was I, that Mrs. Brandt had indeed given her affections to someone socially inferior if she had chosen a policeman.
Holmes and I had hardly finished our breakfast the next morning when the expected Detective Sergeant presented himself. From his expression, he either had a bad tooth or he deeply resented having to consult with Sherlock Holmes. He grudgingly accepted the offered chair and deigned to take a cup of coffee with us while he reviewed the details of Miss Penny’s disappearance. We learned nothing that Mrs. Brandt had not already told us.
“When Mrs. Brandt told me about the case, I did not want to offend her by insinuating that it would be easy to solve,” Holmes said, “but in my experience, when a young woman disappears, there is usually a young man or a theater troupe involved, often both. But surely you already know that.”
“Of course I do,” Malloy said impatiently. “But Harriet Penny is a minister’s daughter, so she wasn’t allowed to attend the theater. And usually, when a girl elopes, she climbs out of her window in the middle of the night and takes a carpetbag with her. Harriet Penny disappeared in broad daylight with nothing but the clothes on her back. Besides, from all accounts, she’s twenty-five years old and as plain as an old boot. So far as I’ve been able to find out, no man ever looked at her twice in her entire life.”
“Do the police believe she simply wandered off and found herself in the wrong section of town where she was taken in by a kindly madam?”
“No, they think she was tricked,” Malloy explained with more than a touch of annoyance. “The madams employ young men they call cadets to find lonely girls and charm or seduce them into eloping with them. Instead of getting married, the girls end up locked in a brothel and forced into a life of shame.”
“An innocent young woman like Miss Penny might easily be charmed by such a man,” I pointed out.
“Indeed. What else can you tell me about Miss Penny?” Holmes asked.
“Not much. Everyone in the church knew her, but nobody could tell me a thing about her except to say she was devoted to her parents and to doing good works.”
“Her friends?”
“She didn’t have any close friends, anybody she confided in. She spent all her time with her mother, keeping her company.”
“One wonders how any young woman could be lured away from such a delightful existence,” Holmes observed wryly. “May I meet her parents?”
“They don’t have any idea what happened to her, either,” Malloy warned him.
“I’m sure they don’t, but perhaps they can help us understand Miss Penny better.”
“I’ll ask her parents if they’ll see you,” Malloy said, although he didn’t sound as if he held out much hope that they would.
But Mr. Malloy returned that afternoon with an invitation to visit the Reverend Mr. Penny and his wife at their home.
“May we stop by the church on our way?” Holmes asked as we were crossing through the hotel lobby. “I should like to see where she was when she disappeared.”
“If you want to,” Malloy said. “It’s just a block from their house.”
Malloy procured a cab for us, and after a harrowing trip through the crowded city streets, we found ourselves in a quiet neighborhood shaded with stately trees. The church was made of gray stone and boasted many stained glass windows. Inside, the dark wood gleamed brightly, and the altar was richly appointed. The congregation had been generous in their support. Still the building lacked the character of English churches, being only a few decades old, but in several hundred years or so, it might be considered a handsome example of some architectural period yet to be celebrated as classic. Malloy led us down a staircase to the basement and into a room where several partially filled barrels had been placed. Bundles of clothing were piled along one wall, and a table that had apparently been salvaged from a trash heap sat in the center of the room. Although it was likely used for sorting, it was bare now.
“She was sorting through the used clothing that people had donated for the missionaries,” Malloy explained, indicating the stacked bundles of clothing. “They collect things and send them overseas in the barrels.”
Holmes examined several of the bundles of clothing, then peered into the barrels, almost as if he expected to find Miss Penny hiding in one of them. But the barrels were only partially full, and not even a tiny child could have concealed herself in one of them for any length of time. “Is this the way they found the room after she disappeared, or did someone straighten it up afterwards?” he asked when had completed his inspection.
Malloy frowned. “This is how it looked when I got here. I don’t think anybody would’ve had time to do anything to it.”
Holmes nodded as if his answer held some mysterious secret meaning. “Does the basement have an entrance directly to the outside?”
Malloy led us down a dreary hallway to a door. It opened into the alley behind the church. Back gardens of the houses on the next street abutted the alley and were cluttered with ash cans and other refuse. People were passing by but not paying any particular attention to the three gentlemen who had just exited the church. They all seemed preoccupied with their own business and in a hurry to get somewhere else.
“What time of day did she disappear?” Holmes asked.
“In the morning, between nine o’clock and noon.”
“No one missed her all that time?” Holmes asked in surprise.
“She was supposed to be working in the church,” Malloy reminded him.
“Alone?”
“Her mother had come with her, but she got sick and went home. Miss Penny decided to stay.”
“Then let’s ask her mother about that, shall we?” Holmes said.
Malloy sighed in resignation and guided us down the alley toward the next street.
The church had provided a large, comfortable home for their minister. A young maid answered the door, an Irish girl who frowned at Malloy and actually glared her disapproval that two English gentlemen were invading her master’s home. She showed us into a formal parlor that was fairly choked with the heavy furniture and the multitudinous bric-a-brac that people considered fashionable nowadays. A well-dressed couple of middle years awaited us.
Malloy made the introductions, and I noted that the Reverend Mr. Penny appeared to be familiar with my friend’s reputation and expressed his heartfelt gratitude for our assistance. He was a well-groomed man of at least sixty, whose thick hair had gone a distinguished gray and whose middle had gone a bit soft.
Mrs. Penny had clearly been a beauty in her day and was still a handsome woman, although she was approximately the same age as her husband. She was practically enthralled by her visitors.
“Mr. Holmes, I understand Mr. Roosevelt himself has asked you to look into the matter of our poor daughter,” Mrs. Penny said, plainly gratified by the attention of such an important person as Theodore Roosevelt.
“Although the police have been more than diligent in their efforts, Mr. Roosevelt thought perhaps a stranger would have a fresh perspective,” Holmes quickly demurred, with a nod of recognition toward Mr. Malloy. Holmes never openly disparaged the police if he could help it, no matter how inept they might be. “Could you tell me about your daughter?”
“I’m not sure where to start,” Mrs. Penny said uncertainly.
“What would be helpful to you to know?” Penny asked.
“Tell me about your family,” Holmes invited. “Is she your only child?”
“Oh, no,” Mrs. Penny said. “Not at all. She is the youngest of five.”
“A surprise baby,” Penny added, but without a hint of embarrassment or even the delight that people often displayed when describing such an event. “She came along years after we thought our family was complete.”
“Which was fortunate,” Mrs. Penny hastened to explain. “My health began to fail shortly after her birth, and she has been such a comfort to me. I remember when she was only a child, she told me her fondest wish was to live with her Papa and me forever and to care for us in our old age.”
I could not help noting that in my professional opinion, Mrs. Penny looked remarkably well for a woman whose health had been failing for almost twenty-five years.
“Harriet is a beautiful girl,” Penny said, contradicting what Malloy had told us and earning a look of shocked disapproval from his wife. “Her beauty is inner, however,” he hastened to explain. “A beauty of the spirit.”
“All my other children are quite handsome,” Mrs. Penny wanted us to understand, implying that she should not be judged poorly because she had produced one child who failed to meet her standards. “But poor Harriet . . . So it was just as well she had no desire for marriage and a family.”
“She has a good heart, though,” Penny continued. “She kept up a voluminous correspondence with our missionary families and was always collecting things for them.”
“How did it happen that she was alone at the church on the day she disappeared?” Holmes asked.
“I went with her that morning, of course,” Mrs. Penny offered, almost defensively. “Just as we always do. We were sorting old clothes and packing them in barrels to send to the missionaries in foreign lands.”
“Yes, Mr. Malloy explained that.”
“But shortly after we arrived,” Mrs. Penny continued, “Harriet said to me, ‘Mama, I see that you aren’t feeling well today. Why don’t you return home and rest?’ Harriet was always very solicitous of my health.”
“So you left her there alone?” I could not help saying.
“Of course not!” Mrs. Penny exclaimed. “Mrs. Jenkins and Mrs. Smith were expected momentarily. She would have been alone for only a few minutes at most.”
“And when did these two ladies actually appear?” Holmes asked.
“Never,” Penny said before his wife could answer. “They did not come at all. There was some . . . some confusion about the day they were supposed to meet at the church.”
“They thought they were supposed to come the next day,” Malloy offered, as if to remind us this was his case and he was in command of all the facts.
“I will never forgive them for not being there,” Mrs. Penny declared. “If they had been, our daughter would still be with us. Oh, Mr. Holmes, do you think you can bring poor Harriet back to us?”
“I will certainly try to locate her,” Holmes said, being careful to promise nothing. “When you went to the church that morning, did you walk or take a carriage?”
“Oh, we always walk. It’s just a step over to the church.”
“Did Harriet bring anything with her?”
“A bundle of clothing. She had called on some of our neighbors to collect donations for the barrels. She was always thinking of others,” she added.
“Did you see her sort the clothes she brought with her?” Holmes asked.
Mrs. Penny frowned. “I don’t believe I did. We had hardly arrived at the church when Harriet suggested I return home, you see.”
“You said that Harriet had no desire for marriage and a family, but had any young man expressed an interest in courting her?” Holmes asked.
Mrs. Penny shook her head sadly. “Dear me, no, Mr. Holmes. Poor Harriet is very shy, and she lacks those . . . those characteristics that make a young lady attractive to young gentlemen.”
“And I am a clergyman, as you know,” Mr. Penny added. “So Harriet had no financial expectations that might have overcome her lack of beauty and charm in the minds of potential suitors.”
“Is it possible that in her entire life, no gentleman had ever so much as befriended her?” Holmes asked in astonishment.
Her parents exchanged a puzzled glance as they tried to recall and could not come up with a single candidate. I had begun to pity Miss Harriet Penny with all my heart.
When they failed to answer, Holmes said, “What sort of mood was Miss Penny in that morning?”
“Mood?” Penny asked, as if he were not familiar with the word.
“How strange you should ask,” Mrs. Penny said, obviously familiar with it. “She was quite cheerful that morning. I can’t recall the last time I saw her in such good spirits. Oh, wait, yes, I can. It was the time she beat Mr. Etheridge at chess.”
“Who is Mr. Etheridge?” Holmes asked with interest.
“He was a student from Princeton Seminary who served his internship at my church last year,” Penny said dismissively.
“He played chess with Harriet a few times while he was here. I believe he let her win,” Mrs. Penny confided. “Harriet was never very good at chess.”
“What became of Mr. Etheridge?”
“After he served his six months with us, he returned to the seminary.” Penny said. “We haven’t heard from him in almost a year.”
“And you are sure that Miss Penny had not made the acquaintance of any other gentlemen recently? Someone at your church, perhaps, who had befriended her of late?”
“Absolutely not,” Mrs. Penny said severely. “Harriet lived a quiet life. She did not go out in society like so many girls do today, and she had no interest in meeting gentlemen. As I told you, she had no wish to be married.”
“Yes, she had dedicated her life to your well-being,” Holmes re-called, and I must confess, I had to cough to keep from laughing out loud at his subtle sarcasm. Even Malloy had to rub his mouth to cover a smile.
The Pennys completely missed his barb.
“What could have become of her, Mr. Holmes?” Mrs. Penny asked with genuine concern. “Do you think—? I mean, the newspapers have said such horrible things.” She shuddered.
“I would not like to raise your hopes just yet, but I would be happy to look into the case, if I may.”
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Penny said eagerly. “Please do! Even if you learn the worst. Well, I can’t bear to think of life without her by my side.”
Holmes rose, and Malloy and I followed his lead. We took our leave of the Pennys, and the maid showed us to the door. “Are you a maid of all work here?” Holmes asked as she handed us our hats.
She stiffened, ready to take offense at whatever this Englishman might say to her. “Yes, sir, I am.”
“And did you serve Miss Penny?”
“I did, and a sweeter lady there never was.”
“Would you do me a favor and look through Miss Penny’s clothes?”
“Whatever for?” she asked, not sure if she should do his bidding or not.
“Just to see if you find anything unusual.”
“Do you mean if there’s anything missing?” the girl scoffed. “Nobody’s touched her things since she left that morning. I saw to that!”
“I believe you are mistaken,” Holmes said. “If you will check her things, you will discover something unexpected. We will most likely call again tomorrow, and you can report to me then what you have discovered.”
The girl frowned, obviously determined to show the Englishman he was wrong, and slammed the door a little too loudly behind us.
“I told you they wouldn’t be able to help,” Malloy reminded us.
“On the contrary, they were very helpful.”
“Are you saying you know where the girl is?”
“I believe I do,” Holmes said, shocking him. “I must return to my hotel and make some enquiries and send a telegram. As soon as I have received a reply, I will ask you to accompany us back to the manse to see the Pennys again.”
A skeptical Malloy left us to find our own way back to our hotel. Holmes used the hotel telephone to make one call. Then he sent a telegram, as he had told Malloy he would. Since the day was still young, Holmes insisted that we visit the Natural History Museum. Although I asked him about the case, he declined to discuss it until he had received the answer to his telegram. The reply came shortly after luncheon the next day, and Holmes sent a message to Malloy. We arrived at the Pennys’ home late that afternoon, with Holmes still refusing to enlighten Malloy or me until he had spoken with the Pennys.
The same maid admitted us, but today she treated Holmes with much more respect. She whispered a few words to him, her eyes wide with surprise over whatever news she was delivering. He nodded, as if he had expected to hear exactly what she told him, then allowed her to show us in to see the Pennys.
They were waiting for us in the crowded parlor again, their expressions expectant.
“Have you found her, Mr. Holmes?” Mrs. Penny demanded anxiously. “Is she all right? Will you bring her back to us?”
“Now, Mother, you mustn’t get your hopes up,” Penny cautioned her with a worried frown. “Even should Mr. Holmes succeed in returning her to us, she may no longer be the same girl she was, you know.”
“I believe I can guarantee she will not be,” Holmes said, startling a gasp from Mrs. Penny. “Although I am happy to tell you that your daughter is safe and in good health.”
“But where is she?” Mrs. Penny cried. “And why hasn’t she come home?”
“Because she left of her own free will and has no desire to return.”
This time both of Harriet Penny’s parents gasped. “That’s impossible!” her father exclaimed angrily. “We know her disappearance could not have been voluntary.”
“Not only was it voluntary, it was carefully planned. Shall I explain?”
“You had better, before I throw you out of my house!” Penny said, his handsome face mottled with fury.
“First of all, Miss Penny had arranged to be alone at the church that morning.”
“How could she have done that?” Mrs. Penny asked.
“She had told the other two ladies they were to meet the following day, thereby ensuring they would not be at the church that morning. Then she suggested to you, Mrs. Penny, that you should return home and spare yourself the unpleasant task of sorting old clothes. No doubt she knew you could be easily persuaded to do so.”
Mrs. Penny had no reply to this. She just stared at Holmes in silent outrage.
“When she was truly alone and unobserved, perhaps for one of the few times in her life, she left the church, walked to Union Station, and boarded a train for San Francisco.”
The Pennys both protested vigorously, and even Malloy had to disagree.
“Nobody saw her leave the church,” Malloy informed Holmes. “We asked everybody in the neighborhood.”
“What exactly did you ask them?” Holmes asked.
“If they had seen a young woman leaving the church with a man.”
“But she didn’t leave with a man, and she wasn’t forced or doing anything to call attention to herself. She would have walked calmly out and disappeared into the crowd. No one in that alley would have paid the slightest heed to her, just as they paid no heed to us yesterday.”
“My daughter would never have left her home and family, much less boarded a train to anywhere at all!” Penny insisted. “She would never have caused her mother and me so much concern!”
“And why would she go to San Francisco?” Mrs. Penny asked. “We don’t know anyone there at all!”
“Yes, you do. Mr. Etheridge lives in San Francisco. He accepted a call to a church there after he left Princeton.”
“Etheridge? How would Harriet have known he was there? And why would she even have cared?” her father scoffed.
“I believe Miss Penny had developed a fondness for Mr. Etheridge, and he for her.”
“Impossible!” Penny insisted.
“And they had corresponded in the months since he returned to the seminary.”
“I would have known if she was corresponding with anyone!” Mrs. Penny wailed.
“Mr. Penny himself told us she corresponded with missionaries,” Holmes reminded them. “She could have easily included her letters to Etheridge in those mailings and received replies in the same way.”
“But . . . ” Mrs. Penny cast about desperately for another argument to refute Holmes’s claims. “She couldn’t possibly have left voluntarily. She didn’t take so much as a hairpin with her!” she tried.
“You yourself told me she was carrying a bundle of clothing when you left the house that morning,” Holmes reminded her.
“Secondhand clothing,” Mrs. Penny explained. “She collected it from our neighbors. I saw it myself!”
“But you told me you didn’t see her sorting the clothes in that particular bundle. Would you ring for your maid, please?”
Startled at the seemingly incongruous request, Penny pulled the bell rope. The maid appeared almost instantly, her eyes still wide with amazement.
“Before we left yesterday,” Holmes said, “I asked your maid to go through Miss Penny’s clothing to see if anything was missing. Were her drawers empty?” he asked the girl.
“No, sir, they were all full, just like they should be.”
“You see,” Mrs. Penny said. “I told you!”
“Did you notice anything unusual?” Holmes asked the girl, ignoring Mrs. Penny.
“Yes, sir,” the maid said, nodding her head vigorously. “None of the clothes in the drawers was hers!”
“Whose were they?” Holmes asked.
“I don’t know,” the girl said, “but they was all raggedy and old, like something you’d throw out.”
“Or send to the missionaries in foreign lands,” Holmes said.
“What are you talking about?” Mrs. Penny cried.
“Miss Penny had packed her belongings in the bundle that was supposed to be clothing for the missionaries and left the old clothing she had collected in her drawers. I am guessing she had secreted a carpetbag in the church at some time in preparation. When you left the church that morning, she put her own belongings that she had carried from home into it, and took it with her to the train. Then she used the ticket Mr. Etheridge had sent her and went to join him.”
“This is all conjecture,” Mrs. Penny exclaimed, her face now crimson with outrage. “I refuse to believe a word of it.”
But Mr. Penny had calmed down a bit, and he was studying Holmes with a contemplative frown. “I believe, Mr. Holmes, that you have concocted this wild tale with the best of intentions, to reassure Mrs. Penny and myself that our daughter is safe on the other side of the country when you really believe her to be a fallen woman held captive someplace where we will never find her. If this is the case, I assure you, we are strong enough to hear the truth, whatever it may be.”
Mrs. Penny’s cry of anguish proved she wasn’t as strong as her husband claimed, but Holmes ignored her. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the telegram he had received earlier today. “I took the liberty of telephoning Princeton Seminary yesterday. They were kind enough to give me Mr. Etheridge’s direction in San Francisco, and I sent him a telegram informing him that Miss Penny’s disappearance had caused a sensation in New York. He was completely ignorant of this unfortunate development. Most probably he and Miss Penny felt certain no one but her parents would even notice she was gone. Under the circumstances, they wish you to know that your daughter and Mr. Etheridge were married three days ago in San Francisco. I believe congratulations are in order.”
Holmes held out the telegram, and Malloy snatched it from him before the Reverend Mr. Penny could gather his wits.
“It’s true,” the detective confirmed when he had scanned it.
“The ungrateful baggage,” Penny snapped. “How dare she be so selfish? Frightening her mother and me so terribly and all for her own purposes!”
“Why, she asked me only a few weeks ago what I would say if someone wanted to marry her,” Mrs. Penny recalled furiously. “I told her not to be ridiculous, that no one was going to marry her, and besides, her duty was to care for her father and me. Yet still she chose to desert us!”
“I’ve got some friends at the newspapers,” Malloy said. “I’ll give them the word. The real story will be in tomorrow’s papers, and that should calm the city down again.”
“You should also put an announcement of the marriage in the society pages,” Holmes suggested. “To at least give the illusion that you approve the match. That will go a long way to stopping the gossip.”
We left the Pennys still in shock at the treachery of the daughter they had believed to be without a mind or spirit of her own.
“Who would’ve believed Harriet Penny had so much gumption? How did you figure it out?” Malloy asked as we strolled down the tree-lined street in search of a cab. It was as close as he would come to complimenting Holmes.
“When you told me Miss Penny was as plain as an old boot,” Holmes recalled with a small smile, “I wondered why one of those young men who work for the madams . . . What did you call them?”
“Cadets,” Malloy supplied.
“I wondered why a cadet would select such an unattractive girl—who was already a bit old for the trade, by the way—when the city abounds with much more likely prospects. So the theory that she had been kidnapped to a brothel seemed unlikely. As I mentioned, when a young woman disappears, there is usually a man or a theater troupe involved. Since the minister’s missing daughter never attended the theater, I simply had to identify the man, no matter how unlikely a candidate he might seem.”
“She was clever,” Malloy said.
“She had to be to escape from those two,” Holmes said.
But not more clever than Sherlock Holmes.