We were escorted upstairs by the young servant. Holmes paused in the hallway at the entrance to the missing girl’s sitting-room, and beyond it, her bedroom. He glanced across the hall to what looked like a similar suite, but this one with a closed door leading into the bedroom. ‘Her sister’s rooms?’ Holmes asked the girl.
‘Yes. Miss Atalanta.’
‘Older?’
‘By two years. Atalanta is twenty.’
We next entered Dillie’s sitting-room, and we passed through to her bedroom. It was a large, airy room, with windows on two walls, the leaves of a large plane tree next to the window providing a lacy screen through which another grove of trees was visible at some distance. Behind that, the beautiful Cam glittered in the bright morning sun. The furniture including the canopy bed was all in white, and the bed was made up. On it sat several dolls, with a vacancy where the drowned doll must have resided.
Holmes’s magnifying glass was out, and he began his typically minute examination of the room. He started with the windows, opening each in turn and examining the sills. As I waited for him to do this, I perused the bookshelves. In addition to Greek and Roman history volumes, which I assumed had been influenced by her famous father, there were the usual Jane Austen, George Eliot and Dickens. But there were also two colourful rows of novels and poetry I did not recognize, presumably aimed at young ladies. They had titles such as Penelope’s Terrible Surprise, The Tragedy of Annie LaMonte and Faded Blossoms.
I looked idly at Dillie’s dressing table. It was impeccably neat. In fact, the entire room was.
Holmes asked the maid for a glass of water, then as soon as she was gone he went through the bookshelves like an automaton, stopping to study the colourful collection of girls’ novels. He examined one or two, opened one, lingered upon it briefly, then pocketed it. From another pocket he retrieved a small notebook and silver pencil and made some notes.
He then looked under the bed, examined the carpet, and inside the closet. He was looking through the lady’s shoes when the maid returned.
‘Holmes,’ I signalled.
He looked up and smiled at the nervous girl. ‘Ah, my water. Please come in and tell us your name,’ said he.
‘Polly,’ said the maid with a slight curtsy. She served him a glass from a silver tray. She was a fresh-faced girl of perhaps sixteen, with red hair tucked away in a neat knot under her maid’s cap, freckled hands clenched nervously before her.
‘I am Sherlock Holmes, and this is Dr Watson. You are a ladies’ maid, then?’
‘Yes, sir. For Miss Odelia and Miss Atalanta.’
I noticed the girl’s distinct discomfort. ‘You may be wondering why we are here,’ I said. ‘Miss Odelia’s doll was found in the Jesus Lock, Polly. We are concerned for her safety, and we hope to discover something that will help us find her.’
The girl nodded.
Holmes, in his usual manner, leapt in. ‘I understand that your Dillie, er, Miss Odelia, disappears on a regular basis?’ said he.
‘I wouldn’t say “regular”, sir, but yes, she has done so before.’
Holmes moved to Miss Wyndham’s dressing table. ‘Where is her hairbrush? Something to clean her teeth? Pomade? Powder? A number of personal items one expects to see are missing from this table, are they not?’
The maid remained silent.
Holmes scanned the room. ‘There is no sign of violence here. She was not abducted; she packed to go somewhere,’ said Holmes. ‘That is a good sign. Might she have taken the doll with her?’
‘No, sir. She never liked that doll, sir.’
Holmes looked up sharply at her. ‘Then the doll was still here on Monday?’
The girl nodded.
‘When did you notice it gone?’
‘Er … Tuesday, sir.’
‘When exactly?’
‘Night. Nine-thirty, sir.’
‘What were you doing in her room on Tuesday night?’
The girl shifted uncomfortably. ‘I often checks all the rooms, sir, afore I goes to bed. To make sure no lights are left lit. Close the windows.’
‘What did you do when you discovered the doll missing?’
‘I felt sick. Somebody were in the room. Secret, like. I was scared.’
‘Perhaps Dillie herself returned for her doll?’
‘No, sir. Like I said.’ A shy smile. ‘It’s her mother likes dolls, not Miss Odelia.’
Holmes shrugged. ‘But anyone could come in. What about her sister? Or Mrs Wyndham? Why did you not first think of a family member?’
The girl hesitated. ‘That window.’ She pointed to the largest, adjacent to the tree.
‘It was open?’
‘Yes, a little.’
‘But not when you tidied the room earlier?’
‘No, sir.’
Holmes moved to the window, examined the lock, opened, shut it. He stood motionless for a few seconds, then turned back to the girl with that piercing stare that intimidated all who encountered it.
‘And what of yesterday? When Deacon Buttons arrived at this house with the drowned and dismembered doll. What time was that, I forget?’
Of course, Holmes forgot nothing. The girl hesitated. He did not take his eyes from her.
‘Nine, or so,’ said she.
‘Mrs Wyndham did not hear of the doll until ten-thirty,’ he said. ‘Where were you in the hour and a half between Deacon Buttons arriving with it, and when her parents were informed?’
The girl froze, eyes wide.
Holmes sighed, then made an effort to soften his approach. His voice took on a gentler tone. ‘You were not worried about Dillie before this, Polly?’
‘N-not really, sir.’
‘Young lady, I believe you know more than you are telling us. This doll is disturbing. Your mistress may now be in danger. I suggest that you know where she is hiding, and between nine, when the drowned doll showed up here with the deacon, and ten-thirty, when the Wyndhams were informed, you went to see if she was all right. And you took the doll with you so that Deacon Buttons could not alert the parents just yet. But she was not there, and you became worried. You then returned to the house and alerted her mother. Have I got that right?’
The girl was preternaturally still, like a small wild animal that wishes to be invisible.
‘I take that as a yes. How is it that Deacon Buttons allowed you to run off with the doll?’
‘I just did it, afore he could stop me. He found me on the way back though. He offered to escort me through the streets, so as I would not get caught again, and—’
‘Caught?’
The girl looked down and blushed.
‘Caught by whom?’
She hesitated. Then, ‘The proctor’s men.’
‘Oh, yes, of course, I had forgotten,’ said Holmes.
At my puzzled look, Holmes explained. ‘There is a kind of private police force run by proctors from the University. In the interest of keeping “moral order”, they arrest random young women seen to be consorting with students after curfew. An indiscriminate sweep, I am told. Many are shopgirls, servants, innocent working girls. They hold them without charges in private prison called the Spinning House.’
And in our modern times! I thought. What an outrage.
‘That could be dangerous,’ continued Holmes. ‘Have you been stopped before, Polly? Perhaps on an errand for your mistress?’
Polly nodded and looked down, ashamed. ‘’Tweren’t her fault, sir. I was stupid. I stopped to ask directions and a young man … he … he started to show me the way, and I were arrested.’ The trembling increased, and a tear escaped her eye and ran down her face. She swiped it away. ‘It was a close one, sir. I was let off with a warnin’.’
I wanted to know more of these ‘proctor’s men’, but Holmes pressed on.
‘That was fortunate. Yet you risked another arrest last night? Why did you go alone to your mistress?’
‘Miss Odelia, she wanted Mr Buttons not to know where she was.’
‘I see,’ he said. ‘That was brave of you. Polly, your mistress may be in a bit of trouble.’
The maid looked at her feet and refused to reply.
‘Help us to help her,’ Holmes whispered.
Polly stole a glance up at him. It was telling, even to my eyes.
‘Hello,’ came a low-pitched, female voice from the doorway.