Guy tried to call Lord Redesdale at Swinbrook House, where according to the directory they now lived (they’d moved, then, since he’d last seen them all, and he was rather sorrowful for a second; Asthall Manor had been his idea of the perfect country house, all pale grey stones and rolling fields around). It was the housekeeper, Mrs Windsor, who answered. She recognized Guy, and hadn’t hesitated when he asked if there was a forwarding address for Louisa. So perhaps his letters had been forwarded on and Louisa hadn’t replied. He wasn’t sure if that made him feel better or worse.
‘She’s in Paris, accompanying Mr and Mrs Guinness on their honeymoon,’ said Mrs Windsor. ‘They’re expected to stay a few weeks. If you have a pencil, I can give you the address there?’ Guy took it down – 12 rue de Poitiers – and before he could finish thanking her, she had rung off. Guy tucked the piece of paper in his pocket and told himself to forget about it.
A few days after Mary had urged Guy on, and having made the necessary arrangements, the two of them went to 11 Wilton Crescent to interview Lucy, the maid who had worked with Rose Morgan. It was only a short walk from the station and the street was typically grand, with a wide curve of cream-painted houses, each front door glossy black, with perfectly polished and buffed Bentleys and Rolls-Royces parked outside. ‘I wouldn’t leave if this was where I was living,’ said Mary as they approached the front door.
‘Depends on the promise of what you thought you might get instead, doesn’t it?’ countered Guy.
They knocked and the door was answered quickly by a butler, keen to shoo them inside. He muttered something about the reputation of the house with the police turning up and hurried them below stairs to his office, where they waited while he looked for Lucy. Guy and Mary took in their surroundings but there was nothing out of the ordinary; a sparsely furnished room that somehow did not invite them to sit down on the two available chairs and make themselves feel at home. Before the butler had returned, however, a young girl of about twelve, with long hair tied back in a ribbon and wearing a dress with a sailor’s collar, came in unaccompanied. She greeted them with a handshake and a serious look on her face that made Guy feel rather sad for her somehow.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m Muriel Delaney. I know I ought to wait to be introduced but Jones is looking for Lucy and I know you’re looking for Rose. Have you found her? Have you good news?’
Mary stepped forward and shook her hand. ‘Hello, Miss Delaney. I’m Constable Conlon but you may call me Mary. I’m very sorry to tell you that we have no news of Rose but we are still looking for her. That’s why we’re here to talk to Lucy, in case she might have remembered something that could be useful to us.’
Muriel nodded but her face dropped and tears welled in her eyes. She blinked them back. ‘I don’t understand why no one has talked to me,’ she burst out passionately. ‘Rose was my best friend.’
Mary and Guy exchanged a look. He took a step backwards.
‘You may talk to me now. We’d be very interested to know any thoughts you may have.’ Mary smiled at her warmly.
‘Are your parents here?’ Guy felt he ought to check that everything was in order; he had telephoned earlier to arrange the appointment with Lucy so the family should know the police were coming.
‘We lost Father last year,’ said Muriel. ‘Mother is resting upstairs. She often rests at this time. It’s quite all right, Jones will let her know you are here.’
She gave Guy a sidelong glance and edged closer to Mary. ‘You’re taking the female perspective, are you?’
Mary placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder. ‘Yes, you’re quite right. That’s exactly it.’
‘My governess was a suffragette,’ said Muriel. ‘She’s been teaching me all about it.’
‘Shall we sit down?’ said Mary, pulling a chair around from one side of the butler’s desk, so that they could sit together.
Guy took this as his cue to move to the window, where he stood looking out of it with his hands in his pockets, trying as much as possible not to appear to be listening in. Of course, he heard every word.
Mary took out her pocketbook and a pencil, and the girl looked pleased at this. She was being taken seriously.
‘When did you last see Rose?’
‘Before she went to the party. She had been lent out by Mother. It gave Rose a bit of extra money, you see, and that was good for our…’ She stopped.
‘For your what?’ Mary spoke softly.
Muriel was silent.
‘Miss Muriel, did she tell you where she was going?’ There was a silence. Guy did not dare to turn around.
Mary tried again. ‘Rose has been missing for a long time now, and nobody has heard from her. We’re worried, as you can imagine. But that doesn’t mean we don’t think we can find her and help her, if she needs it. Is there anything at all she said to you that might have indicated where she was going?’
Muriel spoke in a small voice. ‘She was going to catch the train to Dover.’
‘Dover. That’s where the ferries go to France. Was she planning on a trip to France?’
‘I don’t know why she didn’t take me with her,’ Muriel burst out. ‘We were going to set up our own dance show together, in Paris. Rose and Lily Leaf, we were going to be called. We’d been practising our steps for ages. But then she left me behind. And now I’m here. On my own.’
Mary comforted Muriel. Guy was impressed. She’d been right, he couldn’t have interviewed the child in the same way. ‘Was there any particular reason for going to Paris?’ she asked. ‘Do you know if Rose was going to meet anybody there? A boyfriend perhaps?’
There was a loud sniff. ‘No, it was just going to be us. My aunt married a dressmaker over there, he’s got a shop. I thought we could go and see her. I knew we could count on her to keep our secret. She’s an adventuress, you see.’ Guy could hear a hint of pride in the girl’s voice.
‘Can you remember his name, Muriel?’
Her big eyes blinked. ‘No, I can’t. It was something beginning with M, I think. Rose wrote it down.’ She looked as if she might burst into sobs.
‘That’s very helpful, thank you,’ said Mary, quick to reassure her.
‘I was teaching Rose how to read and write, as well as a bit of French,’ volunteered the girl. ‘She didn’t get much schooling when she was growing up, she said. She mostly had to help out on the farm.’
‘Ah, I see. I can tell you’re a very clever girl, Muriel.’ Guy didn’t look but he knew the girl would be basking in Mary’s praise. Muriel didn’t have the air of a child who was told very often how clever she was.
‘There’s something I want to ask you and I would like you to think very carefully for me, because I think this could help us to understand better what has happened. Do you know of any reason why Rose would leave without telling anyone where she was going, or letting her family know that she was safe?’
Muriel said nothing.
Mary’s voice got a little lower, a little warmer. ‘I think the two of you were great friends. And I promise she won’t be cross with you for telling us anything that was said secretly between you before, because we need to be sure she’s absolutely well and safe, you see.’
Muriel shook her head. ‘No, there was a man used to come here that she said she didn’t like … But I don’t understand why she didn’t come back here to see me, before she left. She never said goodbye. She went to work at the other place and that was the last time I saw her.’ Tears came down her cheeks and she wiped them away furiously with the flat of her hand.
‘Thank you, Muriel, you’ve been invaluable. When we find Rose, I know she’s going to be very grateful to you.’
‘Do you think she’ll come back to me?’ The loneliness caught in the girl’s throat as she spoke.
‘I’m sure that she will if she can,’ said Mary encouragingly. ‘We’ll certainly let her know that you would like to see her. She’s probably been worried that you might be cross with her, for leaving you behind.’
‘If you see her, tell her I’m not cross. Tell her I want her to come back,’ said Muriel.
Guy turned around then and walked back. ‘We’ll be off now,’ he said and shook hands solemnly with the young girl again. ‘Thank you, miss. Most sincerely.’
After the girl had left the room, Lucy had been brought in but even with Mary’s gentle questioning she had had nothing further to add, other than to confirm that Rose had been apparently learning French, and that her sudden departure had been surprising. Now they knew this tallied with Muriel’s account of her plan with the maid, it seemed that Paris was the place to go if Rose was to be found.
Guy remembered the piece of paper in his pocket with the scribbled address of where Louisa was staying in Paris. Was that what his mother would call ‘a sign’? He wondered if he would – or should – try to look her up when he was there. The thought of Sinéad caused a thickness in his throat. But deeper inside him he could feel the pull on his heart from a thread that only Louisa held.