Read Online The Case of the Missing Marquess by Nancy Springer - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Nancy Springer
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railway station, miss.”
“There is plenty of time. You can have a pint at the public house while you’re waiting for me.”
“Oh! Aye.” He turned the horse, backtracked, and drew up at the door of the chapel. We sat for a moment before he remembered his manners, but then he secured the reins, got down, and came around to my side to help me descend.
“Thank you,” I told him as I withdrew my gloved hand from his grubby fist. “Come back for me in ten minutes.”
Nonsense; I knew he’d be half an hour or more in the public house.
“Yes, miss.” He touched his cap.
He drove away, and amid a swirl of skirts I minced into the chapel.
As I had expected and hoped, I found it unoccupied. After scanning the empty pews, I grinned, tossed my parasol into the castoff-clothing-for-the-poor box, hoisted my skirts above my knees, and dashed for the back door.
And out into the sunlit graveyard.
Down a twisting path worn between the tottering headstones I ran, keeping the chapel between me and any witness who might be passing upon the village street. When I reached the hedge at the bottom of the chapel grounds, I leapt more than climbed the stile, turned right, ran a bit farther, and yes, indeed, yes! There waited my bicycle, hidden in the hedge, where I had left it yesterday. Or rather, yesternight. In the small hours, by the light of a nearly full moon.
On the bicycle were mounted two containers, a basket in front and a box in back, both packed full of sandwiches, pickles, hard-boiled eggs, water flask, bandaging in case of accident, tyre repair kit, knickerbockers, my comfortable old black boots, toothbrush, and such.
On my person, also, were mounted two containers, hidden beneath the taupe suit, one in front and one in back. The one in front was a quite unique bust enhancer that I had secretly hand-sewn for myself out of materials purloined from Mum’s wardrobe. For the container in back, I had devised a dress improver of like sort.
Why, leaving home, had my mother worn a bustle, yet left its horsehair stuffing behind?
The answer seemed obvious to me: in order to conceal in the dress improver’s place the baggage necessary for running away.
And I, being blessed with a flat chest, had carried her example a step further. My various and proper regulators, enhancers, and improvers remained in Ferndell Hall—stuffed up my chimney, actually. In their places upon my person I wore cloth containers—baggage, in effect—filled with unmentionables wrapped around bundles of bank notes. In addition, I had folded a carefully chosen spare dress and secured it to my back between my petticoats, where it perfectly filled my train. In the pockets of my suit I had a handkerchief, a cake of soap, comb and hairbrush, my now-precious booklet of ciphers, smelling salts, energy-sustaining candies . . . indeed, I bore a steamer trunk’s worth of essentials.
Hopping onto my bicycle, letting my petticoats and skirts modestly drape my ankles, I pedalled off across country.
A good cyclist does not need a road. I would follow the farm lanes and pasturelands for the time being. The ground was baked hard as iron; I would leave no tracks.
By tomorrow, I imagined, my brother the great detective Sherlock Holmes would be attempting to locate a missing sister as well as a missing mother.
He would expect me to flee from him. Therefore, I would not. I would flee towards him.
He lived in London. So did Mycroft. On that account, and also because it was the world’s largest and most dangerous city, it was the last place on earth either of them would expect me to venture.
Therefore, I would go there.
They would expect me to disguise myself as a boy. Very likely they had heard about my knickerbockers, and anyway, in Shakespeare and other works of fiction, runaway girls always disguised themselves as boys.
Therefore, I would not.
I would disguise myself as the last thing my brothers would think I could, having met me as a plain beanpole of a
“There is plenty of time. You can have a pint at the public house while you’re waiting for me.”
“Oh! Aye.” He turned the horse, backtracked, and drew up at the door of the chapel. We sat for a moment before he remembered his manners, but then he secured the reins, got down, and came around to my side to help me descend.
“Thank you,” I told him as I withdrew my gloved hand from his grubby fist. “Come back for me in ten minutes.”
Nonsense; I knew he’d be half an hour or more in the public house.
“Yes, miss.” He touched his cap.
He drove away, and amid a swirl of skirts I minced into the chapel.
As I had expected and hoped, I found it unoccupied. After scanning the empty pews, I grinned, tossed my parasol into the castoff-clothing-for-the-poor box, hoisted my skirts above my knees, and dashed for the back door.
And out into the sunlit graveyard.
Down a twisting path worn between the tottering headstones I ran, keeping the chapel between me and any witness who might be passing upon the village street. When I reached the hedge at the bottom of the chapel grounds, I leapt more than climbed the stile, turned right, ran a bit farther, and yes, indeed, yes! There waited my bicycle, hidden in the hedge, where I had left it yesterday. Or rather, yesternight. In the small hours, by the light of a nearly full moon.
On the bicycle were mounted two containers, a basket in front and a box in back, both packed full of sandwiches, pickles, hard-boiled eggs, water flask, bandaging in case of accident, tyre repair kit, knickerbockers, my comfortable old black boots, toothbrush, and such.
On my person, also, were mounted two containers, hidden beneath the taupe suit, one in front and one in back. The one in front was a quite unique bust enhancer that I had secretly hand-sewn for myself out of materials purloined from Mum’s wardrobe. For the container in back, I had devised a dress improver of like sort.
Why, leaving home, had my mother worn a bustle, yet left its horsehair stuffing behind?
The answer seemed obvious to me: in order to conceal in the dress improver’s place the baggage necessary for running away.
And I, being blessed with a flat chest, had carried her example a step further. My various and proper regulators, enhancers, and improvers remained in Ferndell Hall—stuffed up my chimney, actually. In their places upon my person I wore cloth containers—baggage, in effect—filled with unmentionables wrapped around bundles of bank notes. In addition, I had folded a carefully chosen spare dress and secured it to my back between my petticoats, where it perfectly filled my train. In the pockets of my suit I had a handkerchief, a cake of soap, comb and hairbrush, my now-precious booklet of ciphers, smelling salts, energy-sustaining candies . . . indeed, I bore a steamer trunk’s worth of essentials.
Hopping onto my bicycle, letting my petticoats and skirts modestly drape my ankles, I pedalled off across country.
A good cyclist does not need a road. I would follow the farm lanes and pasturelands for the time being. The ground was baked hard as iron; I would leave no tracks.
By tomorrow, I imagined, my brother the great detective Sherlock Holmes would be attempting to locate a missing sister as well as a missing mother.
He would expect me to flee from him. Therefore, I would not. I would flee towards him.
He lived in London. So did Mycroft. On that account, and also because it was the world’s largest and most dangerous city, it was the last place on earth either of them would expect me to venture.
Therefore, I would go there.
They would expect me to disguise myself as a boy. Very likely they had heard about my knickerbockers, and anyway, in Shakespeare and other works of fiction, runaway girls always disguised themselves as boys.
Therefore, I would not.
I would disguise myself as the last thing my brothers would think I could, having met me as a plain beanpole of a
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