The Case of the Stolen Sixpence by Holly Webb

Author:Holly Webb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Alfred shook his head. “Nope. New one now, called Reg.”

“What happened to George?” Maisie asked aloud.

“Caught stealing,” the young man said shortly, glancing around at Mr. Harrowby, who was still smiling and bowing at the smart lady. Perhaps they weren’t supposed to talk about it.

“Oh! What did he steal? Meat?” Maisie widened her eyes, and tried to look as though she didn’t already know.

“The money kept coming up short at the end of the day, see.” Alfred was frowning. “We write it all down in a ledger—Sal does that, mostly, don’t you, Sal?” He nodded to the pretty girl sitting at a tall desk behind him, who was putting down the details of Maisie’s purchases on Gran’s account. “Little bits of money missing, here and there. Never much. Adds up, though. My uncle decided to put a stop to it.”

His uncle . . . Maisie reminded herself to write that into her little notebook. George had said that one of the assistants was the butcher’s nephew. He wouldn’t be likely to steal from family, would he? And she was sure she’d heard Gran mention Mr. Harrowby’s nephew before—she’d complained that he wasn’t polite enough for someone who was going to own the shop one day.

Maisie eyed Alfred thoughtfully. There was a shiny watch chain looping across his waistcoat, underneath his butcher’s apron. And he was growing a mustache with curly ends—it was nearly as big as his uncle’s. He didn’t look as though he was desperate enough to borrow from the cash box. Unless, of course, he’d bought the watch with stolen money . . .

“But how did he know it was George?” Maisie asked.

Alfred frowned at her. “Ever so interested, aren’t you? Because it was, all right? Certainly wasn’t me, or Frank, or Sal!”

Frank? He must be the other assistant, Maisie thought to herself. She shrugged. “But he didn’t ever seem like a thief when I knew him,” she persisted, smiling sweetly as she put the steak and kidney in her basket. And with that, she left the shop.

Both Sally and Alfred were staring after her as she untied Eddie and hurried away, the young man standing at the door of the shop and Sally peering out of the window. Is that suspicious? Maisie wondered. But it couldn’t be both of them, surely . . .

She stopped once she rounded the corner and took a deep, gulping breath. Detecting was harder than she’d thought it would be. People just didn’t want to tell you things.

Leaning against the wall, she pulled out her notebook and sucked the end of her pencil thoughtfully.

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