The Missing Maid by Holly Hepburn

Author:Holly Hepburn [Hepburn, Holly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boldwood Books

9

To his credit, Oliver did not laugh. Harry hadn’t wanted to relive the moment Mr Pemberton had first advanced on her as she’d been placing some documents for signature on his desk. She spared Oliver most of the detail but the memory of hot, fetid breath on her neck as her employer had loomed behind her had made the windscreen of Oliver’s car swim out of focus for a moment. She could still feel the sudden panic as Mr Pemberton’s arms had encircled her, the slick warmth of his moist moustache as it swamped her mouth in a clumsy, unwanted kiss. Most of all, she remembered the soft crunch as her knee rose up to drive into his groin, and the agonised howl of pain as he crumpled to the floor.

Harry hadn’t waited for him to get up. Stiffly, almost robotically, she’d gathered up the unsigned papers and taken them back to her desk, where she’d continued with her work as though nothing had happened. The next morning, she had found herself reassigned to the post room.

Oliver’s expression hardened into fury at her description but he didn’t interrupt, not when Harry went on to explain her well-meaning deception of the Longstaffs, nor when she described her visit to Mrs Haverford’s, and not even when she revealed the circumstances of her journey to Tea Cutter Row. He listened in attentive silence as he drove her home, refraining from asking even the simplest of questions even though she knew he must be bursting with them. And when she had finished, he didn’t speak for several long minutes. ‘I don’t know whether to congratulate you or have you arrested,’ he said at last, shaking his head. ‘Secretary to Sherlock Holmes indeed. I’m almost jealous.’

‘Don’t be,’ Harry said. ‘You should read some of the things people demand of him. There’s at least one work of fiction in them and probably several.’

‘I can imagine,’ Oliver said dryly. He glanced briefly across at her. ‘You know, I’m surprised and somehow not surprised at the same time. I knew there was more to your interest in Mildred Longstaff than you were telling me but I would never in a million years have guessed what it was.’

Harry smiled but something he had said earlier was troubling her. ‘You don’t really think I’m doing something illegal, do you?’

Oliver considered the question. ‘I don’t think so, no. You aren’t taking payment so you’re not obtaining money under false pretences, and you aren’t impersonating a real person, or even a fictional one since you’ve invented your own pen name under which to investigate.’ He paused to navigate a tricky junction. ‘The bank might take a dim view of things if they ever find out but I don’t suppose you’re going to tell them and I imagine you’ve sworn the Longstaffs to secrecy as a condition of investigating.’

She hadn’t, Harry realised with a flush of mortification, and made a mental note to rectify that as soon as she was able. ‘Mmmm,’ she said noncommittally.

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