Free The Riddle of the River by Catherine Shaw

thing.’
    ‘Interesting,’ I said. ‘It might be true, I suppose, although he did buy the girl a bracelet. But what’s a bracelet? Still, the impression of the shopgirl from Robert Sayle’s was definitely that she was a kept woman. How much does it cost to keep a woman, I wonder?’
    ‘Vanessa – what a question!’ said Arthur.
    ‘A lot, if you have to pay rent,’ said Pat pragmatically. ‘But let’s get back to the point. This man obviously knew the girl well enough, kept or not. Now we know who he is, but we don’t know who she is, or was. So what are you going to do about it?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘I was rather stuck on that point. I wish we could just ask him. What I was thinking of doing was asking Mrs Burke-Jones if she knows him. I might be able to become acquainted with him through her. She moves in quite good circles, and given that her brother is a don, she has managed to surround herself with a rare social mixture of town and gown. She might easily have met our Mr Archer somewhere.’
    ‘But that could take days,’ he said, echoing my own thoughts, ‘and even when you do meet him, how on earth can you ask the question? You can’t just go up and say ‘‘What was the name of that girl you bought the bracelet for?” No, I have a better idea. How about if I do it? I can get at him easily. I’ll interview him!’
    I kept silent about the vague thought that was tickling the back of my mind. If the dead girl was one and the same as the actress Ivy Elliott – and if I simply brought the conversation round to theatre and mentioned how much I admired her, might he not be led to react? No, but I couldn’t mention the idea to Pat yet, it was too silly; I should make a fool of myself. Ivy Elliott was very likely the bewigged Titania.
    ‘But you’ll have the same problem as me,’ I said instead. ‘If you pretend to be interviewing him for some newspaper business or other, then you can hardly bring up facts from his personal life.’
    ‘I’ll take care of it, leave it to me. I’ll think of something,’ he said confidently, already on his way out of the door. I felt a little envious. Being a real journalist is a fantastic cover for a little detective work. Simply going up and ringing Mr Archer’s bell and asking to speak to him was admittedly a legitimate possibility under such circumstances. It was not obvious that he would succeed, but the chance was there. And he ought to have the best chance possible.
    ‘Pat!’ I called impulsively, as he was already disappearing down the path to the gate. ‘Pat, listen. This may be all wrong – this may be wrong and simply silly, but – I just have a hunch that the dead girl might have been an actress. Perhaps it might give you an idea about how to talk to him. And another thing, Pat – please take this back! I don’t need it any longer.’ And I thrust the Chinese Bracelet into his hand, and latched the gate behind him.

1887
    They gathered them together, sisters, brothers and cousins, and swearing them all to secrecy, made them pray for rain every day. Weeks went by before the longed-for black cloud was perceived on the horizon. And then the grown-ups could not understand why the youngsters were so tumultuous and so excited – not only were they not annoyed at being penned inside the house by the downpour, but they were all crowded together in Guglielmo’s room, and they didn’t even seem to be talking, except for bursts of whispers and hushes.
    The grown-ups didn’t even hear the tinkle of the tiny bell. But they heard the burst of applause and the children’s screams of joy.

Saturday, July 2nd, 1898
    Even though I knew that Pat had an advantage over me, and that he might be speaking to Mr Archer at that very moment, I could not resist taking myself off, yesterday, to pay a call on Mrs Burke-Jones. In order not to seem too goal-directed, I brought Cecily with me, proudly dressed in her best with new patent leather shoes on her