Free The Case of the Missing Marquess by Nancy Springer Page A

with my corset barely tightened at all; indeed, no corset would have been necessary if it were not to support my improvised baggage in the necessary areas. What I’d packed on the bicycle I now carried in the carpet-bag or in my pockets. Disliking to dangle a reticule, my mother had provided all her dresses with ample pockets for handkerchief, lemon drops, shillings and pence, et cetera. Blessings be upon the stubbornly independent head of my mother, who was also the one who had taught me to ride a bicycle. I regretted having to abandon that faithful mechanical steed to the beech woods, but I most certainly did not regret abandoning my ugly taupe suit.
    In the grey half-light of daybreak, I stole downhill along a hedge to a lane. Very stiff from yesterday’s exertions, I realised that my aches and pains were actually a blessing: they forced me to walk slowly. Thus, at a ladylike gait in keeping with my disguise, I made my way along the lane to a gravelled road, and so into the town.
    Dawn had progressed to a dull sunrise, threatening rain. Shopkeepers were just opening their shutters, the ice-man was hitching up his sway-backed nag to make his rounds, a yawning maid threw a bucket of something unspeakable into the gutter, a ragged woman swept a street crossing. Newsboys heaved stacks of the morning edition towards the curb. A match-seller sitting at a corner—a beggar, really—cried, “Let there be light; a match for the gentleman?” Some of those who passed by were indeed gentlemen in top-hats, others workmen in flannels and caps, yet others nearly as ragged as himself, but he cried “gentleman” to them all. He made no attempt to sell a match to me, of course, for ladies did not smoke.
    BELVIDERE TONSORIUM declared gold letters painted on the glass of a door beside a red-and-white spiral-striped pole. Ah, I had heard of a town called Belvidere, satisfactorily distant from Kineford. Looking about me, I saw SAVINGS BANK OF BELVIDERE carved upon the stone lintel of a stately building nearby. Very good; I had achieved my goal. Well done, I thought, picking my way between horse droppings, for a mere girl of limited cranial capacity.
    “Onions, potatoes, parsnips!” called a man pushing a barrow.
    “Fresh carnation for the gent’s buttonhole!” cried a shawled woman offering flowers from a basket.
    “Shocking kidnapping! Read all about it!” bellowed a newsboy.
    Kidnapping?
    “Viscount Tewksbury snatched from Basilwether Hall!”
    I did indeed want to read all about it, but first I wanted to find the railway station.
    With this in mind, I followed a top-hatted, frock-coated, kid-gloved gentleman who was positioning a fresh carnation upon his lapel. Formally dressed, perhaps he was going to the city for the day.
    Affirming my hypothesis, soon I heard the rumble of an approaching engine crescendo to a roar that shook the pavement beneath my boots. Then I could see the peaked roof and turrets of the station, with the clock in its tower reading just half past seven, and I could hear the shriek and whine of brakes as the train pulled in.
    Whether my unwitting escort travelled to London, I will never know, for as we approached the station platform, my attention was all taken up by the scene unfolding there.
    A gawking crowd had gathered. A number of constables formed a line to keep the onlookers back, while yet more officials in blue uniform strode forward to meet the newly arrived train, an engine pulling a single car importantly labeled POLICE EXPRESS. Out of this stepped several men in travelling cloaks. These swept the ground impressively enough, but the ear-flaps of the matching cloth caps done up in bows atop their heads looked like little bunny ears, quite silly, I thought as I started to edge through the crowd towards the ticket window of the station.
    As if I had walked into a pot on the boil, all around me bubbled excited voices.
    “It’s Scotland Yard, right enough. Plainclothes detectives.”
    “I heard