The Problem of the Missing Miss
A Charles Dodgson and Arthur Conan Doyle Mystery
Roberta Rogow
MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
To my grandfathers, Harry Heller and Irving Weinstein, who introduced me to Mr. Dodgson and Dr. Doyle.
CHAPTER 1
No one expected to find murder in Brighton. London, that great metropolis, was well-known as a sinkhole of vice, where murder was part of the ambiance, as it were. The grim manufacturing towns like Manchester and Birmingham had their share of grim crimes committed by grim men (and a few women) and even the sanctified towers of York Cathedral looked over bloody deeds in a past that included Viking raids and the Wars of the Roses. But no one would have any reason to believe that a holiday in Brighton would lead to murder, abduction, and general skulduggery.
After all, Brighton was a holiday spot, a place dedicated to recreation and entertainment, although this had not always been so. For centuries, the village known as Brightelmstone had been a haven for fishermen and the occasional smuggler. Then it had been “discovered” by no less a person than His Royal Highness, George, the Prince of Wales, soon to be the Prince Regent. The town was now fashionable, and became more so as the eighteenth century eased into the nineteenth.
By the time the Prince of Wales had become the Prince Regent, Brighton was being rebuilt, from the sea inland. As the Prince’s vast Pavilion took shape, rows of elegant houses were erected to accommodate the visitors that followed royalty. The seafront was enhanced by a Promenade, so that the bucks could ogle the charming ladies and the ladies could more modestly eye their prospective mates. Brighton was, indeed, the place to be in July and August, when London was no place for the fashionable.
When the Prince Regent finally assumed the throne as George IV, he retired to Brighton to finish his reign in his ornate palace, surrounded by memories of past frolics. His brother, the seagoing William, enjoyed Brighton’s opulence, and brought his considerable (and illegitimate) offspring there to take the sea air.
Time passed, and so did “Sailor Billy,” to be succeeded by his prim niece, Victoria. Victoria shuddered at the thought of residing in the incredibly ornate and Oriental Pavilion, where she and her thoroughly legitimate offspring could be ogled by the mob. Her thrifty Prince Consort sold the structure to the borough of Brighton, and the town itself lost a good deal of its fashionable cachet as society followed the Crown to the Isle of Wight or to Scotland to escape the summer stink.
Though the fashionable left, the unfashionable continued to flock to Brighton, which was delighted to accommodate them. Regency town houses became lodgings. The Pavilion was refurbished and used for public events, concerts, and lectures. A grand pier was built, jutting into the English Channel, so that the visitor might have the experience of being on the sea without the discomfort of malde-mer.
With the railroads came an even greater influx of visitors. Brighton was now a resort for the many instead of the few. Anyone with the railway fare could come to Brighton for a day, to paddle in the sea, gawk at the street buskers, eat whelks and chips, and get as much of a sunburn as the English summer can give. In Brighton, a holidaymaker could have a decent meal, see a Punch and Judy show, or lose a few bob on a penny dip, and still be home in time for work on Monday morning.
On this particular August Friday, in the year of Her Majesty’s reign 1885, the vast vault of Brighton Railway Station was overflowing with humanity. Everyone in England seemed to have but one goal: to get as far away from hot flats, cottages, houses in cities, towns, and villages as they possibly could. To this end, a vast multitude of men, women, and children descended upon Brighton, armed with valises and carpetbags filled with summer linens and cottons, determined to enjoy themselves or die trying.
Train after train, from as far away as darkest Yorkshire, bore visitors to the once-fashionable (now rather blowsy) summer terminus. Whistles echoed and re-echoed as each train announced its arrival. Porters scrambled to accost prospective patrons. Fathers in black alpaca coats and mothers in striped calico (with or without the requisite bustle) counted and re-counted their broods. Unattached young men in red and white-striped shirts and buff blazers ogled unattached young women in flowered chintz dresses, who giggled back. Sailors on leave from Portsmouth and soldiers from the Encampment beyond the town added touches of Navy blue and bright red to the shifting scene. The sounds of transportation and incipient revelry bounced off the glass and iron roof of the terminus, making normal conversation almost impossible.
In the middle of all this hullabaloo stood a stooping, middle-aged man with a curiously unlined face, surmounted by artistically long iron-gray hair topped by a slightly out-of-date tall black silk hat, his hands encased in gray cotton gloves, his black coat as conspicuous as a crow in a flowerbed among the dainty cotton prints and white linens of the holidaymakers on the platform. Oblivious to the throng, he fussed along the platform, peering into first one car and then another, growing more and more agitated with each compartment he searched. Over and over again he checked the paper in his hand, even going so far as to refer to the large overhead sign that announced each incoming train.
Finally, he sought help from the stationmaster, that august personage enthroned in the glass-enclosed booth at the furthest end of the station. The stationmaster, one McNaughton, a large and mustachioed functionary whose dark blue uniform fairly gleamed in the light that filtered through the station, ignored the frantic tapping on the walls of his sanctum sanctorum.
The elderly gentleman persisted. “Sir! Sir! I must inform you …” The rest of the message was lost in the noise of the crowd, the shriek of a whistle, and the sudden hubbub that indicated some disaster in the offing.
The stationmaster stared at the ostensible lunatic who was waving at him on the other side of the glass. What manner of man was it who interrupted a stationmaster on this, the busiest time of the day, in the middle of August, the sacred time of the holidays?
The intruder staggered suddenly and seemed to collapse. The stationmaster emerged from his glass coccoon to find a hearty-looking young man in tweeds, with neatly brushed reddish hair and a not so neatly trimmed reddish mustache, attending to the stricken one, while a fresh-faced, plump young woman in a tartan traveling dress hovered anxiously behind.
“Here, here, what’s all this?” The stationmaster relied on the terms used by his brothers-in-arms of the Brighton Constabulary.
“Hello! It’s all right, I’m a doctor. I noticed this old chap having some kind of a fit.” The young man turned to his putative patient. “Are you all right, sir?”
“I b-beg your pardon? I didn’t understand.” The older man looked up at his rescuers in some confusion, putting a gray-gloved hand to one ear.
The young woman behind the doctor peered over his shoulder. “Arthur? The porter is ready with our baggage …”
“In a minute, Touie. Just thought I could lend a hand, you know.” The doctor’s Edinburgh burr was noticeable even through the noise of the station, and McNaughton decided that here was a fellow Scot, a practical fellow capable of dealing with madmen who interrupted busy stationmasters by having fits in front of their offices.
“Better have him in my office, then,” the stationmaster conceded. “Can’t hear yourself think out here.”
The group filed into the glass-enclosed hub of the Brighton railway station, an office already crowded with two rolltop desks, a carved chair, three high stools, several piles of Bradshaw’s Railway Guides, and the reams of paper that seem to follow officialdom wherever it may lurk. Charts covered the walls, announcing everything from the Firemen’s Outing to the excursion rates for Parliamentary trains. The office, somewhat cramp
ed before, seemed filled to the bursting point once Touie in her traveling dress (and its bustle) was added to the three men.
Having closed the door and shut out the roar of the crowd, Mc-Naughton straightened his cap, adjusted his uniform, stroked his mustache, and asked again, “What’s all this about? Are you quite well, sir?”
“I am quite all right, thank you.” The victim straightened himself and patted his coat into place. “Stationmaster, I must speak with you. I fear a child is missing!”
“Eh?” The stationmaster’s eyebrows nearly met over his well-developed nose. There were persons whose whole business it was to deal with misplaced children: guards and porters. Busy stationmasters had better things to do.
“I was to meet her when she arrived on the four-thirty train from London. I have searched the station, but she is not here.” The older man spoke with the shrill tones of the deaf, emphasizing each plosive consonant.
“Well, sir, the train from London was a mite late, but not all that much. It arrived at four-twenty-two. I have it noted here in my log.” The stationmaster produced a complex chart, with times neatly entered.
“Are you certain?” The older man frowned.
“Oh, yes, sir. The train was due at four-twenty and came in at four-twenty-two.”
The elderly gentleman looked about him, as if to locate a safe place to collapse. The doctor caught him as he was falling and eased him into the nearest seat, the stationmaster’s own, sacred chair.
“This is quite imp-p-possible,” the older man stammered. “See here, I have the letter with instructions. I was to meet Miss Alicia Marbury on the platform of the train arriving from London at four-thirty. She was to visit me at Eastbourne,” he explained, his stammer becoming more and more pronounced. “I had arranged for us to stay with my friends, the Rv-Reverend and M-Mrs. Barclay, Rector of St. Peter’s Church?” He looked to McNaughton as if for approbation but received a cold stare. In agitation, he searched for his precious letter in the pocket of his coat.
Out came the contents: a piece of string, a selection of colored scarves, a pair of small dolls, a bag of spice drops, and a folded piece of paper. Arthur took it and unfolded it as his putative patient restored the rest of the debris to its hiding place.
“Interesting. Your correspondent uses the new typewriting machine,” the doctor observed. “Ah, I see your problem. The two has been overstruck with a three. Hence your dilemma: do you meet the four-twenty train or the four-thirty?” The older man snatched the letter back.
“I supposed that the three was correct, since it had been struck over the two,” he said testily. “What I want to know is, where is Miss Marbury?”
“I assume you know the young lady by sight,” the stationmaster said.
“Er … no. Her father is an acquaintance by s-sight …” the older man stammered.
The stationmaster frowned. “Related, are you, then?”
“Er, not precisely …”
“Then I suppose someone else met the girl,” the stationmaster said abruptly. The colloquy was interrupted by one of the underlings, a guard in a blue uniform who tapped urgently on the window of the glass booth.
“There seems to be some other difficulty, sir. Good-day!” Mc-Naughton glared at the underling, who approached him in a highly agitated state.
“Mr. McNaughton, may I have a word?” That most ominous of phrases.
“What is it, Payton?”
“There seems to have been an unfortunate occurrence—” The guard glanced over his shoulder. “I have summoned the police, but I believe you should take charge, sir.”
McNaughton settled his cap on his head, glared at his uninvited guests, and marched out of his booth. “I suggest you take yourselves elsewhere. Good-day!”
“But …”
“Thank you for your assistance, sir. I think we will look for the child ourselves.” The doctor took the older man by the arm and firmly walked him out of the glass office, followed by the faithful Touie. Once back on the platform, the older man pulled away from his would-be rescuer.
“Sir, that was not necessary. I am quite capable of dealing with persons like that.”
“Undoubtedly, sir, but I could tell that he was about to be extremely rude, and I couldn’t have that, especially not in front of my wife.” The young doctor glanced at the love of his life, who smiled prettily.
“Very well, but I am sure I can manage …”
“Please, sir, permit me to help you find your missing child.”
The older man glared at the younger one. “Are you always this—determined?” he asked querulously.
Touie followed them as they walked toward the baggage platform. “Indeed he is, sir. Why, when my poor brother was ill, he tried everything in and out of his power to cure him.”
Her husband laughed heartily. “Aye, that’s it. I cannot walk away now. I must see this through to the end. I would die of curiosity if I did not solve this mystery.”
“Mystery indeed!” huffed the older man. At the baggage platform large men in striped shirts were heaving huge trunks onto waiting wagons, and grimy urchins with handcarts shouted for customers.
“ ’Ere! You’re back!” one of the largest of the porters accosted the trio.
“Back? I just arrived,” the older man protested.
“You was ’ere not ten minutes since,” insisted the porter. “Tile ’at, gray gloves, black coat …”
“With a little girl?” the doctor asked.
“Ah! Pretty little thing, with all that red ’air down ’er back,” the porter observed. “Didn’t even stop fer ’er trunks, wot the nurserymaid said wos to be sent on.” He indicated a well-made traveling trunk, securely lashed, neatly labeled. “And wot’s to be done with it, eh?”
“You may send it on, by carrier, to this address,” the elderly gentleman said, producing a card, which the porter took with a nod. He turned to the young doctor. “Miss Marbury is supposed to have auburn hair,” he added, consulting his letter.
The doctor frowned. “This becomes more and more tangled,” he complained. “Presumably the domestic was told they would be met, and by whom … or at least, was given a description of the person who was to meet them, namely, you, sir.”
“The—the ch-cheek of it!” The older man looked as if he might have another fit.
“This is all quite mysterious,” Touie said. “But perhaps we had better find somewhere less public to discuss it. Arthur, where is our lodging?”
“Just off the Queen’s Road, my dear, near Duke Street. Porter, can one of these lads bring our valises to this address?”
“As you say, sir.” At a wave of the porter’s hand, one of the larger boys trotted up with his handcart.
“If you insist on pursuing this acquaintance, I had better introduce myself. I am Mr. Dodgson,” the elderly man said. “The Reverend Mr. Dodgson, of Christ Church, Oxford.” He bowed and extended a gray-gloved hand.
“Aye, and I am Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle, practicing in Southsea, and this is my wife, Louisa.” They solemnly shook hands and followed the handcart down the hill, around a corner, through the cobbled streets and into the summer sunlight.
CHAPTER 2
Brighton had changed considerably in the seventy years since the Prince Regent brought his glittering friends to take the air and show off their splendid equipages to the gaping yokels, fisher-folk, and other low persons who inhabited the village of Brighthelmstone. Now, instead of Regency bucks and demure debutantes, stout provincial shopkeepers and their wives filled the Steine, while their daughters shopped at the quaint stalls along the King’s Road. There was even talk of using some of the less sinister portions of The Lanes for commercial purposes, and the merchants of Brighton made their financial hay while the July and August sun tried to shine.
Along the steep and cobbled streets that led down to the Esplanade, anyone with a room to spare set a sign in the window and took in lodgers. Rooms were let by the day, week, or month. The hordes of pleasure-bent B
ritons could find accommodations for any pocketbook, from a back alley for a few shillings a night to the grand hotels facing the sea, where a suite might be had for a month at a sum that equaled a laborer’s yearly wages.
Young Dr. Doyle and his wife were in neither the back alley nor the seafront category. They followed their guide down the Queen’s Road with Mr. Dodgson locked between them, past houses where women called out raucously from upper-story windows (Touie pretended she did not hear them), and down the cobbled street toward the Esplanade. They could just catch a glimpse of the Channel between the rows of buildings, which grew larger and more ornate as they approached the strip of blue sea visible at the end of the road. The Doyles eagerly sniffed the salt-tinged air as they marched along with Mr. Dodgson. The tang of the sea breeze mixed with the less wholesome scents drifting out of the taverns and fish-and-chips stalls: stale beer, frying fish, and cheap tobacco.
The rest of the holiday crowd pressed on to the sea, and through it the urchin with the handcart wove his way, with Dr. Doyle and Mrs. Doyle and Mr. Dodgson close behind him. There was no time for conversation, even if one could be heard above the roar of humanity and the snatches of music from the Esplanade, where the band was playing the popular airs of Dr. Sullivan. At last, the boy made a sharp turn and angled his cart into a side street lined with three-story houses, jammed together to form a row, each adorned with the universal placard: ROOMS TO LET.
Touie paid off the boy, while Dr. Doyle mounted the steps and rang the bell. A stout woman, swathed in the prerequisite black bombazine demanded by all landladies, loomed behind the maid who answered the bell.
“Dr. Doyle, and Mrs. Doyle,” the Scottish doctor introduced himself.
“Ah,” the landlady said. “I’d fair given up on you, you’re that late.” She gave Mr. Dodgson a sharp-eyed stare. “The booking was for two, was it not?”
Dr. Doyle laughed. “This is Mr. Dodgson. He’s staying elsewhere, but—”
The Problem of the Missing Miss Page 1