Escapade

by Walter Satterthwait

  I hope you receive this. Things here are so entirely topsy-turvy that the evening post may never be posted. Perhaps it will go out tomorrow morning; but by then I shall have left myself. The Allardyce and I, and Mrs Stopes, are taking the eight o’clock train to London tonight.

  I really can’t tell you what’s happened, Evy, not now. It’s too complicated and, in a way, really too sad to explain in a letter.

  And I’m feeling rather guilty at the moment. Despite all the tragedies that have occurred here, and the losses, I am still valiant in my preoccupation with self. A small part of me (which I should like to but cannot ignore) is fluttering with a wild mixture of confusion and excitement.

  It’s so ridiculous—

  How would you feel, Evy, if you possessed a spinster friend who was not a respectable paid companion but rather a Pinkerton operative? (Operative: that’s the word they use for their agents. I think it’s awfully silly, don’t you?)

  Yes. An enquiry agent. Mr Beaumont believes that I’d be ‘good at it’. It was he who broached the idea, only an hour ago. He says that the Pinkerton Agency hires women and that in fact one of the best operatives ‘in the States’ is a woman.

  It’s preposterous, of course; and so I said to him. He told me that I needn’t come to a decision immediately. He’ll be in London for a time, he said, at least until the trial (I’ll tell you of the trial when I see you), and perhaps longer; and that we can talk of it further, at my discretion. I should ‘think about it,’ he says.

  Evy, it would mean freedom from the Allardyce!

  I honestly don’t know what to do.

  Can you imagine me solving crimes and rooting out evildoers? Well, actually, I suppose that in a way I’ve already done so, here at Maplewhite, haven’t I?

  Well. I shall ‘think about it,’ then. If nothing else, I shall be able to look forward to an occasional visit from Mr Beaumont; and, with any luck at all, these may prove interesting.

  All my love, Jane