The principal consequence of that little outburst of petulance was that I was also awake bright and early. I had persuaded Harry to have his grocer deliver more provisions and I was all set to make a lavish breakfast to atone for my peevishness. All that was required was a fresh loaf, so I set off once more for the baker’s round the corner.
London in the early morning is unlike anywhere I’ve ever been. The city never seems to come to complete rest, but there’s still a feeling just after dawn of momentum building again. The clatter of the delivery carts, the first omnibuses taking the early-starters to their work, the dustmen and street sweepers making everything fresh again. And then there are the smells. The harsh, oddly dirty smell of bricks and paving stones damp with dew, the hundreds of fires lit by bleary-eyed servants, and of course the bread.
The woman behind the counter at the bakery recognized me and chattered cheerfully as she made up what had already become my “regular” order.
‘And look, love, he’s just brought out some lovely Chelsea buns. They’ll go lovely with a cup of tea, they will. You’ll be well and truly in your mistress’s good books if you serves her one of them.’
I should have liked to have made my own (I make a wickedly good Chelsea bun, if I do say so myself) but the facilities at Harry’s flat can be most charitably described as “rudimentary” and so I allowed myself to be persuaded to buy three. And some rolls for lunch.
Something nagged at me on the short walk back, but I couldn’t for the life of me put my finger on what it was. Was there something I had forgotten to do? Somewhere I should have gone? I knew there was something, but try as I might I couldn’t work out what. I tried to put it out of my mind in the hope that I might sidle up on it unawares in a little while and trap the errant thought.
I met the milkman as he struggled up the steps to the entrance to Harry’s building and offered to take Mr Featherstonhaugh’s milk up to the third floor. He was most grateful and flirted half-heartedly as I took the can from him. His heart wasn’t really in it but I laughed appreciatively and we each felt that we’d played our parts.
I met no one else on my way up to Harry’s flat and mused on the fact that I had left and then returned entirely unobserved.
Entirely unobserved. That was what had been niggling me. Where were our watchers? Unless they had grown a great deal more adept in the past twenty-four hours, and had managed to remain completely concealed as they kept us safe from harm, there were no longer any of Harry’s Foreign Office agents outside the flat.
I let myself in and found Harry already up and about. I took off my hat and gloves and put on my pinnie and resumed my breakfast making. Harry hovered, trying to be useful, but it wasn’t long before I pressed a cup of tea into his hands and asked him ever so nicely to please sit down and get out of the way.
‘You do make me laugh, Flo,’ he said. ‘I’m sure I’ve never met a servant quite like you.’
‘I’m a one of a kind.’
‘That you are. I’ve never really had a chance to thank you for taking care of my little sister, you know.’
‘It’s just my job, sir.’
‘Harry,’ he said. ‘After all that you’ve done for her, I think you really can call me Harry.’
‘I’ll try, sir, but it doesn’t come naturally.’
‘No, no, I’ve noticed that. But I mean it. If it weren’t for you, I think Emily would have gone doolally tap years ago.’
‘Or strangled herself with her corsets,’ I said.
He chuckled. ‘Or that, certainly. Not the most practical girl, my sister. But you keep body and soul together and I really don’t know what she’d do without you.’
‘Thank you, sir. You’re very kind. I don’t know what I’d do without her, either. Have you ordered our watchers to stand down, sir?’ I asked.
Harry laughed again. ‘That was quite a change of subject,’ he said. ‘There was I trying to be all gracious and offer you my heartfelt thanks and appreciation for your years of hard work…’
‘And I’m touched, sir, really I am. But it’s been bothering me.’
‘No, Flo, they’re not stood down.’
‘Where are they, then?’
‘Outside on the street,’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘Take a look, please, sir. There’s no one there. There was no one there when I went to the baker’s and no one there when I came back.’
‘Well I’ll be blowed,’ he said, getting up to take a look for himself. ‘You’re right you, know,’ he called from the drawing room. ‘Not a soul in sight.’ He came back to the kitchen. ‘And you’re sure you saw no one? Of course you are. You’d know how to spot a tail.’
‘I have a little experience in that area, sir. That’s why I was so annoyed that it took me so long to work out what was wrong.’
‘How do you mean?’ he said, puzzled.
‘Just now, on the way back from the shop. I knew there was something missing but I didn’t know what. Fat lot of good I am as a protector of people’s little sisters.’
‘And whose little sister are you supposed to be protecting?’ asked Lady Hardcastle, emerging from her bedroom, tying up her silk dressing gown.
‘Mine, Sis,’ said Harry. ‘Sleep well?’
‘Not badly, certainly. Is anything the matter? You two seem to be in conspiratorial mood.’
‘Your tiny protector has noticed that my men are missing.’
‘Missing, dear?’ she said, yawning.
‘Vanished. Scarpered. Done a bunk. The old moonlight flit. In short… they’re gone.’
‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Well perhaps that’s all to the good. It does rather precipitate things, doesn’t it. I should be most intrigued to know exactly why they have, as you say, “done a moonlight”, but by leaving us exposed they rather force us to action, do they not? It was terribly easy just to sit here waiting for Ehrlichmann–’
‘Gerber,’ I interrupted.
‘Yes, dear, sorry… waiting for Gerber to turn up and be arrested, but now we have something of an incentive to take matters into our own hands.’
‘Do you have a plan?’ asked Harry.
‘As a matter of fact, I believe I do.’ She produced a book from her pocket. ‘Your library is a little limited, dear thing, but you do at least have some taste.’ She showed him the book.
‘The Return of Sherlock Holmes,’ he said. ‘And this has given you your plan?’
‘Well, quite,’ she said, yawning again. ‘Little point in thinking up one’s own plans when Conan Doyle has already done all the hard work.’
‘And what do we do?’ I asked.
‘I have assignments for both of you,’ she said. ‘But first, breakfast. Harry, darling, you’re a wonderful host, but your cooking is woeful. Thank goodness for Flo. I don’t know what I’d have done without her all these years. I’d have gone doolally. Or starved to death. Or strangled myself with my corsets.’
Harry laughed, I blushed, and we all settled down for a slap-up nosh.