“Does she lose things a lot?” Maisie asked, wincing at a particularly loud crash.

  Alice frowned. “Things are always disappearing here. Gloves. Dancing shoes. A gold bracelet. Some of the girls say there’s a thief, which would be ever so exciting. But Miss Prenderby says it’s just that we’re all dreadfully spoilt and careless and don’t look after our nice things.”

  Maisie pricked up her ears. She couldn’t picture a thief somewhere like this. How could such rich, pampered little girls possibly need to steal anything?

  “If there is a thief, then I think it’s probably the dancing master,” Alice said, sipping her tea thoughtfully. “He says he’s French, but he doesn’t sound anything like Madame Lorimer. And he has suspicious eyebrows.”

  Maisie laughed so much she snorted tea out of her nose, and made Eddie bark at her worriedly.

  “What?” Alice asked, passing her a napkin. “Really, Maisie, that’s not at all ladylike.”

  “Sorry… It was just … suspicious eyebrows!” Maisie sniggered.

  “Well, I suppose it is a little bit funny,” Alice admitted. “But you’ve not seen them, Maisie. A man with eyebrows like that could do anything.”

  The girls at the Academy were clearly rich, Maisie thought to herself a few days later as she walked towards Russell Square to make sure that Alice hadn’t hung out her bonnet. But that didn’t mean they were happy. Even with Gran worrying about money, and the Room to let notice in the window starting to curl at the edges, Maisie didn’t envy them.

  Just before Maisie had left on her last visit, Amaryllis had burst into Alice’s room in tears. She had then been joined by two of the littlest girls, Lucie and Arabel, complaining that Bella had pulled their hair. Alice had fussed over them and given them bonbons, and they’d gone away smiling, but Maisie wasn’t sure that so many girls in the one house was a good idea. And she suspected that Miss Prenderby was right – unfortunately for Maisie’s career as a detective. There wasn’t a thief, just a lot of silly girls who were too thoughtless to take care of their things.

  Still, at least Alice seemed to have settled in. She had an ally in Florence, the maid, and the younger girls seemed to think that she was their protector already. In fact, Alice probably didn’t really need Maisie to look out for her at all, but she had promised.

  So Maisie was rather surprised, when she walked up the side of the square towards Miss Prenderby’s, to see something blue dangling over the pretty iron balcony. She let out a gasp and sped up, half running towards the school. It was definitely Alice’s bonnet, she saw as she came closer.

  Maisie halted on the other side of the road and looked up at the school worriedly. She had walked past late the previous afternoon, and there had most definitely been no bonnet. And it was only the middle of the morning now. Hopefully the signal hadn’t been showing for all that long. Whatever could be the matter? Perhaps it was that suspicious dancing master? Maybe he really had been stealing things. Or Bella had been horrible again. But Maisie didn’t think that Alice would summon her just for that. Surprisingly, she seemed to be quite good at dealing with the bullying older girl and her hangers-on. And Alice actually appeared to like having other people to fuss over for a change.

  She crossed the road, and stood hesitating at the bottom of the gleaming stone steps. When she and Alice had thought up the signal, they hadn’t discussed how Maisie was to answer it. She hadn’t been invited, and she wasn’t sure if the maids would just let her in. But there wasn’t a lot else she could do… She trod determinedly up the steps and rang the bell.

  The door was opened by Lizbeth the maid, who looked Maisie up and down just as doubtfully as before.

  “Please can I see Miss Alice?” Maisie asked, hoping that Alice wasn’t in a lesson, or something like that. She might well be wandering about with a book on her head. She’d told Maisie they had to do that for “deportment”, which seemed to mean standing up straight.

  Lizbeth shook her head and started to close the door, but Maisie caught it before she could. “Please! I’ll wait, if she’s busy. Alice wants to see me!”

  Lizbeth sighed. “Does she now? Look, you can’t see her because she isn’t here. No one knows where she is.” Then she looked panicked. “And don’t tell anybody I said so! I’ll get in trouble!”

  Maisie hesitated for a moment, then she shoved the door open properly and marched in, squashing Lizbeth against the wall. “What do you mean you don’t know where Alice is? You’re supposed to be looking after her!”

  “She’s disappeared.” Lizbeth shook her head, frowning worriedly. “No one’s seen her since breakfast. She didn’t turn up for her Italian lesson, so Miss Fleet, one of the teachers, went to fetch her. But she isn’t anywhere. Not a sign of her.”

  “So, she’s been gone all morning?” Maisie asked. “And no one knows where?”

  Lizbeth nodded. “She might have been taken!” she said dramatically.

  Usually, Maisie wouldn’t have thought someone disappearing for a morning was all that important – it really wasn’t very long. But this was Alice – she never went anywhere on her own. And then there was the signal, even though the teachers didn’t know about that, of course.

  “There’s ink splashed all over the schoolroom floor,” Lizbeth whispered. “Signs of a struggle, I reckon. And Miss Alice’s father, he’s very rich, isn’t he? She’s been taken for ransom, that’s what I think. Though don’t you tell anybody I said so!” she added quickly.

  “Has anyone called the police?” Maisie asked. She didn’t have a very good opinion of the police – an undercover policeman had been the last person to occupy their second-floor room and his policing had not been up to much – but they were better than nothing.

  “Miss Prenderby doesn’t want to yet,” Lizbeth explained, glancing nervously towards the drawing room, which was Miss Prenderby’s office. “It wouldn’t be very good for the school, to have the police in. And she thinks Miss Alice is just homesick. She’s sent Miss Fleet off to check at her house. Now, look, you’d better go, I’ll get told off for letting you in.”

  “I’m not going!” Maisie snapped. “You’ve just lost my best friend!”

  “Why ever is the front door open, Lizbeth?” A young, pink-faced lady, her hair trailing out in wisps from under her hat, came hurrying up the front steps.

  Lizbeth rolled her eyes, and shut the door, with Maisie and Eddie on the inside. “Any sign of her, Miss?” the maid asked hopefully.

  “No, none!” Miss Fleet said breathlessly. “And it was dreadfully embarrassing, trying not to admit that Miss Alice has disappeared. I’m sure the servants suspect that something is wrong. I had to make up a story about her going off with a friend. The butler looked at me like I was a lunatic.”

  Maisie sniffed. She had met that butler.

  “Who is this?” Miss Fleet asked, noticing Maisie.

  “She’s a friend of Miss Alice. Come to see her, and found her – well, missing.”

  “Oh my goodness!” Miss Fleet wailed, collapsing on to a little velvet chair. “What are we going to do? I’m sure she’s been kidnapped, and her father is so very well known in business. It’ll be the end of us, it really will!”

  “Sophia, calm down!” An icy voice snapped Miss Fleet back to her senses at once, and even Maisie felt herself straighten up. Eddie crept quietly behind her legs to hide.

  Miss Prenderby had come out of the drawing room, and was eyeing them all through a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. She was tall and very thin, so thin that her face was bony, and her nose looked knife-sharp.

  “And you are?” she asked Maisie coldly.

  Maisie curtseyed. She didn’t actually intend to – her knees did it without being told. “I’m Maisie Hitchins, Miss. I’m a friend of Miss Alice. I came to visit last week, and she – er – asked me to visit again today.” That was sort of true, anyway…

  “Do you have any idea where she is?” Miss Prenderby asked sharply.

  “No!” Maisie shook her head. “But I shouldn’t think she’s run away, Miss. She was enjoying herself when I saw her last week. It was different for her, but she said she liked it here. She had made friends.”

  “You see! She must have been kidnapped!” Miss Fleet wailed again.

  “Piffle!” snapped Miss Prenderby. “You, Miss Hitchins, come with me. As you know Miss Lacey well, perhaps you can shed some light on where she might have gone.”

  She sailed away down the corridor, and Maisie and Eddie scurried after her, with Miss Fleet tottering behind. Maisie had expected that they would go up to Alice’s rooms – perhaps to see if she had packed a bag. But instead, Miss Prenderby glided into a large room with desks and chairs, and a blackboard.

  “The young ladies are having a dancing lesson, thankfully,” she explained to Maisie. “We can’t carry on lessons in here until all this has been cleared away.”

  This was a large puddle of black ink, from one of the ink wells, spilled across the desk and down on to the tiled floor. Wet little black pawprints led out across the tiles in a delicate pattern, and Maisie sucked in a breath through her teeth. That was going to be a pain to clean, she thought. Spirits of vinegar might get it off, perhaps, but she wouldn’t count on it. Then she clicked her tongue irritably. She hadn’t had a case to solve for too long – how could she even think about tidying away such an important clue?

  She stooped down to examine the mess – lots of paw prints, some tiny, and a few larger ones. The kittens, she thought, as well as Snowflake. And there were several long smears, as though in the end the cats had been pulled away.

  “Miss Alice was in here just after breakfast. I saw her myself,” Miss Prenderby explained. “She was practising her French vocabulary. But no one has seen her since.”

  “All that ink! As though there had been a struggle!” Miss Fleet bleated. “I really do think we should call the police, Miss Prenderby!”

  Miss Prenderby drew back her shoulders and seemed to grow even taller for a moment, and then she sighed. “Perhaps. The child has been missing for two hours now. I was quite sure she had simply gone home. She is unused to school, after all.”

  Eddie sniffed cautiously at the ink and eyed the trail of paw prints. Maisie took a tighter grasp on his lead – she really didn’t want him chasing Alice’s cats in front of the icy Miss Prenderby.

  Then she frowned. No white cats had emerged from behind the curtains to tease Eddie. There were no hissing little furballs stalking along the bookshelf. Snowflake very much disliked Eddie and took every chance she could to spit at him, and she’d taught her kittens to do the same. So why wasn’t she here now, having a stand-off with her old enemy?

  “Miss Prenderby, where are the cats?” Maisie asked, looking around.

  The headmistress shuddered. “In Miss Alice’s rooms, I suppose.”

  “Are you sure?” Maisie looked doubtfully at the pattern of paw prints. “They didn’t walk out of the classroom, did they? The prints stop here. Someone carried them away, and I wouldn’t have thought even Alice could carry all three of them at once.”

  “Oh no, they weren’t in her room when I went to look for her,” Miss Fleet said, shaking her head.

  “I thought they were down here, Miss,” Lizbeth put in, from the doorway. “You know how the little girls like to give them bits of their breakfast.”

  “So they’re gone too,” Maisie said. “Well, a kidnapper wouldn’t bother to take three white cats with them, would they?” She looked thoughtfully at the inky trail again. She couldn’t tell exactly what it meant, but she was having serious doubts about this whole kidnapping theory.

  Miss Prenderby stared at Maisie, and her eyebrows went into perfect arches. “Indeed a kidnapper wouldn’t…” she murmured. “Lizbeth, go and check Miss Alice’s rooms again, see if the basket those animals came in is missing.”

  “And her coat,” Maisie suggested. “If one of her coats is gone, that doesn’t seem much like a kidnap either, does it?”

  “Of course.” Miss Prenderby nodded, and Lizbeth raced off upstairs. “Sophia, are you quite certain the girl hasn’t just gone home?”

  “I asked!” Miss Fleet protested. “But it was rather difficult, Miss Prenderby, when we didn’t want to alarm the servants…”

  “Hmph,” was all Miss Prenderby said, but she allowed herself a tiny smile when Lizbeth came galloping back to say that the basket was missing from the bottom of Miss Alice’s wardrobe, and her best coat with the velvet collar had gone too. “Just as I thought,” she murmured. “The silly child has run off home.”

  “But why?” Miss Fleet asked. “She was happy here! And more to the point, she isn’t at home. I still think we should call the police. What if something has happened to her?”

  Miss Prenderby frowned. “I very much doubt that they will be any use. But if Miss Alice has not returned by lunchtime, we will call them.” Then she stalked out, with Miss Fleet hurrying after her.

  Maisie was left in the schoolroom with Lizbeth the maid, who looked depressed.

  “Do you still think she’s been kidnapped?” Maisie asked her thoughtfully.

  “Well, maybe not…” Lizbeth sighed. “Lot of nonsense that Miss Fleet talks. She’s gone off for a jaunt, I should think. Fancied a day out!”

  “And taken the cats?” Maisie said doubtfully. “Besides, I don’t think Alice would. She isn’t used to going out on her own.”

  Lizbeth shrugged. “Look, all I know is I’ve got to clean up this mess before the young ladies finish their dancing. So if you don’t mind…”

  Maisie nodded. Perhaps she could go and look around the nearby streets, she thought. And ask if anyone had seen Alice. She understood that Miss Prenderby didn’t want to call the police – it would cause gossip about the school – but she didn’t like the idea of waiting around and doing nothing. She was just turning to leave, thinking she’d let herself out and not bother Lizbeth, who was on her knees looking at the puddle of ink, when she heard the girl let out an enormous sigh.

  “Of all the days for them to sack Florence…” Lizbeth muttered.

  “What?” Maisie gasped.

  “Florence. They sent her packing. So we’re short-handed. How’m I going to get all this done, and the bedrooms too?”

  “Why? What happened?” Maisie asked. She had liked poor, frightened little Florence, even after a few minutes, and Alice had obviously been friendly with her.

  “Miss Prenderby said she was stealing.” Lizbeth wrinkled her nose. “I don’t reckon she was, poor little mite. She wasn’t bright enough, or brave enough, I’d say. But Miss Bella threw a right tantrum about her best kid gloves, threatened to write to her parents, you see. So Florence got dismissed. No reference either. It all happened last night, but at least they didn’t send her out in the dark. She left after breakfast this morning.”

  Maisie frowned. “But … where did she go? Alice said she’d come from the Foundling Hospital.”

  Lizbeth shrugged. “Went back to it, I suppose. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to fetch a scrubbing brush and clean this floor.” And she hurried out, leaving Maisie staring after her.

  “I don’t know if places like that take you back, once you’ve left and got a job,” Maisie murmured to Eddie. “Poor Florence. She could be out on the streets, all on her own…” Then she stared at him, so silently and for so long that Eddie let out a worried whine.

  “Sorry,” Maisie whispered. “But Eddie, what if Florence isn’t on her own? What if Alice went with her?”

  Maisie trailed slowly down the front steps of the school, wondering how to start looking for Alice and Florence. She was almost sure that they were together. Alice had been so keen to have an adventure of her own, and she would have been furious about Florence’s dismissal.

  But if they weren’t at Alice’s house, as Miss Fleet said, then where were they? Maisie was sure that the Laceys’ servants wouldn’t have lied to Miss Fleet. And she supposed that if Alice had turned up at her house, they would have had to send her back to school. So Alice couldn’t be there. Could she possibly have gone to Albion Street? Maisie thought, dithering on the pavement. It would be just typical if she had come to look for Alice here, and all the while Alice was at home, looking for her.

  “Where else, Eddie?” she wondered. “Alice doesn’t have any relations, she told me so when I visited. Oh!”

  Eddie yelped in surprise.

  “Sorry, sorry! But the tree house, Eddie! I’m sure Alice must know a secret place to climb over her garden wall. That must be where they’re hiding!”

  It seemed such a perfect solution, Maisie thought to herself proudly. And it would explain why the servants hadn’t seen Alice, and had told Miss Fleet she wasn’t at home. All the while she and Florence had been hidden away in the garden!

  “We’d better go and see if they’re all right,” Maisie told Eddie, setting off around the square. “I wonder how Alice knew the way? It isn’t all that far, I suppose. Her house is closer to here than Albion Street. But she isn’t used to wandering around London like we are.”

  She quickened her step a little. She was sure that the tree house was where Alice and Florence had been heading. But she didn’t know if they had got there safely. It was all guesswork, and the two of them could quite easily be lost somewhere. Alice had been fussed over and babied since the day she was born – she wasn’t used to finding her way around, not at all. And Florence was a foundling, in her first job as a servant. She probably didn’t even know where Russell Square was, let alone anywhere else.

  The two of them could be anywhere by now, Maisie thought anxiously. How could they have found their way safely home?

  Maisie hurried along the edge of the square, wondering which way Alice and Florence would have gone. Would anyone have noticed them, perhaps? Two young girls, lugging a basket – a basket that was probably yowling. Perhaps someone would remember. But Russell Square was so quiet and respectable. The only children playing in the garden were accompanied by a uniformed nanny, and they were so clean they surely hadn’t been out of doors for very long.

 

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