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Bunny,” said Arabella. “But Constance will not answer my notes, except to say that she is ‘furrius,’ and does not wish to hear from me ‘evir, evir agian.’ Of course, she will forget all about it in a week or two, but in the meantime, I must find some other means of divining the blackmailer’s identity.”
    “What other means can there be?”
    “I . . . do not know.”
    “That settles it,” said Belinda. “There can be no question of my leaving you when you have such need of my help! Have Trotter remove my trunks from the landau whilst I write to Sir Birdwood-Fizzer, tendering my regrets.”
    Belinda had been engaged by the earl to replicate Redwelts, Scottish family seat of the Birdwood-Fizzers since 1574, in miniature. And though she could not afford to decline the absurdly generous fee he was offering, Belinda had never been really keen on the idea. As for Arabella, she could not imagine solving a case without Bunny’s assistance and, in her heart of hearts, did not know how she would bear her sister’s absence. So, with both of them dead-set against the journey, there was only one possible course to take.
    “Of course you will go!” cried Arabella, throwing her arm round Belinda’s shoulders and walking her into the morning room. “All is in readiness, and we have much need of the money. Besides, I am looking forward to our night at the Cocks. Press on, Bunny dearest! Never doubt that that which you have engaged to do is well worth the doing!”
    They took their seats at the breakfast table, and Arabella picked up the post beside her plate. “Oh dear,” she said, automatically placing all the “requests for payments due” to one side. “Here’s one from Frank Dysart!”
    “That is odd,” said Belinda, unfolding her napkin. “Frank is not in the habit of writing letters to us.”
    “I have a dreadful sense of foreboding,” said Arabella, handing it over. “Read it to me quickly, Bunny; I do hope it is not bad news!”
    It was, and it wasn’t.

    Dear Miss Beaumont. I hope you will pardon the liberty of my writing to you, but it seems I’ve no one else to turn to.

    “There!” cried Arabella. “What did I tell you?”
    “Would you like me to stop?” Belinda asked.
    “Yes, I should! And I should like even more for that letter to never have reached me! But as it has, I suppose we may as well know the worst. Pray, continue.”

    Like many another child in our neighborhood, Edwardina caught the measles and her mother as you know, cannot bear to be round any type of illness so Sarah Jane has left us to stay with her sister in Wigglesex.

    “I did not know Sarah Jane had a sister,” said Belinda.
    “She doesn’t. Frank writes rather well, for a constable, don’t you think? Run-on sentences notwithstanding, of course.”
    “Which would you rather do,” asked Belinda crossly. “Sit there and pick apart his writing style, or listen to what the man has to say?”
    Arabella huffed. “Get on with it, then.”

    I found myself obliged to take time off from work in order to stay home with Eddie who was improving for a while, but the disease took an alarming turn for the worse and we almost lost her. Doctor says she is out of danger now, but still very weak and cannot remain at home unattended and I must return to Bow Street or face dismissal. And so I ask, no, I implore you to take Eddie into your home miss until she is well enough to get about and come back again to look after her doting papa.

    “Goodness,” said Belinda, letting her hand, with the pages still in it, fall to her lap. “How noble of him! Think of that wonderful man, caring by himself for a child that is not even his!”
    “Yes,” replied Arabella, reaching for the egg scissors. “It makes me so terribly ashamed of Charles!”
    Their brother, Edwardina’s real father, had been somewhat remiss. In fact, he had never, to their knowledge, so much as set eyes upon his daughter, who had attained the age of eleven