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deliveries. He was a handsome fellow with a pair of laughing eyes and hair that curled around his temples like an advertisement for brilliantine. He teased her for her freckles and she tarried far too long.
    Miss Caroline was very sharp with her when she got back. ‘Lettie, I shall be obliged to part with you if this goes on much more. I send you on an errand and you’re not back for hours. And even then you do not do it right. These titles are all boring, every one of them – and for some reason you only brought me five!’ She did not even notice she’d had one of them before, though she was quick to demand the penny change, of course.
    It wasn’t until Lettie was climbing into bed that it occurred to her to think again about her friend, and wonder why – if it was not about the books – Effie had been walking through the town in company with a constable of police.

Three
    Mrs Thatchell was still madder than a bull – Effie could see that the moment she walked in, from Madam’s tight lips and the tell-tale spots of angry colour in her cheeks – but Cook had gone upstairs ahead and had obviously had some kind of word with her, so all that happened was that the mistress gave a disapproving snort and looked at Effie coldly down her long bony nose.
    ‘Well, girl, so you’ve deigned to come back here at last, though I understand that even now you haven’t managed to fetch my books and silks. What’s all this that Cook is telling me? Some cock and bantam story that it is not your fault at all, but that a dead body was discovered in the street and you had to stop and answer a lot of questions by the police?’
    Effie nodded earnestly. ‘Yes, Madam, that’s right. I’m sorry. I did not have the chance to get your things. I’ll go down again this minute and pick them up for you.’
    ‘Indeed you will! And I should hope so too!’ Mrs Thatchell swept imaginary hair into the hairgrips which she always wore to hold her tight grey plaits in their two fierce coils just above her ears. ‘I don’t know what the world is coming to, when an employer can’t expect to have her errands run without her servants being called upon to get involved with matters that are no concern of theirs!’ She made a tutting noise. ‘Who was it anyway? Some tramp, I understand.’
    Effie was about to say that she had only been ‘called upon’ because the dead man had asked for her by name, but one glance at Mrs Thatchell’s beaky face was enough to tell her that was not a good idea. Instead she said, ‘That is the problem, Madam. They don’t know who he is; he seems to be a stranger – they were trying to find out.’
    ‘So why ever would the policemen want to talk to you?’ The angry red patches in Mrs Thatchell’s cheeks looked even brighter now. ‘What could they possibly suppose that you would know? You don’t consort with vagrants, I suppose?’
    Effie closed her eyes. She would be for it now! Mrs Thatchell hated anything that ‘smelt of trouble’. She said, carefully, ‘From something that he said before he died, they think he might have known my mother’s cousin in America, perhaps. That’s why the police thought that maybe I could help, but when I looked, I’d never seen the man before. So they’re going out to Penvarris and they’re going to ask my Pa.’ She waited for Mrs Thatchell to exclaim that since the Pengelly family brought problems to the door by knowing down-and-outs it would be better if they parted company.
    But there was no such outburst and when Effie dared to look, Mrs Thatchell was calmly threading her needle up again to stitch at the chair-back that she was working on. ‘Well! A good thing too! I don’t know why they didn’t think of going to him at first,’ she said. Her voice was sharp, but the angry flush was gone. ‘It might have saved us all this inconvenience. However, I don’t want to be unfair. I’m a Christian woman and Cook says you’ve had a shock. We shall let it pass, this