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a few things past him, to be doubly sure it’s not of interest. But I suspect it’s probably one for Winthrop to worry himself with. I never was an expert on the Egyptian arts, anyway.” He searched Veronica’s face for signs of disapproval. There were none. “Besides, I doubt Peterson will have much to add, either. He’s more of a traditionalist. If he’d been interested in the find he’d have been there last night alongside me.”
    Veronica laughed. “Come now, Sir Maurice! Admit that you’re rather taken with the whole affair. It sounds as if there’s a story to be had from it. You could write a paper on it.”
    “Well, I. .” There was a high-pitched whistle from the adjoining room. Newbury slapped a hand on his desk. “Ah, good. Time for that pot of Earl Grey.” He stood, brandishing his letter to the Queen.
    “I’ll ask Miss Coulthard to have this couriered directly to the palace. And then you can tell me all about your missing girls.”
    Veronica nodded, clearly amused. Newbury felt his cheeks flush. He circled his desk and went in search of Miss Coulthard. He needed his morning tea. And, he reminded himself, he stil hadn’t found time for any breakfast.

    †
    “So tell me about your suspect, Miss Hobbes.” Newbury was sitting behind his desk once again, sipping at his tea. He was watching Veronica intently. She placed her sheaf of papers on the desk and folded her arms. She met his gaze, her face serious.
    “Potential suspect, Sir Maurice. The man might not have done anything wrong.”
    “So it is a man?”
    “Yes.”
    “And?”
    “And he’s a travelling stage magician. He operates under the disappointingly unoriginal nom de plume of ‘The Mysterious Alfonso’.”
    Newbury smiled around the rim of his teacup. “Oh dear, that is rather fanciful. So tell me, how is this travelling magician associated with the missing girls?”
    ” He’s not. Well, at least not directly. But there are a few too manly coincidences to easily rule out his involvement. Firstly, the dates and locations of his travelling stage show coincide exactly with the dates and places that the girls went missing.
    And secondly, many of the families of the missing girls reported that the last thing the girls did before they disappeared was attend a travelling show. They were never seen again.”
    Newbury studied Veronica’s face. She was clearly passionate about bringing the case to a successful conclusion. She’d been on the trail of the missing girls ever since Sir Charles Bainbridge, Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard and a close friend of Newbury’s, had brought the case to their attention.
    A string of young females, aged between seventeen and twenty- three, had been disappearing from towns al over the Home Counties, and as yet, no one had been able to piece together any pattern. It had been going on since Christmas, and the disappearances showed no signs of abating.
    Many of the families were declaring witchcraft, and it was for this reason that Bainbridge had stopped by to seek Newbury’s advice. Newbury, however, had felt that there was no evidence of supernatural wrong-doing, and was himself engaged with an entirely different case involving an infestation of ghostly spirits at a manor house in Cambridgeshire. Veronica had been aiding him on the Huntington case, of course, but for some reason had been unable to put aside her desire to help Bainbridge solve the mystery of the missing girls. Convinced that there were never any supernatural elements involved in the case, she had set to work looking for patterns in the web of disappearances, and since the successful conclusion of the Huntington case she had spent almost every waking hour at her desk, looking for clues in the statements and police reports. Newbury, of course, had been given other assignments to contend with, but he had allowed Veronica to pursue her quest, and now, it seemed, she had finally found something that resembled a lead.
    “Are you planning to