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gloomy office, just like all the others they had tramped through. But where the other offices had been crammed to bursting with files and records, papers spilling from every surface, here every pigeonhole was empty, every desk clean; not a single scrap of paper could be seen anywhere.
    The Midnight Papers were gone.

VI
    “Where are the patients’ writings?” Dr Morris demanded. “Where are the Midnight Papers?”
    Ashen-faced, Jenkins shook his head, his fingers trembling on the door handle as he surveyed the empty office.
    “I don’t know. They were here first thing this morning – Mr Bradburn, the night orderly, dropped off the latest batch of writings at the end of his round.” He motioned towards the empty desk nearest the door. “I put them there – I was going to try and find the time to file them later today…”
    Jenkins’s voice trailed away as he shook his head again, dumbstruck by their mysterious disappearance.
    “Who else has access to this room?”
    At the sound of Penelope’s voice, the three men spun in surprise as they turned to face her. She was only a girl, but something in her searching stare compelled Jenkins to answer. 
    “Just Dr Morris and myself,” he stuttered in reply. “The orderlies bring files and medical notes to the administrative offices, but they never venture past the outer lobby.” A momentary flicker of doubt flashed across Jenkins’s eyes, but before Penny could press him further, Monty’s booming tones filled the room.
    “Well, the mystery deepens, but I’m afraid that without seeing the patients’ writings there is little more I can do here now.” Monty straightened his jacket and began to turn towards the door that led back to the outer office. “As soon as you gentlemen manage to track down these Midnight Papers, please let me know and I’ll return forthwith to solve these strange events. But the next issue of The Penny Dreadful will not write itself, so for now I’ll bid you good day.”
    Penelope turned to face Monty, astounded by his audacious attempt to escape from this place. She glared at him in warning, but the actor studiously avoided her gaze. As Dr Morris fussed around Monty, offering his profuse apologies and assuring him that they would track down the papers, she stood there silently seething. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Jenkins’s pale face flush with relief, but there was nothing she could do about it now.
    “Come along, Penelope.”
    At Monty’s imperious command, Penny gritted her teeth and nodded obediently. Still muttering his apologies, Dr Morris began to usher them out through the warren of offices.
    “I will return shortly, Mr Jenkins,” the doctor called back over his shoulder in a frosty tone, “and we’ll discuss this matter further then.”
    Penelope fumed as she fell into step behind Monty and the doctor, the two men deep in conversation as they left behind the dusty offices and began to walk back along the long corridors of the asylum. She had been on the brink of a discovery. The nervous flicker in Jenkins’s eyes told her that. The patients’ writings – these Midnight Papers – they were the key to unlocking this mystery. But Monty’s lily-livered constitution hadn’t been strong enough to face the challenge of tracking down where they had disappeared to. Now she had to leave behind the scene of potentially her greatest story before the first chapter had even been written.
    Ahead of her, the two men stepped to one side in the corridor to let another figure pass. A woman, dressed from head to toe in black, swept by without a word, the veil beneath her widow’s cap shrouding the beauty of her features.
    “Ma’am,” murmured Monty respectfully.
    “My Lady,” intoned Dr Morris.
    Penelope drew to one side too, bowing her head in sympathy as the woman passed. Beneath the flowing lines of her mourning clothes, the woman’s youthful figure showed that she had been widowed at a tragically young age.