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[notquitethere]

With profit in mind, you agree to accompany Miss Featherbrook to see her sister that afternoon. The pair of you fetch a carriage across London and over the bridge to the south of the river, all the way to the garden suburb of Bermondsey. Completely destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, the area has been rebuilt over the last sixty-three years into a wealthy and genteel neighborhood of pristine terrace houses and carefully maintained gardens.

Mrs Prunella, née Featherbrook, is as austere as her sister is effusive. She greets the pair of you coldly at the door of her town house and ushers you through the dark carpeted hall to a parlour room.

"Let us to business," Mrs Prunella says. She sits at the very edge of an under-stuffed horsehair armchair, her dress plain but well kept. "I have noticed over the last month that several of my valuables have gone missing. Candlesticks, silverware, I have a full inventory. I believe they come to the sum of just over seventeen shillings. This is not an insubstantial amount."

"And you would like me to discover the thief?" you ask.

"I will not have a thief in my house," she says. "I know it was not an outside burglar. Apart from the fact that no one has forced entry, items of far greater worth have been in far clearer view and remain untaken. You can keep whatever bounty the courts offer; I just want to know the truth."

Miss Featherbrook has sat down at a small side table and has begun to lay out cards for a game of solitaire. She looks up from the cards to say, "I told you it would be worth your time, Mr Pike."

Mrs Prunella employs a cook named Margaret Smith, a maid named Emily Thistle, and a gardener, John Maundy.

1. "I will want to speak with your staff."
2. "May I search the servants' quarters?"
3. "Do you have any family members living here?"

[NRDL]

2

[overseer05-15]

2

[notquitethere]

You ask to see the servants' rooms. Since the family have no children, the cook Margaret Smith has one of the small rooms upstairs. Mrs Prunella leads you out of the parlour. As she takes you upstairs, she also informs you that the gardener John Maundy lives a half mile away with his wife and so has no rooms to search here. On the way to the cook's bedroom at the far landing, you pass a small study. A man in a black frock emerges from a cloud of pipe smoke to close the door. The cook's room is small and sparsely furnished with a narrow bed, a small table, and a chest of belongings. You look under the bed and rifle through the neat piles of plain dresses in the chest. Outside the room, Emily the maid peers in, then hurries downstairs.

1. Go over the room with a fine comb.
2. Hurry on to the maid's room.
3. Ask to speak with the Reverend Prunella.

[overseer05-15]

2

[NRDL]

2

[notquitethere]

You rush over to the maid's room. It's a cramped space beneath the stairs, barely room for a pallet. You catch Emily taking a small pouch from beneath her pillow.

Mrs Prunella is right behind you. She snatches the pouch from her servant's hands and counts out the money: more than ten shillings in coins, mostly sixpences, shillings, and half crowns.

"I can explain, mistress," says Emily, breaking out in tears, desperation in her voice. "I've been saving my wages for a long time now. It's for my sister Nell. I didn't take your things."

"I think the thief is very clear to me," says Mrs Prunella. "But I'll let you be thorough; you should speak with all the staff." You meet Margaret Smith, the cook, in the kitchen.

The woman is in her forties, sleeves rolled up as she rolls out dough, her apron splattered with flour. "What would I do with a candlestick?" she says. "It don't make no sense."

You consider what strategy to take in questioning her.

1. I catch her off guard with accusations.
2. I focus on who she suspects.
3. I take her side and ask if she's noticed anything awry.

[overseer05-15]

3

[NRDL]

3

[notquitethere]

You look about the kitchen. "Anything ever go missing from here?" you ask her.

"Oh, cakes and buns and bits of cheese is always disappearing," she grumbles, as she rolls the dough flat again. "I never catched him, but I reckon it's that gardener John. He's got a belly on him like you shouldn't have from working outdoors and he never keeps his hands to himself."

You ask her some follow-up questions but get nothing more of use from her.

Next you question the gardener, John Maundy. Behind the house there are rows of flowers, a yard for hanging sheets, and a small stable at the far end. Dressed in muddied overalls, he kneels in the garden, pulling weeds from around the rosebed. A large lumpy bag lies on one side. The man has a face like a raspberry: rounded, red, and covered in small hairs jutting out at all angles.

1. Ask who John thinks might have stolen the goods.
2. Ask to look in the stable.
3. Ask about the missing cheese and buns.
4. Ask about his duties as a gardener.
5. Ask what's in the bag.

[birdy51]

2

[NRDL]

2

[notquitethere]

"If'n you insist, sir," says John, unlocking the stable door with a thick key. Inside is a small empty stall, dusty saddles, and mouldering scraps of hay.

"The master sold his horse recently. His pride and joy it was. Never could understand it."

1. Ask who John thinks might have stolen the goods.
2. Ask about the missing cheese and buns.
3. Ask about his duties as a gardener.
4. Ask what's in the bag.

[NRDL]

4

[overseer05-15]

4