Priscilla and the Private Eye

It had been six weeks since Priscilla's father had gone missing and so far nothing had been discovered. Her mother was in a state and her home did not contain the usual sounds of her mother's laughter and her brothers playing. Even the servants had taken on a somber attitude.

On this particular morning, Priscilla overheard one of the maids telling a footman that her father had given her three months paid leave when her mother was sick, and she wished she could help him now. In the end the footman had proposed that perhaps the best way they could help was putting on a brave face for the family. This seemed to be the attitude of the neighbors as well. Everywhere Priscila went people seemed to be trying not to add to her anguish. Passersby on the street gave her encouraging smiles and Mrs. Flotley the widow from next door had taken to sending pies daily.

Priscilla could not take it anymore. She needed something to happen. She did not just want to feel better, she needed things to be better. She had found an advertisement in the paper for a private detective, that she felt she could visit without her mother finding out. She did not want to get her hopes up or cause her further concern. So, Priscilla tied her hat on top of her head, gathered her bag, and fan and summoned the driver to pull the carriage around.

She told her mother she was going to see a friend, and left out the front door. Before climbing into the carriage she slipped the driver some money to be discreet about their destination. He nodded and winked and then they were off.

Priscilla took out a small notebook from her bag and reviewed its contents as she rode. She had made notes on what she planned to discuss with the detective. Possible suspects, and locations where her father might have run across the paths of ner-do-wells, and some possible motives.

Her family had money, obviously, but no ransom note had yet been delivered. At first she thought, perhaps it had been a random crime of convenience, but that would have been quick and violent and so far he had not turned up at any hospitals or, she shuddered to think, the morgue. It seemed most likely to her, it had something to do with his businesses. He interacted with many various people during his dealings and any of them might have had their own reasons for trying to get her father on his own and vulnerable.

She closed the notebook with a sigh and looked out the window at the city without really seeing. It had helped her to think about things pragmatically in this way. Kept her from careening into the void of despair that threatened to consume her. She and her father had always been close and she had never gone this long without some sort of correspondence from him. If he had not reached out yet, it must be because he could not. She felt her eyes begin to burn and her throat constrict. She had only allowed herself to become emotional in private moments not wanting to exacerbate her mother and brothers' anguish. She, now, took the temporary solitude of the carriage to allow some tears to run down her cheeks and some quiet sobs to escape.

It was only when they turned off the main thoroughfare and onto a side street that she began to compose herself. She needed to be as fact-oriented as possible with this P.I. and she did not want to seem distraught or he might not take her theories seriously. In the distance she saw a wooden sign swinging in the morning breeze over a door that read:

Magnus O'Leary Private Investigator

The carriage pulled to the curb in front of the shabby little office. A lesser person might have been deterred by the shop's location in the more derelict part of town, or by the drunk passed out on the sidewalk in front, or by the dingy windows with peeling letters, but Priscilla was determined and set her face and squared her shoulders, as she threw open the door to the carriage, not waiting on the driver to help her, and marched in through the front door.