Mrs. Slade bent down and carefully picked up the scattered notes before passing them up to Charlie. When she had handed over the last one, she silently led the stranger back towards the front door.
“I do apologize, Mrs. Slade,” said Charlie. “I had no intention of offending your husband.”
“I know, sir,” said Mrs. Slade. “But then Walter has always been so proud. Heaven knows, we could have done with the money.” Charlie smiled as he stuffed the bundle of notes into the old lady’s pinafore and quickly put a finger up to his lips. “If you don’t tell him, I won’t,” he said. He gave a slight bow before turning to walk back down the little path towards the car.
“I never saw no little girl,” she said in a voice that barely carried. Charlie froze on the spot. “But Walter once took a snooty lady up to that orphanage on Park Hill in Melbourne. I know because I was walking out with the gardener at the time, and he told me.”
Charlie turned to thank her, but she had already closed the door and disappeared back into the house.
Charlie climbed into the car, penniless and with just one name to cling to, aware that the old man could undoubtedly have solved the entire mystery for him. Otherwise he would have said “No, I can’t” and not “No, I won’t” when he had asked for his help.
He cursed his stupidity several times on the long journey back to the city.
“Roberts, is there an orphanage in Melbourne?” were Charlie’s opening words as he strode into the lawyer’s office.
“St. Hilda’s,” said Neil Mitchell, before his partner could consider the question. “Yes, it’s up on Park Hill somewhere. Why?”
“That’s the one,” said Charlie, checking his watch. “It’s about seven o’clock in the morning London time and I’m shattered, so I’m off to my hotel to try and grab some sleep. In the meantime I need a few questions answered. To start with, I want to know everything that can possibly be found out about St. Hilda’s, starting with the names of every member of staff who worked there between 1923 and 1927, from the head honcho down to the scullery maid. And if anyone’s still around from that period find them because I want to see them—and within the next twenty-four hours.”
Two of the staff in Mitchell’s office had begun scribbling furiously as they tried to take down every word Sir Charles said.
“I also want to know the name of every child registered at that orphanage between 1923 and 1927. Remember, we’re looking for a girl who couldn’t have been more than two years old, and may have been called Margaret Ethel. And when you’ve found the answers to all those questions wake me—whatever time it is.”
CHAPTER
45
Trevor Roberts arrived back at Charlie’s hotel a few minutes before eight the following morning to find his client tucking into a large breakfast of eggs, tomato, mushrooms and bacon. Although Roberts looked unshaven and tired, he was the bearer of news.
“We’ve been in touch with the principal of St. Hilda’s, a Mrs. Culver, and she couldn’t have been more cooperative.” Charlie smiled. “It turns out that nineteen children were registered with the orphanage between 1923 and 1927. Eight boys and eleven girls. Of the eleven girls we now know that nine of them didn’t have a mother or father alive at the time. Of those nine we have managed to contact seven, five of whom have a relative still alive who could vouch for who their father was, one whose parents were killed in a car crash and the other who is an aboriginal. The last two, however, are proving more difficult to track down, so I thought you might like to visit St. Hilda’s and study the files yourself.”
“What about the staff at the orphanage?”
“Only a cook survives from around that period, and she says there never was a child at St. Hilda’s called Trentham or any name like that, and she can’t even remember a Margaret or an Ethel. So our last hope may prove to be a Miss Benson.
“Miss Benson?”
“Yes, she was the principal at the time and is now a resident at an exclusive old people’s home called Maple Lodge on the other side of the city.”
“Not bad, Mr. Roberts,” said Charlie. “But how did you manage to get Mrs. Culver to be so cooperative at such short notice?”
“I resorted to methods that I suspect are more familiar to the Whitechapel school of law than Harvard, Sir Charles.”
Charlie looked at him quizzically.
“It seems that St. Hilda’s is currently organizing an appeal for a minibus—”
“A minibus?”
“So badly needed by the orphanage for trips—”
“And so you hinted that I—”
“—might be possible to help with a wheel or two if—”
“—they in return felt able to—”
“—cooperate. Precisely.”