A Very Unusual Pursuit by Catherine Jinks Page B

their way to the infirmary when they vanished.
    ‘The master claims they was never really ill, but that ain’t so, for how can you fake the flux?’ Mrs Gudge said in a high, breathless, troubled voice. ‘It’s our belief – mine and Mr Hobney’s – that them children passed too close to the old well near the laundry. For that’s where Fanny Tadgell saw the shape. And since the well’s bin abandoned, it might harbour a shellycoat or some such thing.’
    ‘A shellycoat?’ Miss Eames repeated, with great interest. Then Alfred frowned at her and she fell silent.
    ‘How long has the well been abandoned?’ Alfred asked Mrs Gudge.
    ‘Oh, for years. Since the new workhouse were built over the old, and that happened before my time.’ The cook’s taut face relaxed a little as she dredged around in her memory. ‘They say the old cesspit fouled the well, or else some forgotten grave, but why blame a cesspit thirty years old? I say it’s from the manufactory next door, which is where they boil up skin and bones to make gelatine—’
    ‘Who’s Fanny Tadgell?’ Birdie interrupted, because she saw that Alfred was getting impatient.
    ‘Fanny?’ echoed the cook. ‘She’s one o’ the paupers as helps with the sick children. We ain’t got more’n two paid nurses, but they’re allus so busy with the old folk, there’s mortal need for extra hands.’
    ‘And where exactly did Fanny see the bogle?’ This time it was Alfred who cut her off. ‘How far from the old well?’
    Mrs Gudge seemed thrown by this question. ‘That I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her.’
    ‘Ask Fanny?’ said Alfred. ‘Now?’
    ‘She’s in the infirmary. She took a late shift, in case she were needed.’ Hearing Alfred grunt, Mrs Gudge remarked, ‘I’ll not stay much longer meself, for they expect me back here early tomorrow, and how am I to cook all them breakfasts if I ain’t slept?’
    ‘But can you show us to the infirmary, before you leave?’ Miss Eames requested, in a briskly confident manner that infuriated Birdie. ‘And perhaps introduce us to Fanny Tadgell?’
    ‘Oh, I’ll do that , Miss. You cannot be left to wander about on yer own at night.’ Mrs Gudge cast a worried glance around the kitchen, as if checking that every dish was washed and every flame extinguished. Then she picked up a glowing oil lamp, clumsily knocking against a shelf as she did so. ‘I’ll take you to meet the girl,’ she said, ‘and when you’re all done, Mr Hobney will let you out.’ On her way to the door, she stopped suddenly and asked Alfred, ‘It’ll not . . . there’ll not be too much noise , I hope?’
    Alfred shrugged. ‘Bogles ain’t loud, as a rule,’ he replied. ‘Which is why they escape notice.’
    ‘Stealth is their greatest weapon,’ Miss Eames concurred – almost, Birdie thought crossly, as if she had a right to say anything.
    Alfred pretended that he hadn’t heard Miss Eames, even though his eyes flickered. ‘I’d not be surprised if the lass had to sing,’ he told the cook, much to Birdie’s delight, ‘but she’ll do it soft, and wake no one.’
    ‘Oh dear.’ Mrs Gudge sighed, before throwing a feebly apologetic smile in Miss Eames’s direction. ‘Could you see yer way to covering that pie, Miss Eames? A smell like that could wake the whole men’s ward, never mind any bogle hereabouts.’
    ‘Of course,’ Miss Eames murmured, tucking the linen towel back over her pie.
    Then she followed everyone else out the door, down the adjoining passage, and into the garden.

12
    AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT
    It was still damp outside. Though night had fallen, there was just enough light from Mrs Gudge’s lamp – and from one or two upper windows – to give Birdie a vague sense of how large the workhouse grounds were. The back door of the administrative block opened onto a very spacious garden, which was flanked by two three-storeyed wings projecting from the rear of the main building. And though at first Birdie