then you did make it back in time for work on Monday.” Color flooded back into her cheeks, and she looked so relieved Polly didn’t have the heart to tell her she hadn’t. “I was so afraid Miss Snelgrove would sack you.”
She’d have liked to, Polly thought. “No, I wasn’t sacked.”
“And your mother was all right?”
Polly nodded.
“Oh, good,” Marjorie said. “I was so worried that you’d had to stay and I’d let you down.”
“You let me down?” Polly said. “I let you down. I thought you’d gone to Bath. I should have known you wouldn’t leave London without telling me. I should have told the authorities you were missing. I should have made them look—”
Marjorie was shaking her head. “They couldn’t have found me. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going.”
“Where were you going?” Polly asked, and then regretted it because Marjorie looked stricken. “It’s all right,” she said hastily. “You needn’t talk about it if you don’t want to.” She looked over at the lifts. “I can’t imagine what’s taking Doreen so long with the water. I’ll go see what’s keeping her.”
“Thank you. Did your friend find you?”
Polly froze. “My friend?”
“Yes. She came the day you were gone. Eileen O’Reilly—”
Merope. They’d sent Merope. Of course. She not only knew Polly, she knew the historical period. But how ironic. While Merope’d been here looking for her, she’d been up in Backbury looking for her. “She said you were at school together,” Marjorie said.
At school. “We were,” Polly said. “She came in the Saturday I was gone?” That had been nearly four weeks ago.
“Yes. I told her you’d be back on Monday,” Marjorie said. “Didn’t she come in?”
“No. What else did she say?”
“She asked if you worked here, and I said yes, and she asked where she could find you.”
“What did you tell her?”
“She was so anxious to contact you, I told her you’d gone to Northumbria to visit your mother.”
And Merope, hearing the explanation the lab had them use to cover their disappearance at the end of an assignment, must have concluded she’d already gone back through to Oxford, and that was the reason Merope hadn’t come back on Monday.
“She gave me her address,” Marjorie said, “but I’m afraid I haven’t got it. I’d put it in my pocket, and when they rescued me, they had to cut my clothes off because of all the blood… The nurse said they had to be discarded.”
“And you don’t remember the address?”
“No,” she said, looking stricken again. “It was in Stepney. Or Shoreditch. Somewhere in the East End. I only glanced at it, you see. I intended to give it to you on Monday morning. I remember where she said she works, though.”
“Works?” Polly said bewilderedly.
“Yes, because it’s here on Oxford Street, too. Padgett’s.”
“Here,” Doreen said, hurrying up with a glass of water. “Sorry, I had to go up to the lunchroom for it, and when I told them it was for you they wanted to know how you were doing.” She handed it to Marjorie. “You’ve got to tell us what happened. We all thought you’d done a flit, didn’t we, Polly? Why did you go without—?”
“Marjorie,” Polly cut in, “are you certain she said Padgett’s?”
“Yes, she said she worked on—” She glanced over at the lifts. Miss Snelgrove and Mr. Witherill were emerging from the center one. They’d be here in another moment.
“She worked on—” Polly prompted.
“On the third floor. In Notions. I remember, because it was the same as our floor, and when I first came to Townsend Brothers, that’s the department I—”
“Miss Hayes,” Mr. Witherill said, coming over to Marjorie, “on behalf of Townsend Brothers, allow me to welcome you back.”
“I assured her her position would be here whenever she’s ready to return,” Miss Snelgrove said.
Polly edged away from them, trying to make sense of what Marjorie had just told her. It had to have been a cover story. Mr. Dunworthy would never have allowed Merope to work in a department store on the forbidden list even for the few days it took to locate Polly. She’d only said it to establish a bond with Marjorie, and the East End address was where she and the new drop site really were.
But that made no sense. The East End was just as dangerous as Padgett’s. And when Merope’d found out she hadn’t gone back through to Oxford, why hadn’t she come back to Townsend Brothers?
Unless she wasn’t part of a retrieval team at all. Unless her drop hadn’t opened