All That Glitters: A Maggie Power Adventure (Maggie Power #2) *Unedited version*

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The whole world seemed preoccupied with the strange disappearance of one, admittedly rich, gentleman.

London people of all classes, from the high to the low, seemed to speak of very little else. Or so you would have been led to believe, if you too had read the newspapers as widely as I had during that particular week in October.

And when Detective Blake passed by our home to visit, the conversation naturally fell upon the mystery surrounding the disappearance of the celebrated banker and alchemist of high finance, William Templeton-Wells.

I had completed my chores and took my seat in the front room alongside Emily; she and Blake were discussing the matter of Templeton-Wells most sincerely.

As usual, Blake stood up and smiled toward me as I entered.

"Who on earth would want to hurt an innocent banker?" asked Emily of her brother.

"That is the mystery at the heart of this matter, I'm afraid, Emily," he replied. He sat back down upon his seat, as I found myself a chair and tried to pick up the thread of their conversation.

It had been five days since the great man's disappearance.

"We have very little in the way of clues, even less of a motive. As far as I know, we have no reliable witnesses at all. No ransom demands have been received from would-be kidnappers, either. Indeed, there is not even a shred of evidence to suggest the gentleman has been abducted at all," said Blake.

He paused, looked towards me and said, "I hope you will forgive me for mentioning this, Maggie – and I hope you will not feel hurt or offended by what I'm about to say – but there seems to be no sign or evidence for suicide, either. No note has been left, nor has a body been pulled from the river which remotely resembles that of Mr Templeton-Wells. In short, we are absolutely at a loss to the likely fate of the gentleman."

Back then I endeavoured – as best I could in a city dominated by its presence – to avoid that dreadful river. The very sound of the ebbing and flowing of its tides gave me a sickness of the heart. The thought of my mother's body adrift in its current...

However, I still read and heard of the activities of the riverman – dredging the waters, eager to claim the rewards offered for recovering such a prize asset as William Templeton-Wells' body. In the first days of his reported disappearance, I imagined a frenzy of activity out on the river, with vessels of many degrees of seaworthiness crashing about, poking beneath its surface in the hope of dislodging a marooned corpse.

Yet, after nearly a week of activity, nothing of the man could been found.

"And what of the terrorists?" asked Emily. "We have bands of Chartists still at large, getting up to Lord knows what? They attempted to take the Queen's life not so long ago, as I recall reading. So I wouldn't put anything past them."

Blake looked to me, saw my discomfort, understood my sensitivity when such matters were raised. Understood, despite everything, how dearly I still missed my father; understood how I felt about the Chartist cause, too, I believed.

No doubt he was also aware of his own role in my father's continual evasion of the forces of the law and order. A scandal the newspapers had only forgotten about since the disappearance of a rich banker, or so it seemed. Blake and his fellow detectives had been mocked in the press for allowing my father to escape London, and reports of his whereabouts varied from one day to the next. One day he was in Liverpool, the next he had returned to Ireland, a week or so later he was spotted in Manchester. Yet, at a time when most of the country's Chartist leaders had been round up and imprisoned, England's most wanted was still at large.