As they neared the imposing lakeside manor that was the Fortescue residence, Ida began to feel decidedly less adventurous. For one thing, Clarence was leading the way right up to the front door, when she would have far preferred to simply go in the tradesmen's entrance. The whole point of her plan was to be able to slip into the house under the anonymity of servitude, but Clarence seemed to be – unwittingly – doing his best to scupper that.

'I don't want to cause any fuss,' said Ida, 'if you could just tell me how to get to the kitchen door, then…'

'It's no problem,' said Clarence, 'it's really the least we can do…'

'…but…' Ida paused, deliberately hanging back, 'what if your brother is here?' She congratulated herself inwardly on this piece of quick thinking.

'That…is a good point…' admitted Clarence. He turned to her, and gave a bravely reassuring smile, 'but I'll make sure he doesn't do anything…'

Ida looked away so that he didn't see her roll her eyes.

'I'd really feel…more comfortable…just going to the kitchen door,' she mumbled, looking at her boots. Clarence gave in,

'If that's what you'd prefer,' he said. 'This way…'

… … …

'Cook?' Clarence called, as they stood in the doorway of the kitchen, 'Cook?'

A large, sour faced woman wearing a mob cap and a stained apron appeared. Her face was bright red from exertion and the heat of the stove

'Yes?'

'This is Ida Greene, from Mrs Beech's boarding house. We owe her some sugar.'

'Some sugar.'

'Yes, some sugar. Could you?'

'Amelia!' shouted the cook, still staring suspiciously at Ida, 'Amelia get out here!'

Amelia was the kitchen maid whom Ida had met before. She relaxed slightly, and turned to Clarence,

'Thankyou very much Mr Fortescue,' she said, 'I'll be alright now.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes,' she said, firmly, willing him to go,

'I can't tell you again how sorry I am…'

'It's quite alright Mr Fortescue, really.'

'Will you be OK to get back to the boarding house?'

'Yes, Mr Fortescue, I'll be absolutely fine.'

'Well. If you're sure?'

'Absolutely sure. And thanks again.' Ida bobbed a brief curtsey. Clarence seemed almost embarrassed by this, and gave the merest nod of acknowledgement before turning to leave.

'Amelia!' the cook shouted again, hoarsely. 'Where are you, girl?' She stomped off, and left the kitchen by one of its many doors, still shouting.

Ida smiled to herself at this piece of luck, and stepped inside the kitchen properly. Although a large room, with numerous tables and work surfaces, no other servants seemed to be present. As she got within two yards of the stove the heat hit her like a wall, which reminded her to remove her coat. Opening a door at random she found a stone flagged passageway. Another revealed a pantry, and yet another, a cupboard with some aprons hanging up. Stuffing her coat and basket in there, and pulling off her hat, she seized one of the aprons and put it on. Then it was the work of but a moment to find a mob cap in which to hide her dishevelled hair.

Her heart beating furiously with excitement and fear, she stepped back into the kitchen, all the time expecting the cook to return. She hurried over to the door which had led to the passageway and slipped through.

With each step along the stone floor, her adrenaline rush ebbed away, and she found herself wondering exactly what had possessed her to try this. It wasn't even as if she had finished reading the doctor's account of the mystery that had afflicted Professor Hayes. She hadn't the faintest idea what she was going to do, other than simply nose around the house. Part of her wanted to turn round and head back to the kitchen, take some sugar, and be on her way…

'Hey, give us a hand, will you?'

She spun round, eyes staring wildly in panic, to see a young man in a footman's uniform stumbling out of a door, carrying an armful of men's shoes. She gazed at him in stupefaction for a moment, then stepped forward to grab a couple of the leather loafers which were threatening to slip off the pile.

'Thanks,' he said, panting slightly, 'heavier than they look after 2 flights of stairs…'

'Where are you going with them?'

He gave her a quizzical look

'I'm new,' she said, hurriedly,

'Oh, thought I didn't recognise you. Well, I'm just taking them out the back to scrape off the worst of the mud before polishing them. I don't know how they manage to get them so filthy, you know, not like any of them ever do a tap of work…'

His voice tailed off as he realised Ida wasn't listening. She was staring instead at the shoe in her hand. A very muddy shoe which lacked a lace. A shoe she was almost certain she had seen before.

'This shoe's missing a lace,' she said, in a slow voice

'Yeah,' said the youth 'another thing to fix... Young Mr Fortescue certainly gets through his shoes…'

'Mr…Horace…Fortescue's shoe?' said Ida, looking up at him

'Yes, Mr Fortescue's shoe,' repeated the young man, with raised eyebrows,

'How do you know?'

'Because it was outside his room! How else? …Look, Miss…I can't stand here all day…'

'Right, right…of course,' said Ida, still lost in thought.

'So, could you give me back the shoes?'

'Oh, sorry…' Ida thrust the shoes back onto the pile in his arms.

'Thanks…Miss…?'

'Call me…um…Prudence,' she said.

'I'm Eddie. Well, nice to meet you Pru.'

'Likewise.'

………

3 flights later, Ida was out of breath. She sat down on the top step of the narrow servant's staircase to think. No one seemed to be around, so she pulled out the notebook from her pocket. Perhaps from here she could gain some clue to help her make sense of what was going on.

As she flipped through the pages, Ida's heart sank. They were all out of order, and it looked like at least a third were missing. Sighing, she skim read through the pages until she found a mention of a name she recognised…

'I have 4 students, Mr Holmes,' said the Professor, as he took out a bunch of keys and proceeded to unlock the inner museum door,

'Mr Fitzwilliam, Mr Smythe, Mr Grimshaw and Mr Cole. And I am well aware that one of them would seem most likely to be the culprit…'

Holmes made no reply, and gave no indication as to whether or not he was of that opinion. The Professor turned the key in the lock, and flung open the door with a flourish

'Gentlemen, I give you the Natural History Museum of Oxford University…'

As we entered the huge room, I let out a soft gasp of admiration. Before us lay the main gallery of the museum, filled with glass fronted cabinets, but my eyes were drawn irresistibly upwards, to gaze at the balcony gallery which lined the walls of the first storey. The whole place gleamed: the sunlight which poured in through the high windows glinted off the marble pillars. Some bare brickwork betrayed the fact that the building work was not entirely complete, but…

Ida cast the page aside in frustration. She had no time for university museums, she needed to find out what Grimshaw had been up to. She took up another sheet…

But Holmes was examining the ammonite in minute detail with his magnifying glass. Then, having finished squinting at the ripples on its surface, he sniffed it thoughtfully, and pronounced:

'This, gentlemen, is no more a genuine ammonite than Watson here is the king of Bohemia.'

Professor Hayes bristled with indignation

'I think you'll find, sir, that I am the expert on these matters!'

He reached out a hand, to take back the specimen, but Holmes lifted it aloft.

'Mr Grimshaw!' he called, to the young man who was standing at the other end of the library, staring over at us, 'catch!'

Professor Hayes and I stood, aghast, as Holmes tossed the ammonite over our heads, towards the waiting student. He stumbled forward, hand outstretched, but the fossil brushed against the tips of his fingers and smashed on the floor.

'Mr Holmes!' exclaimed the Professor in outrage, 'have you any idea…'

But Holmes had crossed the room in a few strides, and stooped to gather up some of the broken shards.

'Plaster!' he announced, 'It's made of plaster! Ccome and see for yourselves!'

Professor Hayes and I hurried over, in time to see Holmes turn to Grimshaw and say,

'So, Grimshaw? I thought you said you were a cricketer…'

The look which Grimshaw gave my friend was enough to turn milk sour.

'Gentlemen,' said Holmes in a low voice. 'I do believe that's everything…'

Ida paused in her reading. She stared into the middle distance trying to make sense of it all. These strange words which seemed to be of such importance: 'ammonite', 'fossil', 'palaeontology' meant nothing to her. Something had been falsified, that was clear, a fake version of something valuable had been substituted for the real thing. And Grimshaw was clearly in it up to his neck. But this Professor Hayes character didn't really engage her sympathy…

All of a sudden she heard footsteps on the stairs below. She sprang to her feet, crumpling the pages of the notebook once more into her pocket. At the top of the servant's staircase was a choice of two doors. She picked the one on the left, and hurried through.

The corridor in which Ida found herself was far more sumptuous than the one she had left. It was nearly three times the width, and the walls were lined with flocked wallpaper in a deep maroon pattern. As she shut the door behind her, she noticed that it too was wallpapered, so as to blend almost seamlessly into the background.

The other doors in the corridor were on a much grander scale, with polished brass doorknobs that gleamed. This gave Ida an idea.

Taking out her pocket handkerchief, she went over to the nearest door and proceeded to rub the doorknob vigorously, bending her head down low as if to examine her handiwork, but in reality trying to manoeuvre her eye into a position to see through the keyhole…

…Ida felt the doorknob turning beneath her hand. She sprang back, just as the door swung slowly open, and stood, head lowered so that her chin was almost touching her chest, praying that she looked a generic enough servant so as not to arouse suspicion.

'Girl?'

A nasal female voice that demanded obedience cut through Ida's mind like a knife. She found her back straightening and her shoulders moving back of their own accord. She even raised her head, but not so as to meet the woman's eye.

'Yes'm', she said, on autopilot.

'The flowers on my windowsill are in a simply dreadful state.'

'Yes'm,'

'Get rid of them. Don't put any fresh ones in yet, I'm waiting for this year's roses.'

'Yes'm,'

Ida curtseyed as the woman swept past her with a rustle of silk, then raised her eyes to look at the door directly in front of her. She had better do as she was told.

………

Ida spared little attention for the luxurious bedroom which she entered, instead hurrying straight over to the window, where a large bouquet of rather drooping flowers was displayed. She could smell their slightly musty scent as she gripped the bunch with one hand. But before she removed them from their vase, a movement in the garden outside caught her eye.

The bedroom was on the second floor, so the lawn was quite some way down. But clearly visible, as she pressed her nose to the glass in excitement, were the figures of two men, strolling along the grass. The taller of the pair, who was walking slightly behind his companion, was recognisable even from this distance as Horace Fortescue. And the other…the other man, who was walking with a slight hint of a limp, almost the sort of gait one might expect of someone wearing decidedly ill fitting shoes…the other man, who walked slightly in front of Horace and who was smoking a cigarette…he was the man who had come to Mrs Beech's boarding house the previous night. He was Mr Grimshaw.

Ida stared at the pair of them in confusion. Were they, then, friends? Had Grimshaw been aware of the plan to ambush Holmes? But as she observed the men, she saw Horace stop suddenly. Grimshaw, oblivious, continued walking forward, and Horace grabbed his arm. Grimshaw flinched visibly. With Horace maintaining the grip on his arm, Grimshaw was frogmarched in a tight circle so that the pair of them now faced back the way they had come. Then Horace released him and they began their slow procession once more.

Her mind spinning with the significance of what she had seen, Ida turned away from the window. She caught a glimpse of the clock on the mantelpiece, and gasped in shock. Half past five! Reality hit her suddenly, Prudence would be serving the tea and wondering where she was. She wrapped the wilting flowers in her apron to stop them dripping on the carpet, and hurried out of the door.

A/N:

Thankyou all so much for your reviews! And yes, I'm British, so that's how I do spell palaeontology! It's a fair point that Holmes seems a bit soft - in my hurry to get Ida actually involved in the mystery perhapsthe characterisation wasn't great...or maybe you can put it down to Holmes' concussion! Hopefully in the next few chapters you'll see a better version of Holmes. And apologies for the delay in posting this chapter, I had some ideas for some later chapters and just had to write them down…which meant I ended up getting a bit ahead of myself.

And yes, I do love writing conversations, I can never seem to manage to pull offlong descriptive passages (as you might have been able to tell from the way I copped out of describing the museum...sorry...), so I tend to just get straight in there with some dialogue...

So, anyway, once again thankyou very much to everyone who reviewed. And I'll definitely post the next chapter soon.