Lucy phoned her Father the next day, expecting him to be delighted she was expecting again. The first time she phoned there was no answer, not even the staff answered the phone. The second time the ringing phone had been answered by the Estate Manager , who himself was concerned. Apparently there was no sign of Sir Herbert, or the Canadian, or the staff. No note had been left and the house had been locked up tight. Lucy's mind had immediately jumped to a sinister explanation, not the deductive genius of her husband, or the empathic sensualist of her lover, her mind would normally find the darkest of dark solutions to any mystery.
Sitting behind her desk, having tried her Fathers mobile and discovering it was turned off, she considered her options. She could stick her carefully hidden head over the precipice and use her not insignificant personal contacts to find out what exactly was happening. This was tempting, and certainly seemingly the quickest, but there was a reason she kept her personal and professional life so very separate. She of course could try Mycroft, she assumed he kept tabs of ex-government ministers, but she tried to avoid contacting the elder Holmes if at all possible. Then there was of course her husband.
Part of Lucy's brain knew that her biggest ally was the consulting detective, if you suspect the worse having a genius private detective in the family had to be a bonus but unfortunately engaging him in something he didn't want to do, could be a fools errand. She also knew he was on a case, a series of poisons in and around Pimlico, she could imagine John's blog entry now. So phoning up or even texting would just make him ignore her. It seemed unfair to text John for the same reason, which left just one line of help. One person who might be able to help, she found a number in her diary, spread across a number of pages, hidden inside quotes and text references.
He took a telephone from the bottom drawer of her desk, she kept a number of them for this sort of thing. The phone rang once and a comforting soft irish lilt on the end of the phone answered.
"Lady Devlin, what a pleasure?" the man answered
"Are you busy James?" she asked, affecting her own Irish accent
"Chun tú mo chroí? Ná" he told her "What is it you need?" his voice was as soft as a lovers.
"I need to find my Father James." She told him unable to stop smiling at the gentleness of his words, and his seductive voice, "he appears to have gone missing?"
"Can't you ask your BORING husband?" he asked acidly.
"I could, but then I'd much rather ask you" she smiled again, dropping her voice "you and I are after all cut from the same cloth."