A Midsummer's Nightmare; or, the Amateur Detective by Florence Marryat

I am an author. I am something worse than that-I am a Press writer. I am worse than that still-I am a Press writer with a large wife and a small family. And I am an Amateur Detective! I don't mean, of course, that I reckon the last item as part of my profession, but my friends always come to me if they are in any difficulty, and set me to do all kinds of queer jobs, from restoring and reconciling a truant husband to his wife, to making the round of the ‘Homes for Lost Dogs' in order to find Lady Softsawder's pet poodle. Even Jones couldn't complete his great work, ‘The Cyclopedia of the Brain,' without asking my assistance (for a consideration, of course) with his fifth section, ‘The Origin of Dreams. ' Jones is full of fire and imagination, but he does not care for plodding, and he knew me of old for a good steady compiler. I agreed with alacrity. ‘The Origin of Dreams' would fill those hungry little mouths of mine for three months at the very least. But how to do it whilst they gaped around me! -how to cover the one table in my solitary sitting-room with valuable works of reference at the risk of their being touched by greasy fingers! -how to wade through volume after volume, placing a mental mark there and a material one here, whilst my offspring either surreptitiously removed the one or irretrievably obliterated remembrance of the other, by attracting my attention to the manner in which they attempted to scalp each other's heads or gouge out each other's eyes! I tried it for a week in vain.

My Press work I had been accustomed to do at office, but this, which was to be based upon the contents of certain ponderous black-lettered tomes which Jones had been collecting for ages past, must be carried on at home, and the noisy, wearisome day gave me no time for reflection, and left me without energy to labour at night. I was about to resign the task in despair-to tell Jones to give it to some more capable or more fortunate labourer in the wide field of speculation-when Fate came to my rescue in the person of the Hon. Captain Rivers, Lord Seaborne's son.

‘My dad's in an awful way about his ward, young Cockleboat,' he remarked to me, in his friendly manner, ‘and he wants your assistance, Trueman, if you'll give it him.'

‘Why, what's the matter, Captain Rivers?'

‘Haven't you heard? Cockleboat's made a fool of himself. He fell in love with a nursemaid, or a barmaid, or some such sort of person-he, with his twenty thousand a-year in prospect; and when the governor remonstrated with him-told him 'twas nonsense and couldn't be, and all that sort of thing, he actually ran away!'

‘Left Lord Seaborne's house?'

‘Of course, and without a word of explanation. Now, dad doesn't want to make the affair public, you know, unless it becomes necessary, so he hasn't said a word to the police; but he wants you to find out where Cockleboat is-you're so clever at that sort of thing-and just bring him home again.'

‘An easy task, certainly. And you don't even know which way the lad has gone?'

‘Well, we think we've traced him to Norwich, and dad thought if you wouldn't mind going up there for a bit, and keeping your eyes open; of course we should make it worth your while, you know, you might hear something of the young scamp for us.'

‘What on earth can be his motive for leaving home?'

‘Well, perhaps the lady lives up that way, or Julian may have got it into his head that he'll work to support her. He is but twenty last birthday, and will not be of age, by his father's will, for the next five years-very lucky for him, as it's turned out, that he will not be.'

‘True. I think I remember seeing the lad at Lady Godiva's last season. Didn't he act there in some private theatricals or charades?'

‘I believe he did. Now, Trueman, what's your decision? Will you go to Norwich for us or not?'

‘I will start to-morrow if your father wishes it.'

The offer had come most opportunely; even as Captain Rivers was speaking it had flashed through my mind that here was the very opportunity that I desired to carry out my project of writing the fifth section of Jones' Cyclopedia; -a remote lodging in one of the back streets of the quiet old city of Norwich, whence I could carry on my inquiries all day, and where I might sit up and write out my notes all night. And Lord Seaborne's generosity in such cases was too well known to permit of any doubt on the subject whether I should not (by accepting his proposal) be killing two birds with one stone. So I did accept it, with gratitude, and having obtained all the information possible respecting the mysterious disappearance of Master Julian Cockleboat, I packed up the black-lettered tomes, and, embracing my smiling wife and children, who appeared rather pleased than otherwise at the prospect of getting rid of me for a few weeks, started for Norwich.

I have a great respect for old county towns: there is a dignified sobriety and sense of unimpeachable respectability about them that impresses me. I like their old-world institutions and buildings-their butter crosses and market steps; their dingy bye streets with kerbstones for pavements; their portentous churches and beadles; their old-fashioned shops and goods and shopmen. I like the quiet that reigns in their streets, the paucity of gas they light them up with, the strange conveyances their citizens ply for hire-in fact, I like everything with which the world in general finds fault. So it was with a sense of pleasure I found myself wandering about the streets of Norwich, on the look-out for some place in which to lay my head. I had rather have been there than at the seaside, although it was bright July weather, and I knew the waves were frothing and creaming over the golden sands beneath a canopy of cloudless blue sky. I preferred the shaded, cloister-like streets of the county town, with its cool flags under my feet, and its unbroken sense of calm.