Matthew Wheeler sat at his desk, frowning. Right now, he should have been concentrating on the latest figures that his assistant had just dropped on his desk. But the thing that occupied his mind was in fact the look on the face of a young woman, when she realised that her hopes had been dashed.

Earlier that day, he had escorted Trixie, Honey and the girl they called Janie to Lakeside, Illinois, in the belief that Janie was actually Barbara Crane. The girls had found a newspaper article that told them that Barbara had travelled to the southern part of New York State ten days earlier to take up her first teaching job, but had not arrived. They immediately jumped to the conclusion that the girl with amnesia must be Barbara, and they found nothing to contradict the idea. When the girls wanted to take Janie to meet Barbara’s sister and brother-in-law, Beth and Tom Meredith, Matthew had readily offered to fly them there.

And then the meeting had taken place and Janie turned out not to be Barbara after all. Matthew had seen the disappointment and despair on Beth Meredith’s face, before she dissolved into tears, and his heart went out to her. Which led directly to his current distraction.

“I can’t just let this go,” he muttered to himself. “But how best to approach it?”

After another moment’s thought, he picked up the phone and spoke to his assistant, Ruth.

“What’s the name of the young man who figured out the problem with the inventory control system?” he asked her.

“Adrian King,” she answered.

“He still works for us, doesn’t he? Can you get him on the line for me?”

“Yes. And I’ll try.”

He thanked her and tried to look through those figures while he waited. A short time later, the phone rang.

“It’s Adrian King, sir,” Ruth told him. “I’ll just put him through.”

“Thanks.” The phone clicked, indicating that the connection had been made. “It’s Matthew Wheeler here. I have a little job I’d like you to do.”

“Go ahead, sir,” the young man answered, sounding nervous.

“I just want you to spend a couple of hours on this and then report progress. I want you to keep a record of all the places you look for information, whether you get any or not. Keep a track of the time; when you’ve done two hours, call my assistant for further instructions. Is all of that understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” He took a breath. “I want you to see if you can find any information on a missing woman. Her name is Barbara Crane, and I understand her to be young, with long, blonde hair. She was supposed to be travelling from Lakeside, Illinois, to somewhere in the southern part of New York State, nearly two weeks ago. She was due to start a new job in a school there, but didn’t show up. The police don’t seem to have had any luck in tracing her. I want you to just look at the problem and see whether you can come up with anything.”

“Is that all the information you have, sir?” he asked. “Do you have the name of the school, for example?”

“No, that’s pretty much all I know. Except that her next of kin is Mrs. Beth Meredith and that it’s been in the papers in Illinois, but probably not elsewhere.”

“Okay.” He paused just a moment. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

“I know it’s a big ask,” Matt told him. “I won’t be disappointed in you, if you don’t get anywhere. But I’ll rest easier if I at least try.”

“Understood, sir,” the man answered.

Matthew ended the call and left him to it.

Two hours later, almost to the minute, the phone rang again.

“Adrian King on the line,” his assistant explained. “I think you might like to talk to him yourself.”

“Okay, put him through,” he replied.

“I’ve got some news, sir,” the man told him. “I think I know what happened to her, but I don’t know exactly where she is now.”

Matthew’s brow creased. “Tell me, please.”

The younger man drew a breath. “I went to the library and looked in the Illinois papers to see if I could get anything to go on, and found an article in today’s paper that gave the name of the town and a description of the girl and her car. Then I looked up a map and noticed something interesting.”

“Go on,” Matthew urged.

“The town is called Chestnut Ridge. It’s on the western side of the Hudson, roughly level with Tarrytown.”

“I think I know that area,” Matt mused. “What’s interesting about it?”

“Well, there’s part of it that’s on the New York side of the state line, and part of it that’s on the New Jersey side.” He paused a moment. “I started with the hypothesis that she turned off the parkway too soon, before she’d crossed the state line. So, I called the closest police station on the New Jersey side of the line and asked about her and her car.”

Matt made an impatient noise. “Surely, the police would have thought of that and followed it up?”

“Apparently, they had not,” he answered. “Her car has been sitting outside one of the grocery stores for nearly two weeks and no one had connected it to her.”

“That doesn’t sound very efficient.”

“No, sir. I don’t think anyone had contacted the New Jersey police about this at all, and an abandoned car wasn’t serious enough for them to call Illinois.”

“Well, that places her close to her destination, but it doesn’t explain what happened to her.”

“No, sir,” the man repeated. “But after I spoke to the police, I called the grocery store, and the gas station opposite. The man at the gas station remembered seeing her, when she asked for directions, and again when her car wouldn’t start. He took a quick look at it and told her what was wrong, but she couldn’t afford the repairs and said she’d be back in a day or two.”

“Good work,” Matt praised. “That’s much further than anyone else seems to have gotten.”

He cleared his throat. “There is a little more, sir. He gave her directions to walk to the house of someone he thought could help her: the president of the school board.”

“That’s the same person the sister called, to find out if Barbara had arrived,” Matt noted.

“Is it, sir?” He went on. “The man from the gas station told me that to get there by road is a long way, but you can take a shortcut through a little patch of woods. It seems to me, she must have gotten lost there.”

“That seems reasonable.” He thought for a moment. “I think it might be time to hand this information over to the police. Can you call the station you spoke to earlier, and also the nearest one on the New York side of the state line and tell them?”

“I’m still at the library, sir.”

“Well, come back to the office and call from here.” He nodded. “Very good work.”

“Thank you, sir.”

After the call ended, Matt sat at his desk and thought for a few moments. That young man has a good head on his shoulders. I’ll have to keep an eye on him. Then, his thoughts turned to the task he had given. I wonder if this will be enough to get an answer for those poor people. I wonder if I’ll ever find out.

He put the matter aside. He had done what he could to help them. The police would have to follow through on the information if anything was to come of it.

Five days later, Matt opened his morning paper with no thought beyond his breakfast and the beginning of his day. Janie’s true identity had been settled the day before and all was well in his world.

The headline on page five caught his eye: ‘Missing Teacher Found Alive’. In the first few lines of the article, he saw the name Barbara Crane. He let out a startled curse, then flicked the paper down to make sure that he really was still alone in the room.

Satisfied, he turned back to the article. Police had raided a house in Chestnut Ridge, New York, the day before, it told him, and found a young woman locked in the basement. The house was next door to that of the president of the school board. The owner of the house had been arrested.

Matt laid the paper down. Had his effort contributed to this? Or was it a coincidence? As glad as he was that she’d been found, he shuddered to think what might have been happening to Barbara during these last few weeks.

“This is more than you expected to hear,” he reminded himself aloud, setting the matter out of his head.

But it kept coming back to him. And so it was a relief that his assistant interrupted him with a phone call.

“I’ve got a Beth Meredith on the line,” she explained. “She just wanted to leave a message, but I thought I’d give you a chance to speak to her, if you want to.”

“You’re a treasure, Ruth,” he told her. “Put her through.”

The call connected.

“Mrs. Meredith?” he asked. “It’s Matthew Wheeler speaking.”

“I really didn’t want to interrupt you, Mr. Wheeler,” she explained. “I was just calling to thank you so very much for what you did for my sister. The police told me that your information put them on the right track.”

“It was the least I could do,” he answered. “How is your sister?”

“Better than we thought she would be,” she replied. “Physically, she’s fine. He didn’t assault her. He just kept her locked up. They say there’s some sort of feud between him and the school and she just happened to be an easy victim.”

“I’m very glad it wasn’t worse.”

“Well, thank you very much,” she repeated. “I won’t waste any more of your time.”

“You haven’t wasted a moment, Mrs. Meredith. And you are very welcome.”

He sat back in his chair for a few minutes, basking in the warm feeling that came from helping someone else. Then he picked up the phone.

“Yes sir?” Ruth answered.

“I want Adrian King to get a bonus.” He thought for a moment. “And draft a message from me to his section’s supervisors, commending him for a job well done and recommending him for advancement.”

“Yes, sir. Will that be all?”

“I think so.” He hesitated a moment. “One thing: don’t send me any disciplinary matters for the rest of the day. I’m feeling far too magnanimous.”

He could hear the smile in her voice as she replied, “Yes, sir. Good news only, for the rest of the day.”

“Thank you, Ruth. That’s just what I need.”

The End

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