Honorable Mention, Fiction

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Location: Train Station 

Object: A Child's Drawing 

Line: "The instructions were clear." 

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The Test, by Emily Howsley

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The lightning flashed as Rowena McClary stared out the sitting room window. Each flash saw sheets and sheets of horizontal rain unleashed on unlucky pedestrians darting puddles and dashing to cover with their hats and umbrellas woefully unhelpful. She was thankful to be safe and snug in her family’s brick terraced home. 

She turned to sit back on the settee and sighed. With the weather the way it was, she probably wouldn’t get any clients today.  

It was tough being a female detective, but even harder to be the only female private detective in such an industrial center. 

A lady detective? People often would scoff, mostly men, but sometimes other women also joined in the criticism. Sometimes, she played that card to her advantage. 

Rowena picked up the small framed photo of her father and her on a sunny day. He was a pioneering bobbie for the Yard. She was always his Red-Haired Rowena. Rowena only had a few mementos of her mother who died when Rowena was a toddler. Her father had never doubted her. He’d vanished and even his closest confidants said there was nothing they could find or do to help her. She searched tirelessly, but he simply vanished. 

What would father say about me now? She wondered to herself, as she put the photo back down on the 18th century desk - the only true antique the family ever had. They weren’t as hard-scrabble as many, but they were certainly not of noble descent. 

The city wasn’t ready for a female on the force, so she hung her shingle out. Most of her nascent business was helping a wife track down an errant husband, not really what she had in mind, but she knew they needed a friendly, non-patronizing professional. 

Suddenly, a heavy and loud knock on the door snapped Rowena out of her brief reverie. BAM, BAM, BAM. The wooden door shuddered at the force.

Rowena immediately stood up and silently tip-toed to the door, beating Mrs. Peabody. 

But the door never opened, suddenly a miraculously dry envelope dropped through the bronze mail slot in the door and fluttered to the floor. 

She peered through the mail slot, but there was no sign of any delivery person, nor even wet footprints from her view. 

Curious, she opened the plain yellow envelope. The paper inside was white and had black typewriter text. No smudges, errors or mistakes, somebody had precise typing skills. 

It simply said: 

Euston Station 

7:00 PM 

Great Hall 

North ticket booth 

Ask for a first class ticket to Manchester 

Red scarf 

Rowena knitted her brow. 

“Is this some kind of joke?” she muttered to herself. “Who would do this? Was it the guys on the force pulling a prank on me?” 

“Why, I’m just a poor, defenseless and simple dolly,” Rowena said out loud to herself as she put her left hand to her forehead and pretended to swoon. 

She was stumped, something not great in her line of work. 

Wait - the time! She looked at the large mantel clock of her father’s. It was almost 5pm. Rowena closed the heavy chintz curtains of the bay window. 

This is ridiculous. But, what if it’s something real? No, she wasn’t a deerstalker hat detective, she was trailing middle-aged men who were having romantic romps with women other than their wives. Besides, what if it was a trap? But who would put all this effort to deliver a typed letter to her office by hand in a downpour?  

Her thoughts raced fast and bounced in her head like a tennis match. The deluge of rain had turned the evening air cold. She wrapped herself up in a warm blanket.  

The housekeeper old Mrs. Peabody coughed as she stood in the hallway.  

Rowena groaned to herself. Mrs. Peabody with her ever-present white bun and neat-as-pin black dress, was such a busybody and never let anything past her. 

She’d been with the family before Rowena was born. Though, since her father was gone, Rowena had to stretch every coin, Mrs. Peabody came around a few times a week. Plus, with just her, there wasn’t much demand for a full-time housekeeper anymore. 

Of course, today was just one of those days. 

“Hello Miss Rowena, how’s the gumshoe game going?” Mrs. Peabody asked with her eyebrows arched in suspicion. 

“Hello Mrs. Peabody, fine, everything’s fine,” Rowena paused. 

How could she get out of this situation fast, she wondered. 

“I’m sorry, I’ve really got to change into something warmer,” Rowena hastily explained as she quickly slid past Mrs. Peabody. She barely had to get the door closed on her bedroom door when Mrs. Peabody knocked. 

“I’m changing,” Rowena said mildly annoyed. 

Mrs. Peabody was too efficient at her job.  

“It seems you’ve dropped an envelope,” stated Mrs. Peabody matter-of-factly.  The envelope! She couldn’t let Mrs. Peabody snoop. 

She opened the door and was greeted by Mrs. Peabody and her increasingly suspicious stare. 

“What is it?” 

“I, uh, I don’t know, I received it just a bit ago,” Rowena answered truthfully. “Hmmm, I don’t like the sounds of that, especially on a dreadful day like today.” Mrs. Peabody tutted. 

She stood expectancy like Rowena would continue the conversation. 

“I’m very sorry, but I need to get into some warmer clothes,” Rowena said. Mrs. Peabody harrumphed and wandered down stairs. 

“I’ll be taking my leave now Miss Rowena,” Mrs. Peabody announced as she headed to the front door, “I’ve put a kettle on for tea.” 

Rowena sighed with relief when she heard Mrs. Peabody closed the front door downstairs. What was this letter? Was it a hoax? Seriously? A trap? 

Who would bother to go to such an elaborate ruse to trap her? She didn’t have any family or even a beau, so it would be easy to snuff her out - but then again, who would want to do that? A crazy ex of a client? 

She sat at her kitchen table and reread the letter. 

No flaws, no smudges, no tears, just normal white paper with a cryptic typewritten note. How did they know she had a red scarf and it had been her mother’s? 

Rowena, feeling more warm, went downstairs to the kitchen to have a cup of tea. She smiled ruefully that it was the fashionable 5 o’clock tea time for the dandies and ladies. With no title or estate, she really wasn’t in society, especially since her father was gone and she started trying her hand at private detective work. 

The kitchen clock seemed to slow down and amplify every tick and tock. Time inched by. Should she go? Should she stay? 

It was dark soon, at this time of year. 

The arguments continued in Rowena’s mind. I shouldn’t go, it’s dark and cold. I could be murdered, or arrested or be a patsy in some scheme. But, what if it’s something that could change my fortune? What if I ended up being a plot in a penny dreadful? Was she seriously considering going? 

Father had also told her her curiosity was going to be the best of her, and she knew what happened to the cat. 

She sat and stretched out on the settee to read the latest edition of “The Strand.”  

Rowena laughed to herself that she seemed to be in the plot of one of Doyle’s latest yarns. She tried to relax, but her intuition and curiosity were hitting her hard.  

She stood up, found her red scarf, grabbed her coat and umbrella, and hailed a cab. 

She arrived at the Euston station at twenty to 7. She stuck to the walls and shadows as she surveyed the scene. Thankfully, she was nondescript enough that people paid her no mind most of the time. The station was one of her favorites to visit and use for traveling. She loved the Euston Arch built in 1896 and the wrought iron details over the platforms. The Great Hall was awe-inspiring in one of the busiest train stations in all of London. 

In her rush, she had gotten herself turned around in the busy station.  Where was the north end of the station? 

Time was now flying. The minute hands seemed to be flying on her father’s pocket watch that she wore on a chain tucked into a special pocket. 

With just minutes to spare, she found the north ticket booth. 

Out of breath, she saw the clock in the station strike 7 PM. She went up to the ticket booth. 

“Good evening, I’d like one first class ticket for Manchester,” she said to the shadowy figure in the ticket booth. 

The agent showed no emotion, said nothing, and handed her an envelope, which was unusual. 

As she opened the envelope, she discovered there was no ticket, but a folded up piece of paper. When she turned to ask the agent about it, the booth was closed and no one was to be found. 

She picked up the paper and carefully unfolded it. It looked like a child’s drawing. It was drawn in crayons. The drawing was of a lemon tree, with clouds, a sun, and grass. 

A lemon tree? A child from London drew a lemon tree? She carefully examined the rough paper, ran her gloved fingers over the waxy yellow, green, and brown lines. 

Without a ticket, she didn’t know how to get on the train. 

Think about the drawing, the panic set in. Breathe, work the problem, that’s what father said. Even though the station was busy, nobody seemed to notice her, nor did she notice anyone suspicious in the historic station. 

Lemons. Lemons. Why lemons and a sunny sky? 

She put her hands on her face in frustration. Oddly, she thought she even smelled lemons on her glove. She dismissed the notion and hired a cab to go back home. 

“Rowena, it’s time to head home,” she said out loud to herself. 

Rowena was exhausted by this intrigue. What a waste of an evening where she could have been curled up by the sitting room’s fireplace reading dishy magazine articles. 

When she arrived back at the house, she remembered a time-honored tradition. “I should have a cup of tea,” she told herself. . 

Though the rain had stopped, it was still cold, she’d let the water in the tea kettle get a bit hotter than normal. 

As she poured the water into the cup for the tea to seep, she let out a sound of surprise as the cup started steaming more than normal. It nearly burned her fingers. 

She sat down at the kitchen table and unfolded the child’s drawing again and held it over her steaming cup of tea. Was she seeing things? Was there something appearing on the paper? No, she’s just overtired, overstressed, there’s not a trace of a letter above the sun in the upper left corner. No, it really looks like a letter. 

No, this couldn’t really be…. Could it really be invisible ink? She’d heard about it through her studies and eavesdropping at the Yard. This really was like something from “The Strand, or Doyle! 

Still, her curiosity took hold again. 

“I need more heat, would the steam from the kettle be enough?” she wondered.  Miraculously, a message appeared. 

It was true, invisible ink was real! Rowena was stunned. 

It simply had an address and tomorrow’s date.  

The next day, she couldn’t wait. She took the fastest transport to the address in a nondescript, industrial part of town. 

Rowena was thankful that despite the mystery, the instructions were clear. She knocked on the heavy wooden doors. 

The door opened and there stood her father in a plain blue suit with Mrs. Peabody looked proper and neat in a plain but well-tailored dress next to him. 

She felt faint and gasped out loud as she clutched the drawing.  

“We’ve been expecting you my dear,” he said as they embraced. 

“Father, I can’t believe this, what is going on?” She exclaimed, her face in total disbelief.  He just smiled. 

“Welcome to the Secret Service Bureau, the UK’s scrappy but mightiest intelligence agency.” her father said, “You passed the test.”