With a dull thud, the lift arrived and then, with a shriek of protesting metal, the iron grille was dragged back. From it swarmed half a dozen women clad in puritan black. These were the Pilgrims. There was not a speck of colour on them, from their close-fitting bonnets to their trim bustles. And yet each was of surpassing beauty.

Save one.

At their head, like some monstrous Queen bee, stood Mrs Gillyflower, come to eliminate her little problem.

‘Mrs Gillyflower!’ breathed Effie. Her blue eyes darted about in fear.

‘We have come about your husband, my dear,’ said Mrs Gillyflower in regretful tones. ‘A tragedy.’

‘My husband?’

‘Your late husband,’ said Mrs Gillyflower.

‘There must be some mistake,’ cried Effie, thinking fast. How can they know of Edmund? How can they know where he’s gone? ‘My husband is quite well.’

Suddenly, from the door with the round glass portal came a terrible cry. The dreadful last scream of poor Edmund.

Mrs Gillyflower smiled a smile as wintry as frost on a coffin plate. ‘We are so very sorry for your loss.’

And the Pilgrims swept towards Effie like a pack of ravening wolves.

It is to be hoped that whatever terrible fate befell Effie and Edmund they were conscious of little at the end …

*

Narrative of Jonas Thursday, Esq.

It is here that yours truly enters the narrative. I, Jonas Thursday, brother to the ill-fated Edmund and in every respect his double save for the luxuriant moustaches which I have cultivated since my college days, largely to differentiate myself from my twin. There was little sibling rivalry between us, you understand – I was always inordinately fond of Edmund – rather it was to spare tiresome misunderstandings with tradespeople and our myopic vicar, Mr Plumchute, who could never tell us apart even in our perambulators.

I had followed my father into the City whereas Edmund took an altogether different path, into journalism. And it was following up a promising lead for his paper the Pall Mall Budget – and then the Yorkshire Clarion – that led him to Bradford and, latterly, myself in his footsteps. I knew little of what he was in pursuit of, only that he and that the young lady he spoke fondly of in his letters had disappeared. And then that Edmund had been reported deceased – with no cause of death listed. My mother was in despair and I was despatched to Bradford forthwith. With heavy heart, I dragged my weary feet to the Municipal Morgue – a chilly rectangle of hopelessness, its flaring gas jets throwing huge leaping shadows over the white tiled walls.

From somewhere outside came the shrill cry of a police whistle.

‘That’s the bobbies giving chase again. I don’t envy them, sir. Not on a night like this.’