Missing Person by Mary Jane Staples

on account of believing their house was haunted. Kids. They’d believe anything, most of them. Still, it had been horrible, that murder, old Mrs Chivers with her throat cut from ear to ear, so people said, and the police had never found the murderer.
    ‘Evenin’, gents.’ Mrs Higgins addressed the two men as they reached her gate. They were stalwart men, with good looks, their caps and working clothes very respectable. Just home from their work, she supposed. They smiled at her as they passed by.
    ‘Good evening,’ they both said.
    ‘Been a nice day,’ said Mrs Higgins, who’d have liked a bit of a gossip with them, even if they had come from the East End. They were different, East End people . They teemed, that’s what they did. Well, they bred like rabbits in all them tenements and rows of flat-fronted houses, and the kids ran about ragged and bare-footed, and the women screeched like fishwives. And some of the men would murder a woman just for her handbag. Well, that was what she’d heard. She’d bet Jack the Ripper had been born and bred in Shoreditch.
    The two men entered their house and went up to their bedrooms. The woman known as Mrs Agnes Harper came out of the kitchen and called up to them.
    ‘Yer back, then. Yer meal’s nearly ready. Say ten minutes. You ’earing me up there?’
    ‘Yes,’ called the man Wally.
    ‘I did the shoppin’, and got the padlock you wanted,’ she said.
    ‘Good.’
    ‘Did I ’ear you say thanks?’
    ‘Many thanks.’
    ‘Pleasure, I’m sure,’ said Mrs Harper, and returned to the kitchen, where she had a little nip of gin to keep her spirits up. The other man walked into Wally’s room.
    ‘A coarse woman,’ he said.
    ‘But a useful cover,’ said Wally.
    ‘Expendable, however?’
    ‘If necessary,’ said Wally.
    Dan Rogers, arriving home, couldn’t find either of his daughters. But he heard Tilly’s sewing-machine going. Up he went and knocked on her door.
    ‘Tilly Thomas?’
    ‘She’s at ’ome, you can come in,’ called Tilly.
    Dan entered, and there they were, Bubbles and Penny-Farving, sitting together in the fireside armchair . Tilly, at her dressmaking work, was facing the window, the light dancing on her dark brown hair.
    ‘’Ello, Dad,’ said Bubbles.
    ‘Ssssh,’ breathed Penny-Farving, ‘it’s no talkin’.’
    ‘You can take them away, Mr Rogers,’ said Tilly.
    ‘Listen, me little sausages,’ said Dan, ‘what’re you doin’ up here?’
    ‘Can we tell Dad, Tilly?’ asked Penny-Farving.
    ‘I’ll tell ’im meself,’ said Tilly. ‘First, you did it on me again, Mr Rogers, you—’
    ‘On me honour as an old Boy Scout, I’m an innocent party,’ said Dan.
    ‘I bet,’ said Tilly. ‘You sneaked off like a slippery Sam, leavin’ me to keep an eye on your gels, and don’t think—’
    ‘I was in a hurry, I can’t say I wasn’t, but I’ve never sneaked off in me life,’ said Dan.
    ‘There’s always a first time,’ said Tilly, ‘and don’t start that interruptin’ stuff all over again. It ain’t polite. Your gels gave me all kinds of ’eadaches this mornin’, yellin’ in the yard, knockin’ the dustbin over and chasin’ someone’s cat. That woman next door knocked and said if I didn’t bring them in out of the yard, she’d chuck washin’-up suds all over them. So this afternoon I brought them up ’ere and made them sit quiet or suffer smacked bottoms.’
    ‘She give us a banana each, though,’ said Penny-Farving.
    ‘She told us she’d give us anuvver one each if we stayed quiet,’ said Bubbles.
    ‘We like bananas,’ said Penny-Farving.
    ‘We don’t like smacked bottoms,’ said Bubbles.
    ‘Have you had yours smacked, then?’ asked Dan.
    ‘They nearly ’ave, once or twice,’ said Tilly, ‘but that’s more your duty than mine.’
    ‘No, it’s not, Dad don’t ever smack our bottoms,’ said Penny-Farving, slightly indignant.
    ‘No comment,’ said Tilly.
    ‘It seems to me I owe you