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Henry’s  mother had been at a loss to understand his mysterious disappearance. She sought out the one private investigator in the village, who was just at the outset of his career, young, fresh with ideas, and affordable.

Richard “Dick” Flanigin showed her into his waiting room, and then heard his phone ring. As he could not afford a receptionist, he said, “I’ll just take that in my office.”

He went in, closed the door, and picked up the phone.

“Dick Flanigin, Private Investigator,” he said.

“It’s Brenda Leesil,” said the voice at the other end.

Brenda had been his second case since he opened for business. She was a beautiful widow, somewhat older than Richard. Her last surviving parent, her mother, had died, and other relatives had attempted to swindle her out of a significant portion of her inheritance. Dick had solved the case and secured her rightful legacy entitlement, and been handsomely paid from the proceeds. When she had paid him, he had slipped a note under the receipt he’d handed her:

 

Dear Brenda,

There’s no pressure here, and I’m happy to take other assignments from you in the future, no matter what you say, but would you like to go out for dinner with me some time, and shall we say, see how the case progresses?

Love,

Dick.

 

Now she had called him back!

“Hello!” he said keenly.

“Thank you for your offer, but I’m not interested,” said Brenda, “I will call you if I need your services again though.”

“Okay then,” said Dick, “No hard feelings, but I’d better go now actually. I had a client waiting in the reception area when you called.”

 

Henry’s mother told him of the way her son had simply disappeared with no warning or explanation, not even any signs of discontentment at home. She said that she suspected some sort of foul play, and that he would not have stayed away willingly.

“Well I’m happy to take the case, but I’ll need to cover all ground, in order to be as effective for you as possible. Will you allow me to search his room?”

“Of course, but I’d rather you didn’t tell me what you found in there. If I do get him back, I don’t want him to think I’ve intruded on his privacy.”

“If I find anything pertinent to the investigation of his disappearance, I’ll use it, but if I need to make you aware of it in order to make good use of it, do you still not want to be told?”

“Well only if it’s going to affect the outcome,” she replied.

She led him back to her home, and did housework while he searched through Henry’s room, including his school bag.

“I may have something,” he told her at last, “Would you mind if I borrowed this school lessons timetable book to photocopy one of the pages, and then returned it to you?”

“There’s a photocopier in the house,” she said, “You can use that while you’re here.”

“Even better,” said Dick, “I won’t need to give away any of Henry’s privacy, but from what I’ve learned here today, I have reason to think that this might cross over with another case I’m working on. This may just help me to solve both.”

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