The Haunting of the Desks: A Sparks & Bainbridge Short Story

By Allison Montclair

Sparks and Bainbridge of The Right Sort Marriage Bureau return in this short story from Allison Montclair as their expansion into a new office - and acquisition of a new desk - results in unexplainable phenomena that can only mean that their new digs are haunted!

In London, 1946, The Right Sort Marriage Agency is off to a good start and their early success means that Miss Iris Sparks and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge can now afford to expand into the long-empty office across the hall. And with that long closed office comes some more professional furniture - including a partner's desk from Harrod's. But something is afoot in that office - strange noises at unusual hours, some of the furniture seeming moved around and cleaned, all behind a locked door. The building's janitor is convinced that this is proof that the office is haunted.

But Sparks and Bainbridge are not so sure that's the only, or even the correct, conclusion. Instead, they suspect there's something going on related to the locked partner's desk and the long closed office. With their detective hats on, Sparks and Bainbridge are determined to uncover the truth about the mystery of the haunted partner's desk...or die trying?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Apr 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781250810274

Allison Montclair

ALLISON MONTCLAIR grew up devouring hand-me-down Agatha Christie paperbacks and James Bond movies. As a result of this deplorable upbringing, Montclair became addicted to tales of crime, intrigue, and espionage. She now spends her spare time poking through the corners, nooks, and crannies of history, searching for the odd mysterious bits and transforming them into novels of her own. She is the author of the Sparks & Bainbridge historical mystery series, which begins with The Right Sort of Man.

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The Haunting of the Desks by Allison Montclair

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Angus MacPherson leaned upon his mop, lost in thought. That’s what he liked to call it, although the usual meanings of the phrase—to be meditative, ruminative, absorbed in the contemplation of a topic—were not strictly applicable to his state of mind. It was more along the lines of his habit of starting to think about one thing, then go wandering down a branch off that particular path, and another subbranch from that, and so on, until all memory of the original inspiration had vanished, leaving him disoriented, rambling through the mental thickets with no discernible way forward or back.

It had started with the mop, he thought. Mopping was a frequent cause of his distraction, which is why he resisted doing it, or at least that’s what he told himself when it came time to do the floors of the four-storey office building for which he had been the custodian for nigh on thirty-five years apart from his time in the Royal Army. He had a vague notion that the tangle of wet, grey strings clinging to the worn wooden pole had put him mind of the hair of someone he once knew, and he was trying to remember who, exactly. Some old woman—or was it an old man? Lived near the stables in the town where he grew up before he came to London. Something to do with horses, then, which in turn reminded him of the time he took a girl on a carriage ride after he came home from the Great War, when everyone was celebrating and any lad in a uniform could get at least one girl to ride in a carriage with him at least once. He was trying to remember her name, but kept hearing a man’s voice saying, MacPherson! MacPherson! over and over again, which was his name, not hers.

Why would he be thinking about his own name? And in that voice, which wasn’t his?

He finally sorted out that it meant someone was calling him, and he looked up from where the mop was slowly dampening a small portion of the floor in an irregular, ever-widening circle to see Mr. Maxwell the younger staring at him in irritation.

I’m sorry, am I interrupting something? asked Mr. Maxwell. Something important? I’ve been looking all over the bloody building for you.

I was here, said Mr. MacPherson, in a tone that suggested he himself had just been apprised of that information.

He looked at the implement in his hands.

Mopping, he concluded.

You do have a mop, observed Mr. Maxwell. And if it had in fact been put into some form of motion, I might even have agreed that you were mopping, which would equate to you working, which is what we pay you to do.

It is, said Mr. MacPherson.

But it was not in motion when I arrived here, said Mr. Maxwell. It and you were the very epitome of stillness. You could have been posing for a statue. You could have actually been a statue. We could have had you and the mop bronzed on the spot, titled it Torpidity, and mounted it in an exhibition devoted to the general subject of Uselessness in Society. You weren’t mopping, MacPherson, you were moping. And we don’t pay you for that.

Mr. MacPherson, taking the man’s point, shoved the mop back and forth a few times.

Now you’re getting the hang of it, said Mr. Maxwell. At the rate you’re going, you might finish the job before Christmas.

Why are you here, exactly? asked Mr. MacPherson.

I do own the building, MacPherson. I’m bound to pop in once in a while. It does do my heart good to see it being kept in such a pristine condition.

It isn’t your building, said Mr. MacPherson. It’s your father’s building.

It belongs to and is managed by the firm of Maxwell and Son, said Mr. Maxwell, bristling. It technically may be held in my father’s name, but I am the Son of Maxwell and Son, and as such, if I say this is my building in a manner of speaking, then it’s my building. In any case, as much as I enjoy bandying legal concepts and figures of speech with a lethargic custodian, I happen to be here not just to check up on the superb quality of your work, but to ask you to do something specific.

All right then, said Mr. MacPherson.

Do you want to know what the specific task is? asked Mr. Maxwell.

Yes, said Mr. MacPherson, after a few moments’ consideration.

Four oh seven, MacPherson. You know it?

Next to the marriage bureau ladies.

That’s the one. The marriage bureau ladies, The Right Sort Marriage Bureau, to give them their official name, have leased four oh seven in addition to their old office. They are expanding, MacPherson. Imagine that. When they showed up last spring and told me what they were about and took four oh five, I gave them six months before they went under.

You gave them four months, remembered Mr. MacPherson.

Did I? Well, in any case, those two girls have made a go of it, so good on them. And now they’re expanding. They have leased the office next to theirs—

Four oh seven, said Mr. MacPherson. The old Cooper and Lyons place.

Yes, that’s the one.

I don’t like going in there. Not after what happened.

That was fifteen years ago.

And nought’s been in there since. It’s a cursed place. I don’t know why you let the ladies have it.

Yes, well, we needn’t mention anything about that to them, right?

The names are still on the door.

"Then scrape the bloody names off the door, MacPherson. That should have been done years ago. Why wasn’t it

Reviews for The Haunting of the Desks

[kmartin802_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This story has Iris and Gwen solving a mystery when they move into their new office at 407. It has been empty for fifteen years except for two very large and impressive partner desks. There was a mystery concerning the previous occupants including embezzlement, one partner fleeing to Europe, and the other apparently committing suicide. The desks are empty except for fifteen postcards with riddles on them and a broken curtain rod. There is also an unexpected visitor. Nice story.