Chapter 6

Eleanor was sniffing back her tears and rubbing her sore backside when the phone rang. The slave owner handed the cane to the punished girl, told her to undo her own gag and went to answer the call. Eleanor did as she was told and knelt with hands behind her, the approved position after a caning with her sore bum cheeks resting on her heels. Though the slave could hear her Mistress talking she could not get many details. When Matilda put the phone down she came and stood in front of the kneeling slave, hands on hips.

“Well, it seems I need you to be on your feet. I will need your help, because I have some very interesting information.”

“But normally I have to be kneeling like this for an hour, Mistress. Post caning discomfort, you call it.”

“I know. It’s a nuisance breaking my rules but things are moving fast. The situation is changing all the time, or my understanding of it is. The call just now was from Inspector Charles. Yes, he said he would call tomorrow but it seems he was alarmed by the missing guest and has expedited matters. He went to the Harvest Hotel and demanded to see the register. A Miss Gale Reed did check in, but no one had seen her since. The bed was undisturbed. He was intrigued why the lady should come with no luggage and not stay. Even the most obvious prostitute would make some pretence at proper conduct at an established hotel like the Harvest.”

“Does the inspector know this Miss Reed is the star, Violet Sommers?”

“He didn’t say. I doubt it: he is a man who listens to the radio and not go to the cinema. Too modern for him. But what he found made him think there was something odd happening. You see, slave, he went to the bedroom and found there were some clothes in Miss Reed’s room. Not skirts and blouses and dresses, but only girdles.”

“Goodness! And our missing girdle was among them?”

“He knows so little about women’s clothing he could not, or would not say. To him a girdle is something he would leave to his wife, and even she may not undress in front of him. No, he was more intrigued by a guest leaving by the back door and the unoccupied room than someone leaving girdles in, and rang around to get a quick answer on the lorry registration we gave him.”

“And? Oh, you are teasing me, Mistress!”

“I am,” Matilda picked up the discarded ball gag and let it trail against her slave’s upturned face. Eleanor opened her mouth to try and take it between her teeth but Matilda pulled the gag just out of reach. “I am a dreadful tease. But ... the lorry. It was registered, of all people, to Starstart Films.”

“A studio?” Eleanor’s eyes widened. “Ah, the request to the police for a copper at Lady Carden’s place. No doubt the studio which employs Miss Sommers, I believe from reading ‘Movie Monthly Cavalcade.’ So I take it Miss Sommers is in the production.”