Effie was already struggling for ideas of how to fix it, and thus already frustrated. And this was nothing new: her job could be frustrating, and there was nothing to make that frustration worse than having an audience loitering in the room with her.

That it was Miss Selden did not make the experience any more enjoyable. And perhaps Miss Selden was not all bad in character, but – Effie knew that she had abandoned Brooks on their wedding day, so her expectations were rather in the gutter to start with.

But she was here for work, so she ought not be judging her. “It just doesn’t make sense,” she had muttered to herself, about her fruitless tests for the flaw in the fireplace. She pushed herself to her feet, under pretence of looking at the mantelpiece, but turned so that she had a better view of the notorious Miss Selden.

“There haven’t been any interruptions to the network connection,” Effie declared to her, so that it at least seemed like she had made some progress here (she didn’t care what Miss Selden thought of her, but she didn’t want to seem stupid). And it had to be a fault on this end, she was certain of that. She pushed some escaping hair behind her ear. “Has anything else – unusual happened to this fireplace lately, that you recall? Or in this room?”

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