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B1 · Intermediate · Working Late · 244 words · ~2 min read

🌙 Burning the Midnight Oil

Language focus: Expressing doubt & determination · speculation

The London Startup Mystery

Before you read

This episode is where the story turns, and it does so grammatically as well as narratively: the past perfect continuous appears, and the modals of speculation you met earlier come into full use. Watch how Maya reasons on the page.

Maya simply couldn’t let it go. One evening she stayed behind after everyone else had left, the studio silent except for the low hum of the air conditioning. She spread Daniel’s notebook across her desk, made herself a strong coffee, and got to work.

Slowly but surely, she began to work out the logic of the code. Each symbol seemed to stand for a single letter, and a name gradually emerged from the chaos: “AURORA”. “So it was about the client after all,” she muttered. Her gut feeling had been right all along.

But why on earth hide it? She had a nagging doubt that something didn’t quite add up. Perhaps Daniel had discovered a problem with the Aurora account — or perhaps he had simply been protecting a brilliant idea that wasn’t finished yet.

A sudden noise made her jump. Priya was standing in the doorway, her coat already on, watching Maya intently. “You’re here very late,” she said quietly. “I think it’s time the two of us had a proper talk.” Maya’s heart began to race.

By eleven she had filled six pages with substitutions, most of them wrong. The breakthrough came from something dull: the same three-symbol group appeared at the start of every section, and it had to be a heading.

She had been so absorbed that she had not heard the lift. Whatever Priya had come back for, it was not her coat — she was still wearing it.

Key vocabulary (6 words)

logicnoun
A sensible way of thinking in which one idea leads to another.
clientnoun
A person or company that pays for a service.
accountnoun
A particular client’s business that a company looks after.
doubtnoun
A feeling of not being sure about something.
naggingadjective
Continuing to worry you and not going away.
speculationnoun
Guessing about something without being sure.

Phrasal verbs in this episode

  • stay behind — To stay behind means to remain in a place after others have left.
  • work out — To work out means to solve or understand something.
  • add up — If something adds up, it makes sense.

Idioms in this episode

  • burn the midnight oil — To burn the midnight oil means to work late into the night.
  • gut feeling — A gut feeling is a strong instinct about something, without clear reasons.

The grammar in this episode

Past perfect continuous for duration before a past moment

“She had been so absorbed that she had not heard the lift.” And earlier: her gut feeling had been right all along. The structure had been plus -ing describes a stretch of activity leading up to a point in the past. It is the past-tense mirror of have been working, and B1 is where it becomes expected.

Speculation about the past: might have, must have

“Perhaps Daniel had discovered a problem — or perhaps he had simply been protecting an idea.” The same two possibilities could be written he might have discovered and he must have been protecting. Note the shape: modal + have + past participle, and have never changes to has after a modal.

add up, work out, stay behind

Add up here means make sense — “something didn’t quite add up” — a meaning quite separate from arithmetic. Work out = solve or figure out, and it is separable: work it out. Stay behind takes no object at all. Three particles, three different grammatical behaviours.

Slowly but surely, all along, on earth

These are intensifiers and discourse markers rather than vocabulary items. Slowly but surely means gradual but certain progress. All along means from the beginning until now. Why on earth adds exasperated emphasis to a question. Each is fixed and cannot be reworded.

Phrases you can reuse today

Something doesn’t quite add up.
Add up = make sense. Nothing to do with numbers here.
I finally worked it out.
Separable: the pronoun goes in the middle.
I had a gut feeling about it.
Idiom: a strong instinct with no clear reason.
I was burning the midnight oil.
Idiom: working very late into the night.

Comprehension quiz

  1. Why does Maya stay behind?

    • To clean the studio
    • To work out the code
    • To wait for the bus
    Show answer

    To work out the code

  2. Which name emerges from the code?

    • Aurora
    • Lumen
    • Daniel
    Show answer

    Aurora

  3. “Her gut feeling had been right” means her…

    • stomach hurt
    • instinct was correct
    • plan failed
    Show answer

    instinct was correct

  4. “Something didn’t add up” means it…

    • was expensive
    • didn’t make sense
    • was finished
    Show answer

    didn’t make sense

  5. Who appears in the doorway?

    • Tom
    • Priya
    • Daniel
    Show answer

    Priya

  6. “Burn the midnight oil” means to…

    • light a candle
    • work late into the night
    • waste money
    Show answer

    work late into the night

Now use it yourself

Reading builds recognition; writing your own sentences is what turns it into something you can actually say. Three short tasks:

  1. Explain a past mystery using must have, might have and can’t have.
  2. Write three sentences with had been plus -ing about your own past.
  3. Describe a problem you solved by persistence rather than cleverness.

All 20 B1 episodes

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