had ended up slashed to bits on the floor of a decrepit horsecab. To raise my spirits, I took lunch upstairs at Simpsons, where to my pleasure the maitre d’ greeted me by name. Finally, I took a taxi to my club.
A telegram awaited me, from Veronica, asking me would I come to her house at four, and would I care to go to the Temple that evening?
Upstairs, I contemplated the two dresses hanging forlornly in the wardrobe. One was a lovely rich green wool, but it was two years old, had been let down twice, despite the shorter hemlines, and looked it. The other was a very plain dark blue, almost black, and it was a dress I disliked enough to leave in storage fifty weeks of the year. I wondered which of the two was less unacceptable, then realised that neither went with the shoes available. I thought of the elves and sighed. Perhaps I ought to do as Holmes had done—arrange to leave half a dozen complete sets of clothing and necessities stashed about the countryside. After Sunday, I could afford it, if I wanted. It would certainly keep the elves amused.
I put both frocks and the decision back on the rack and went down a floor to the club’s library-cum-reading room. I was not particularly interested in Iris Fitzwarren’s death, save that it touched the lives of Veronica and Margery Childe, but out of habit, and perhaps out of respect for Ronnie, I thought it would do no harm to catch up with what the newspapers had to say. I went to the neat stack and dug down to the early Tuesday editions. However, I walked back upstairs an hour later with ink-stained hands but a mind little enlightened. Iris Elizabeth Fitzwarren, aged twenty-eight, daughter of Major Thomas Fitzwarren and Elizabeth Quincey Donahue Fitzwarren, had died as a result of knife wounds between one and three in the morning of Tuesday, the twenty-eighth of December. Scotland Yard had traced a taxi driver who reported dropping her outside an infamous nightclub late the night before, but intensive investigations had not yet succeeded in establishing when she had left the club or with whom—if anyone—she had been seen while in the establishment. Miss Fitzwarren was well known among the poorer classes (the phrase used by The Times) , where she had worked to establish free medical services for women and infants. She had become interested in nursing during the War, had taken a course in nursing, and together with Miss Margery Childe, beautiful blonde directress (one of the more effusive afternoon papers) of the New Temple in God, Miss Fitzwarren had been instrumental in organising medical clinics in Stepney and Whitechapel. Miss Fitzwarren was survived by, and so on, and memorial services would be held, et cetera, et cetera.
In other words, I thought, scrubbing my nails, if the Yard knows owt, they’re saying nowt.
I did my hair with more care than usual, dropped the plain dark dress over my head, and examined the result. The elves would tut-tut, I thought, but at least it was better than Veronica’s jumble-sale clothes. I checked at the desk, but there was nothing for me, so I left a message with my whereabouts for the next few hours, to be given to Mr Holmes.
Veronica’s courtyard looked even worse by waning light than it had by waxing. A handful of urchins lingered outside her door, no doubt waiting there until their mothers might allow them inside their own homes for tea. Two had healing facial sores, four went barefooted, and one had no coat. An incomprehensible but identifiable noise echoed across the yard, and after paying the taxi driver, I followed the sound to its source: Veronica’s door was ajar and a pandemonium of voices came spilling out. I pushed my way gently through the children in order to lean my head inside, realised there was little point in knocking or calling a polite hullo, and walked in. The noise came from the second of the ill-furnished ground-floor rooms, in the back, and I stood at the door and tried to make sense of what was
A telegram awaited me, from Veronica, asking me would I come to her house at four, and would I care to go to the Temple that evening?
Upstairs, I contemplated the two dresses hanging forlornly in the wardrobe. One was a lovely rich green wool, but it was two years old, had been let down twice, despite the shorter hemlines, and looked it. The other was a very plain dark blue, almost black, and it was a dress I disliked enough to leave in storage fifty weeks of the year. I wondered which of the two was less unacceptable, then realised that neither went with the shoes available. I thought of the elves and sighed. Perhaps I ought to do as Holmes had done—arrange to leave half a dozen complete sets of clothing and necessities stashed about the countryside. After Sunday, I could afford it, if I wanted. It would certainly keep the elves amused.
I put both frocks and the decision back on the rack and went down a floor to the club’s library-cum-reading room. I was not particularly interested in Iris Fitzwarren’s death, save that it touched the lives of Veronica and Margery Childe, but out of habit, and perhaps out of respect for Ronnie, I thought it would do no harm to catch up with what the newspapers had to say. I went to the neat stack and dug down to the early Tuesday editions. However, I walked back upstairs an hour later with ink-stained hands but a mind little enlightened. Iris Elizabeth Fitzwarren, aged twenty-eight, daughter of Major Thomas Fitzwarren and Elizabeth Quincey Donahue Fitzwarren, had died as a result of knife wounds between one and three in the morning of Tuesday, the twenty-eighth of December. Scotland Yard had traced a taxi driver who reported dropping her outside an infamous nightclub late the night before, but intensive investigations had not yet succeeded in establishing when she had left the club or with whom—if anyone—she had been seen while in the establishment. Miss Fitzwarren was well known among the poorer classes (the phrase used by The Times) , where she had worked to establish free medical services for women and infants. She had become interested in nursing during the War, had taken a course in nursing, and together with Miss Margery Childe, beautiful blonde directress (one of the more effusive afternoon papers) of the New Temple in God, Miss Fitzwarren had been instrumental in organising medical clinics in Stepney and Whitechapel. Miss Fitzwarren was survived by, and so on, and memorial services would be held, et cetera, et cetera.
In other words, I thought, scrubbing my nails, if the Yard knows owt, they’re saying nowt.
I did my hair with more care than usual, dropped the plain dark dress over my head, and examined the result. The elves would tut-tut, I thought, but at least it was better than Veronica’s jumble-sale clothes. I checked at the desk, but there was nothing for me, so I left a message with my whereabouts for the next few hours, to be given to Mr Holmes.
Veronica’s courtyard looked even worse by waning light than it had by waxing. A handful of urchins lingered outside her door, no doubt waiting there until their mothers might allow them inside their own homes for tea. Two had healing facial sores, four went barefooted, and one had no coat. An incomprehensible but identifiable noise echoed across the yard, and after paying the taxi driver, I followed the sound to its source: Veronica’s door was ajar and a pandemonium of voices came spilling out. I pushed my way gently through the children in order to lean my head inside, realised there was little point in knocking or calling a polite hullo, and walked in. The noise came from the second of the ill-furnished ground-floor rooms, in the back, and I stood at the door and tried to make sense of what was
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