Page 26 of Evil at the Essex House
I didn’t insist on my version of reality, though. If the Schlomskys wanted to believe that their daughter was a studious and quiet teetotaler, to try to convince them otherwise would only annoy. They’d see the truth for themselves once Flossie turned up.
So I trailed behind instead, as Evans led the way down the hall towards Flossie’s door. And then I waited as he knocked on the door, and fitted the key in the lock, and twisted it, and pushed the door open. “Miss Schlomsky?”
Sarah Schlomsky pushed past him with Hiram right behind. “Florence, darling? It’s Mother!”
She headed into the flat while Evans wiggled the key back out of the lock and stood for a second, undecided, with it in his hand.
“I’ll give it to them,” I said, holding out my hand. “I know you’re not supposed to leave the lobby empty.”
Evans hesitated. “It’s the only spare key, Miss Darling. If it gets lost…”
“Just leave it on the table, then.” I nodded to the small console sitting by the foyer wall under a modern painting of colorful blobs. “We won’t lose it. We’ll need it to lock the front door again, for one thing. So no chance it will be locked in here.”
Evans nodded.
“I’ll tell them to drop it off with you on their way out,” I said, and lowered my voice. “Listen, Evans…”
“Yes, Miss Darling?”
“The last time you saw Miss Schlomsky?—”
He eyed me.
“When she went out last night, with my… with Lord St George, was there anything about her that you noticed? Anything—” I hesitated, “unusual?”
“No, Miss Darling,” Evans said.
“Nothing? Crispin said she seemed distracted…?”
“No, Miss Darling.” The doorman shook his head. “She appeared just as normal. Came out of the lift chattering to Lord St George as usual.”
“And clinging to him,” I said sourly, “I suppose?”
“Yes, Miss Darling.”
Yes, of course. “I don’t suppose you have any idea where she was going?”
Evans shook his head. “No, Miss Darling. Lord St George helped her into the motorcar and I watched them drive off, but I don’t know where they were headed.”
“They left together?” Crispin hadn’t mentioned that part.
Evans nodded. “Yes, Miss Darling. To the left down the street.”
In the direction of the Savoy Hotel. And also in the direction of quite a few other things. There’s quite a lot of real estate in the area between the Essex House Mansions and the Savoy Hotel. There are also Hackney cab stands, and entrances to the Underground, and at least one train station. Flossie could have been headed anywhere in London or beyond, really. The fact that she’d left with St George didn’t mean anything. She hadn’t been with him when he brought me home a couple of hours later, so at some point they had parted ways.
“Thank you, Evans,” I said. “That’s helpful. I’ll make sure you get the key back.” I shooed him gently out the door before I went off in search of the Schlomskys.
Flossie’s flatwas in most respects a mirror image of Christopher’s and mine. Parquet floor in the foyer, sitting room beyond. In this flat, the bedrooms were to the right and the kitchen and dining room to the left, while in Christopher’s and my flat, it’s the opposite.
And Flossie’s tastes ran to the more modern and—dare I say it—garish. Christopher’s and my flat is mostly furnished with castoffs from Sutherland House. When Uncle Herbert had agreed to let us move out of Beckwith Place and in together in the Essex House Mansions, he had raided the attics of Sutherland House for anything he thought we might need. A few small things had been brought up from Wiltshire, but most of the bigger pieces had merely made it across town from the surplus in Mayfair. As a result, our flat was furnished in semi-threadbare heirlooms and almost nothing later than 1870.
Flossie, on the other hand, must have bought everything new. It was all streamlined, very art deco and modern, and all mixed with Florence’s favorite pink. The array of pillows on the Chesterfield ran the gamut from palest shell pink to hot fuchsia, and from velvet to silk and everything in-between. There were enough tassels and flourishes to outfit the entire mansion block, not just Flossie’s flat.
I averted my eyes politely from the stack of gossip magazines on the low coffee table. I recognized the covers, and knew that several had images of St George inside; I had seen them myself, and the fact that Flossie had a collection of them on her table struck me as foreboding.
Or at least it would have struck me as foreboding had I had the slightest fear that she would succeed in her attempts to vamp Christopher’s cousin. I didn’t. If St George ended up married to someone who wasn’t his secret lady-love, it was more likely to be Lady Laetitia Marsden instead of Florence Schlomsky.
The Schlomsky parents were back in the bedroom wing. I could hear their voices in the background as I made my way across the parquet floors, past the too-modern, too-flashy furniture, and to the hallway.
