Page 50 of Evil at the Essex House
“One and the same for some people,” Christopher said. “Do you want to go?”
“Of course I want to go. But whether I’m able to depends on how early you want to get to Southwark tomorrow evening, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t want it to interfere with our looking for kidnappers.”
One must have one’s priorities in order, after all.
“We’d have to be there at least an hour ahead of time,” Christopher said, “don’t you think? Just in case they’ve had the same idea and are there early to keep an eye on things.”
I thought about it. “If that’s the case, wouldn’t it be better if we’re late? If two people go into the tower at ten, and they still haven’t come out by eleven, surely that’s somewhat suspicious?”
“For that location,” Christopher agreed, “perhaps.”
“It’s something we can discuss later.” I glanced around Flossie’s foyer. “We shouldn’t waste the time we have here on things that we can talk about in our own flat.”
Christopher nodded. “I took a closer look while you were downstairs, and as you said, that’s quite an ostentatious wardrobe.”
“Isn’t it? I can’t imagine that much of it has been worn more than once or maybe twice. And some of the frocks are so much alike it’s hard to imagine why she wouldn’t just wear the same one instead of buying another.”
“Hiram Schlomsky can afford it,” Christopher said, which was certainly true, but no excuse for being a wastrel. He looked around vaguely. “Any idea what we’re looking for? Other than accessories?”
“I think we’ll probably know it when we see it, don’t you?” I looked around, too, with no idea where to start the search for something we didn’t even know what was. “Anything that doesn’t belong, I suppose. Anything that strikes you as being strange or out of place. Anything dodgy?”
“Not sure what you’d consider dodgy,” Christopher said, “but I suppose we’ll just take a look around and see what we can see. Chances are there’s nothing here, anyway.”
Chances were that he was right. But we were here now, with an opportunity to explore, and I’m nothing if not inquisitive, so I wasn’t about to let the opportunity pass.
“You can start in the closet,” I told him, magnanimously, “if you would like. Admire the frocks while you check pockets and inside handbags.”
He gave me a dubious sort of look. “I’ll do my best, I suppose.”
“I’ll start with the other bedroom,” I told him, “the one she actually seems to sleep in, and we’ll meet in the sitting room?”
Christopher nodded, and headed for the closet. I left him there, standing in the middle of the floor with his hands on his hips, looking around at the plethora of pockets and bags and toes of shoes with a calculating expression on his face, before I headed down the hallway towards the back of the flat.
While I had told him I would start with Flossie’s bedroom, I made a detour into the lavatory on my way past.
It looked precisely like the one in our flat, all white tiles with black trim, a toilet, a sink, and a claw-footed tub. Flossie’s towels were pink—I don’t know why I was surprised by that, although I’ve never used anything but a white towel myself—and the medicine cabinet held a toothbrush, toothpaste, a twist of headache powder, some plasters, eyewash… all the usual things. No prescriptions, so at least we didn’t have to worry about Flossie succumbing to illness while in captivity, due to lack of access to her medicine.
The toilet tank was mounted at the top of the wall, so there was no way to hide anything inside it, and I wasn’t about to climb on top of the toilet and risk having the water pour all over me if I made a mistake in trying to open it up. So I considered the job well done, and moved on.
Flossie’s bedroom was next. There was another closet here, chock full of… night clothes, as it happened. Gowns, and negligees, and pyjamas in silky colors. Some of them—most of them—were in shades of pink, from shell to raspberry, but a few were green and blue and lilac, as well.
One set was black, and put me in mind of Laetitia Marsden, who had worn the same sort of slinky see-through thing at the Dower House back in May. It wasn’t the type of nightclothes that you sleep in; it was the type you’d wear to impel susceptible people of the opposite gender to notice you. Laetitia had worn hers for Crispin’s benefit. I wondered who Flossie wore hers for.
After that, I moved on to the night table. There was only one, from which I deduced that Flossie slept alone, at least most of the time, fancy nightclothes notwithstanding.
Of course, I had already known that she lived alone. In the time we had lived here at the Essex House Mansions, I had never seen Florence with a man other than Crispin, and to my knowledge, she had never managed to finagle him into her flat, let alone into her bed. She might be misbehaving in other people’s bedrooms—there was always that possibility, in which case she would have had to travel with her negligees—but she had never, to my knowledge, brought a young man, or for that matter a young woman, back here. At least not that I had noticed.
The night table yielded a water glass—half full or half empty, depending on your definition; I sniffed it, and it seemed to be simple water—along with a notepad and a pencil, an alarm clock—silent and stopped at 11:37, since Florence hadn’t been here to wind it for a few days—a handkerchief (good quality cotton, embroidered with roses but no monogram), and a copy of theDaily Yellwith Crispin on the cover, from the week back in April when Duke Henry, Lady Charlotte, and Grimsby the valet had died. There was no image of Simon Grimsby, of course, but there were photos of everyone else: the late Duke Henry, the new Duke Harold, the new Viscount St George, and the lady responsible for it all. I flipped through the pages to see whether anything was hidden inside, or whether Flossie had made any notations anywhere, but there was nothing. Not even the crossword was filled out. She must have kept the paper for Crispin’s picture and no other reason.
The night table drawer contained a small stack of airmail letters, all of them sporting American stamps and the same handwriting that had appeared on the note Evans had handed me this morning. They started withDearest Florence, and ended withYour Loving Mama. News from home, I assumed, and since it felt a bit intrusive to start reading them, I left them on top of the counterpane and moved on. They weren’t likely to shine any light whatsoever on what was going on right now, unless Mama Schlomsky was indeed a rabid murderess who had killed her only child, and the letters indicated it.
The makeup table looked like mine, and Christopher’s.
When Christopher puts on his alter-ego Kitty Dupree, he does it in my room. Kitty’s evening gowns hang in my wardrobe and Kitty’s black wig sits on my dressing table. If someone were to look closely, he or she would see that a few of the gowns are not in my size nor in my best colors, but my wardrobe is a better place for them than Christopher’s. In mine, they can mostly be overlooked, and we’re still not clear on what the current duke might do if he realizes that his youngest nephew goes to drag balls and cavorts with men. Nor do we know how Uncle Herbert and Aunt Roz might react, really. They have a better idea of how Christopher’s feelings run than his uncle does, and so far they seem mostly all right with it, but they don’t know about the drag balls.
At any rate, I was going through Flossie’s makeup table. It was full of tubes and pots and brushes, expensive creams and cosmetics. There was nothing there that shouldn’t be there, as far as I could tell. A small, white card was stuck behind the edge of the mirror, but when I lifted it down, it was just a ticket stub for a West End musical that was taking London by storm this season. The date matched the day last month when I had first laid eyes on the Girl with the Baby, so Flossie must have been on her way to the Prince of Wales theatre when we took the lift down to the lobby together that evening. She must have been attending the performance with the friend who had met her in the lobby: the plain-looking girl in the too-fancy outfit of chiffon and polka dots.
The ticket stub held no secrets other than simply being there, so I left it alone and turned at Christopher’s approach.
