Page 7 of Evil at the Essex House
“Telegram for you. I was in the lobby, so I told Evans I would take it up.”
I had glanced at the front of it in the lift. It was there in my hand, and there’s nothing else to look at in the lift, so I didn’t feel bad about it. I’m sure Evans had glanced at it, too, before he handed it over to me.
Not that there was anything to see. Just a perfectly plain envelope of the same sort that Christopher and I had received a month ago, announcing his brother Francis’s engagement to my friend Constance Peckham.
In this case, it was Florence’s name and direction behind the crinkly plastic on the front, and the usual post office logo in the corner. There was no reason at all that she would turn pale, although she did.
So had Christopher and I, when our telegram arrived. We’d all gotten so used to bad news during the war, and I guess we hadn’t quite recovered yet.
“Go on,” I told her bracingly. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as you fear. And even if it is, it’s better to get it over with quickly.”
She gave me a look before she ripped open the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of paper. I tried to read upside down, but I’d gotten no further thanSURPRISE!before she made an inarticulate sound. Her hand convulsed on the paper and when I looked up, shocked, her healthy, pink cheeks had turned a pasty white.
I put a hand under her arm for support and felt her tremble.
“Florence?” I tried gently. “Is everything all right?”
It clearly wasn’t, and I craned my neck in an effort to get another look at the telegram, but she had crumpled it in her fist and it was unreadable. For a moment she looked at me as if she had never seen me before, before she seemed to pull in a very deliberate breath and straighten up. “Yes, of course, Pippa. Thank you.”
The accompanying smile was so forced it looked more like a grimace.
“Is there anything I can do?” I dropped my hand since support seemed unwanted. She had taken a step back from me. “Would you like to talk about?—?”
“No.” She shook her head. “No, thank you. This is something I—” Her voice broke and she cleared her throat, “—this is something I have to deal with on my own. Thank you, Pippa.”
She stepped back, and a second later, the door shut in my face. I stared at it for a moment, annoyed, before I harrumphed and headed down the hallway towards the door to my own flat.
The flat thatChristopher and I share is a two-bed, single-bath with a foyer, a sitting room, a dining room, and a kitchenette. The sitting room is directly behind the foyer when you walk in, with the dining room and kitchen to the right and a hallway with two bedrooms and the washroom to the left. Mine is the first bedroom. I went into it and removed my cloche hat and matching jacket, and unbuckled my shoes in favor of quilted slippers. After a quick fluff of my hair in the vanity mirror—brown and bobbed, not as curly as Flossie’s, but not sleek, either—I headed back into the main part of the flat, only to intercept Christopher coming in. His telephone call to Wiltshire really hadn’t taken more than the few minutes he had promised.
I looked from the note still crumpled in his hand—shades of Florence Schlomsky—to his face. “Is everything all right?”
He nodded. “Yes, Pippa. Everything is perfectly fine.”
“What did Tom want? The note was from him, right?”
“To cancel an appointment,” Christopher said and crossed the foyer towards the hallway to his room.
I trailed after him. “Tom and Crispin had an appointment? Anything I should know about?”
He smirked at me over his shoulder. “No, Pippa. Tom and I had an appointment, and Tom had to cancel.”
“What does that have to do with St George?”
“Nothing whatsoever,” Christopher said. “They were two totally separate issues.”
I narrowed my eyes. “So why did you ring him up? Or was ringing up Crispin just an excuse, and what you really wanted, was to contact Tom? If so, you could have just been honest about it, Christopher. Nobody cares.” I certainly didn’t.
Christopher chuckled. At least I chose to interpret it as a chuckle and not a snigger at my expense. “No, Pippa. Tom’s flat isn’t on the telephone. You know that. I rang up Sutherland Hall and spoke to Crispin.”
I trailed after him down the hallway. “Is St George in trouble with Scotland Yard?” Had Tom’s note contained some sort of warning?
Christopher shook his head. “Not at all.” He gave me another look just as he reached the door to his room. “Now go away, Pippa. I’m going to take my clothes off.”
The door shut in my face and I growled and went for the knob. “You know, Christopher…”
He sighed. “Just wait until I come back out, Pippa.”
“I’ve seen you in your unmentionables before,” I told him.
