Page 88 of Evil at the Essex House
“Or maybe we’re all mental,” Christopher said, “and it’s Flossie who is dead, and her mother knows her better than we do, and we simply never noticed the scar, because she took pains that we wouldn’t.”
Well, yes. That was possible, too.
Crispin tossed what was left of his cigarette to the ground and put his shoe on it. “If the excitement is over, I think I’d better head back to Wiltshire before my father sends out a search party. Or worse, drives up to Town himself.”
“Has he done anything to replace Wilkins?” Without a chauffeur, I didn’t think we had to worry, since His Grace wasn’t about to motor his own car to London.
Crispin grimaced. “One of the grooms obliges when Father wants to go somewhere.”
“I’ll take a lift home,” I said, “after we stop by Scotland Yard and sign our statements. I want to be there when Mrs. Schlomsky arrives.”
Crispin nodded. “I know you’d never pass up an opportunity to sneak and pry, Darling.”
“Naturally not. As if you wouldn’t do the same, St George. I haven’t forgotten the secret passage, you know.” And all the secrets he had learned, eavesdropping on his grandfather’s conversations with everyone else back in April.
“But of course.” Crispin opened the car door. “In you go, Darling.”
I went, and a moment later, so did all of us, in the direction of Whitehall and Scotland Yard.
ChapterTwenty
Sarah Schlomsky turnedup in time for tea, but declined the offer of any. “No, thank you, Miss Darling,” she told me as she stepped out of the lift on the second floor, flat key in hand. “That’s not a custom we hold to in Toledo.”
“What do you eat in the middle of the afternoon in Toledo?”
“We don’t,” Sarah said. “I don’t hold with eating between meals. It’ll ruin your dinner.”
“Teaisa meal,” I said, but I’m not sure that she heard me. Or perhaps she did, but simply chose to ignore me.
“In America, this is happy hour. People—” She said it as if they were a lesser life form, “—drink.”
Drink? “I thought America was in the midst of prohibition.” At least that’s what Flossie had told me. How much she enjoyed being somewhere where she could go out and get a cocktail, when at home, she would have to sneak around.
Or perhaps I had chalked that up to being a facet of prohibition, when in fact, it was her parents she was hiding her drinking from.
“People still drink,” Sarah said as she lead the way down the hall towards Flossie’s door. “At home, at parties, at speakeasies. There’s no way to legislate morality, more’s the pity.”
She inserted the key in the door and twisted it, and pushed the door open.
“Here we are.” She stopped in the foyer and looked around. I did the same. Everything looked the same as it had done the last time I’d been here, as well as the last time she had been here. They were not the same time, of course, but she didn’t need to know that.
“If you could start in here.” She indicated Flossie’s closet, aka the back bedroom. “None of this is anything I would want to bring home with me. Fold and stack everything, if you please, and we’ll find a charity for it. Or perhaps some of the nice young ladies at the embassy would like something pretty to wear...”
Something seemed to strike her, and she turned to look at me, a quick up and down of my figure. “Anything you see that you like, Miss Darling, please feel free to keep for yourself.”
“I’m afraid they’re not really my colors,” I said apologetically. “I’m not so fond of pink. And Flossie was a bit more… um… well-rounded than I am.”
Sarah arched her brows. “Surely not? My daughter wasn’t hefty.”
“Oh, of course not.” I would never say such a thing even if it were true, and in this case it wasn’t. Flossie had definitely had a more womanly figure than I do, though. I tend towards the boyish, which is perfect for the current tubular fashions. Flossie had been more buxom, more of the Edwardian or even Victorian type. Her dresses would look like sacks on me, and as far as Christopher goes—whose color is definitely pink—they would be indecently short. And while Christopher might not mind that—he has good legs—mid-thigh is just a step too far, even for 1926. With the way hemlines are creeping upwards, we may get there eventually, but not for a while yet.
“If you can find a suitcase or trunk in this mess—” Sarah gave the room and all the lovely, expensive clothes a disparaging look, “tuck it away in there. Otherwise, just stack it on the bed, and we’ll dig up a box later.”
I nodded. “There’s a trunk room in the cellar. I could go see if Flossie stored any of her luggage there?”
“If you don’t mind,” Sarah said, looking relieved, “that would be helpful. I’ll start in the back, meanwhile.”
“Of course.” I headed down in the lift and informed Evans that I needed access to the trunk room. “There’s something of Flossie’s there, I assume?”
