had returned, she blithely declared that near-deafness was an advantage to a London driver. Having ridden pillion with her once and been fully aware of the curses on our trail, I could only agree.
Gwyneth Claypool was, her colleague who answered the telephone told me, currently in a meeting with the head teachers of several schools, which was due to finish at four o’clock but would probably go on until closer to five. She gave me the address and rang off. I raided my wardrobe for a dress suitable both for confronting feminists and sitting in the women’s dining room at Simpson’s, had Q ring for a taxi, and left, promising to return for further discussions on the house question as soon as I could.
London was cold and inhospitable, a dreary rain splashing against the taxi’s curtains and dribbling off of the passing hats and umbrellas. At the address I had been given, an assistant guarding the door refused to let me out of the freezing-cold entrance foyer and wouldn’t think of disturbing the meeting with a message. So I took a seat in the least draughty corner I could find, and slowly congealed inside my fur-lined coat.
Gwyneth’s voice half an hour later crackled through the building and rescued me from my icy perch. It had always been loud, I suspect even before her deafness set in, and the silent building quivered in reaction; the tinkle of shattering icicles seemed to follow it. She left the meeting as no doubt she had begun it, commanding action.
“—and I think you’ll find the situation much improved. Girls that age need a goal, or they seek out all kinds of trouble. We’ll meet again in the new year, see how it’s coming along.”
I unfolded myself from my cramped huddle and stumbled forward on numb feet to intercept her. She spotted me, squinted in uncertainty; then her face opened in a wide smile and she boomed a greeting across the echoing space.
“Hello, Gwyn,” I returned.
“Mary! What are you doing here? Looking for me? But why in heaven’s name didn’t you come and find me— you must be in an advanced stage of ice cube–ism. Come along; we’ll find a warm corner with drinks in it and bemoan the state of the world.”
Merely being in Gwyneth Claypool’s presence tended to have a warming effect on a person, even before she thrust into my hand a drink she’d bullied the barman into constructing. It looked like pond scum, smelt of the Indies, and went down with a jolt that tingled the toes and lifted the scalp.
“Lord, Gwyn!” I gasped. “What is this?”
“Rum butter. Does the trick, doesn’t it? Wish I’d known about it in 1914—if we’d issued the men rum in this form, they’d have overrun the Germans by Christmas.”
I loosened my coat and removed my gloves and hat, and set about getting the drink inside me, a quarter- teaspoon at a sip, while Gwyn and I caught each other up on our lives since we’d last met nearly three years earlier.
“Still married?” she shouted, raising the eyebrows of the other customers.
“Indeed I am. And you?”
“No time, no time for all the nonsense.”
So I asked her what she did have time for and she told me of her many projects related to the rights of women, and we talked of that and this and of times past and the feebleness of the present. No, she no longer sped around London on her racing motor-cycle, she’d been run over by a lorry one day when she hadn’t heard it coming and her mother made her stop. And no, she wasn’t hurt, a broken wrist was all but Mum was seventy now and anxious, so the motor-cycle resided in the country—or rather the original machine’s replacement did—where she could roar up and down to her heart’s content.
Eventually our drinks were empty, seconds refused, and she asked me what I’d wanted of her.
“I need to find one of the VAD drivers who was serving in France in 1918, somewhere west of Reims. She might’ve been French, although what she’d have been doing fetching our lot I can’t think. The only name I have for her is Helene, and even that may be a nick-name. She had green eyes and was tall; that’s all I know.”
“Green eyes sounds like Charlie, but she was a Scottish girl, or was she American?”
“French-Canadian, maybe?”
“She could have been. Yes, I think—no, I’m confusing her with another girl who was killed in an attack. Her name was something like Helen, but she had dark eyes. Pretty thing. Bled to death from a piece of shrapnel in the throat.”
The room cringed in reaction, and two customers beat a hasty retreat. Gwyn noticed, and lowered her voice.
“Sorry. I forget. Why do you need to find this driver?”
“A friend is trying to find what happened to a nephew of his who was killed in ’18, not satisfied with the official story, and the boy’s diary mentions this Helene in a manner that indicates they knew each other. She drove him out to the first-aid post.”
“Love at first sight, eh?”
“So it seems. But because he changed regiments and moved around, it’s hard to track down fellow soldiers who might have known him well. We thought he might’ve written this Helene letters that gave an idea of his situation. The family just wants to know.”
“And the next step’s a seance, is that it? Let me ask around, see what I can come up with. She may’ve come after I had to leave—probably did, in fact, or I’d’ve met her. I’ll give my replacement there a ring, see if green eyes mean anything to her.”
“That’s great, Gwyn. Thanks so much.”
“So who’s the family?”
I hesitated, then said, “Can I tell you that after everything’s cleared up? It’s only, sometimes publicity raises dust and makes it hard to finish.”
“Fair enough. If you promise to bring along this mysterious husband of yours. Ought to meet him, now that he seems permanent.”
The image of Holmes and Gwyn Claypool circling each other like a pair of wary dogs flickered through my mind, and I had to laugh.
“No promises, Gwyn, but I’ll see what I can do.”
I glanced at my wrist-watch, then looked more closely in astonishment: We had been at our chat for better than two hours, and if I was to meet Holmes, I would have to scurry. I gave her a card with the flat’s telephone number written on it (an extension of which line rang in the downstairs servants’ quarters) and resumed my outer clothing. We left the building, embraced, and climbed into separate cabs.
Holmes was not at Simpson’s when I arrived, which did not surprise me. I went to their Ladies to tidy my hair-pins, then allowed the maitre d’ to show me to one of Holmes’ preferred tables.
Half an hour later, Holmes had not arrived, and I was glowering in my seat. At forty minutes my embarrassment and irritation began to crumple under concern. At forty-five minutes the maitre d’ came up to the table with a slip of paper in his hand. It read:
KINDLY INFORM MISS RUSSELL THAT HER COMPANION IS AT HIS BROTHER’S. PLEASE TELL HER THAT SHE MUST
The man before me must have seen my face and feared I was about to succumb to some ladylike vapours, but I brushed away his hand and reached for my possessions.
The only reason to avoid the first convenient taxi was for fear it would be a trap. And the only reason to fear a trap—as well as the explanation for why Holmes was not here—was that an attack had already been attempted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I did, as it turned out, accept the first taxi that presented itself, reasoning that if a cab has just pulled to the kerb when a person comes out of a restaurant door, and if that cab then offloads a Member of Parliament, his wife, and his sister, then a person can feel relatively confident that its driver has not been hovering up the street waiting to pounce upon one. I did take the precaution of giving the driver the wrong address, and splashed through an ill-lit
