“If they don’t,” she said, “borrow some newspapers.” She told Eileen about Mike’s ideas of using personal ads to tell the retrieval team where they were.
“I know where we can find examples of the right kind of ads,” Eileen said eagerly. “A Murder Is Announced.”
“What?” Polly said.
“It’s a mystery novel. By Agatha Christie. It’s full of personal ads … Oh, no, that won’t work,” she said glumly.
“Why not? The library at Holborn has several Agatha Christie novels, and if they don’t have it there, I’m certain one of the bookshops in Charing Cross Road—”
“No, they won’t. It wasn’t written till after the war.” She cheered up. “But I think there’s one in The Dawson Pedigree that we could use.” She started toward the Central Line.
“Wait,” Polly said. “You need to be back before half past ten. That’s when the trains stop.”
“Yes, Fairy Godmother,” Eileen said. “Any other instructions?”
“Yes. Keep a close watch on your belongings. There’s a band of urchins at Holborn who pick people’s pockets.”
“Of course. It’s my fate to be surrounded by horrible children no matter where I go. But at least it’s not the Hodbins,” she said, and went off to catch her train. Polly went out to the District Line platform, where the troupe was rehearsing, to talk to Lila and Viv.
They weren’t there. “They went to a dance,” Miss Laburnum reported.
“On a Sunday night?” the rector said, shocked.
“It’s an American USO dance,” Miss Laburnum explained. “I don’t know what Sir Godfrey will say when he gets here. He so wanted to rehearse the shipwreck scene.”
What Sir Godfrey said, when he arrived a moment later, was, “ ‘False varlets! How all occasions do inform against me. They hath outvillained villainy!’ Their foul perfidy leaves us no choice but to rehearse the rescue scene. We shall begin at the point at which the castaways have heard the ship’s gun and have all rushed down to the beach.”
Polly and Sir Godfrey were the only ones in that scene, which meant she had no chance to look through Sir Godfrey’s Times for more airfields. And after rehearsal was over, when she asked Mrs. Brightford if she knew the names of any, Sir Godfrey said dryly, “Does this mean that you, too, will be abandoning us to ‘foot it featly here and there,’ Lady Mary?”
“No,” she said, hoping Holborn had had an ABC.
“It didn’t,” Eileen reported on her return. “And it only had two newspapers. The librarian said children keep taking them for the scrap-paper drive. But she had heaps of Agatha Christies.
“Look,” she said excitedly when they reached the emergency staircase, showing Polly a paperback book. “Murder in the Calais Coach!”
“Is that the one you thought had a personal ad in it?”
“No, that’s not by Agatha Christie, it’s by Dorothy Sayers. At least I think that’s what it was in. It might have been in Murder Must Advertise instead, and at any rate, the library didn’t have either one. But”—she produced another paperback—“it did have The ABC Murders.”
Which was not quite the same as an ABC. But, as Eileen said, it was full of place-names, which might help her remember. Eileen had also retrieved a wadded-up edition of the Daily Mirror from a dustbin.
She handed it to Polly, and Polly began looking through it for the names of airfields and any references to the afternoon raid. There was nothing about bombing—
which was a relief—but nothing about a false alarm either, or an aeroplane crash.
There was a story about the Battle of Britain, which said the RAF’s efforts had “changed the course of the war,” and which listed several airfields.
“Bicester?” Polly asked.
“No.”
“Broadwell?”
“No.”
It wasn’t Greenham Common or Grove or Bickmarsh either. “Have you had any luck remembering what else Gerald said?” Polly asked her.
“Nothing useful. I remember Linna was speaking on the phone to someone who was angry that the lab had changed the order of their French Revolution assignments.”
Let’s hope they’re not trapped there like we are here, Polly thought. They might end up being guillotined.
“I feel so stupid, not being able to remember,” Eileen said.
“You had no way of knowing it was important,” Polly reassured her. “We’ll find the name of the airfield tomorrow when I buy the ABC.”
“Or your drop might have opened,” Eileen said, cheering up. “And Mike will be waiting for us outside the station so we can all go through together.” But when the all clear went at five, he wasn’t there or at Mrs. Rickett’s.
“He very likely went back to Mrs. Leary’s to sleep when the raids ended,” Polly said.
“Should we go to the drop to check?” Eileen asked.
“No, there are too many people about in the morning. And we need to get you a ration book before I go to
