They helped themselves to two of mine, lighting them with my matches, then exited the room, closing the door behind them.
I breathed out. Then, quickly but as noiselessly as possible, I got up from the floor, slipping off my shoes and laying them on the bed. Stocking-footed, I tiptoed to the door and listened.
They were in Mrs. Tupper"s chamber.
". . . blue silk, with the big skirt such as my grand-mother used to wear," the aristocratic one was saying in languid, faintly humourous tones, as if he were amused to find himself rummaging a poor old woman"s wardrobe. "This ought to be it."
"Oughter, all right. Lemme slit the bottom open."
For a considerable period of time (as befit the considerable circ.u.mference of the skirt"s hem) I heard the sounds of fabric being ripped by a knife. Slowly and softly at first but with increasing volume and variety, the man began to curse.
"Nuttin"!" he roared in summation.
"Nothing," the other agreed, sounding more amused than otherwise. "The Grand Pooh-Bah will not be pleased. Did the carrier pigeon say it was in the hem?"
"The old lady? She"s no right pigeon, don"t know nuttin", deaf as a potato, no sense to be got out of "er. Bird gave "er a dress is all we found out."
"Well, might there be a paper or something hidden in these ruffles?"
More tearing soundsa"that poor, ravaged dress! Mrs. Tupper had certainly been alive when she spoke of it to "the Grand Pooh-Bah," whoever he might be, and that thought lightened my hearta"but what might be happening to her?
"Nuttin"," complained the thug again with an oath. "His Lordship is gonna say we cheesed it!"
At the time I thought that "His Lordship" was just another way they referred to the mysterious Mr. X, their leader, who seemed little loved by them.
The aristocratic voice had become bored. "Well, let"s take the dress back with us, shall we, and he can have a look for himself."
"Right buffoons we"ll look, toting a blithering dress around!" the other grumbled.
"Well, you didn"t mind toting a blithering dress when the old lady was still inside it."
""At"s different."
"In broad daylight."
"Well, "oo was to see us?"
"And who"s to see us now except drunks and hussies?" the other retorted as their footsteps strode towards me, pa.s.sing my door and heading downstairs.
I, for one, I thought, easing the door open a crack to catch a glimpse of them against the streetlit stair-well window. They pa.s.sed it like shadow-puppets in a play, in profile, although one made small impression on me, for I recognised the other all too wella"Cla.s.sic Profilea"and perversely, in that tense moment, my mind chose to remember where I had seen that silhouette before. I very nearly exclaimed aloud; good sense intervened just in time to keep me silent.
I did not, however, possess sufficient good sense to keep me where I was, in safetya"not when there was a chance that, by following these men, I might find Mrs. Tupper.
The moment I heard them leave the house, I sprang into motion, pattering stocking-footed down the stairs and dashing to the door, opening it a crack to peep out. As the younger of the two intruders had implied, there was no traffic in the street at this time of night, but right in front of Mrs. Tupper"s humble abode waited a carriage, and even in the uncertain light of street-lamps and head-lamps, I could tell that it was a very nice little brougham, drawn by a slender hackney horse, and the wheels had yellow spokes. I saw no crest, but that did not mean there was none, for the door stood in shadow. For the same reason I could make little of the two men climbing in.
But my mission was not merely to spy. The moment they had closed themselves into the brougham, I shot out of Mrs. Tupper"s house, trusting and indeed praying that they did not look behind them.
In fictional accounts of derring-do, you see, the hero quite frequently hangs on to the back of a carriage and, enduring agonising cold, pain, or other rigours of personage, yet unperceived by the villains within, is eventually carried to the place where his lady-love is imprisoned.
Determined that Mrs. Tupper deserved no less of me, lifting my skirta"long skirts are a confounded nuisance when one needs to take actiona"I ran my fastest. The brougham rolled away, for the driver had started the horse, but that amiable creature had not yet broken into a trot when I flung myself at the back of the carriagea"the rattling of its metal-sheathed wheels over ruts and stones serving, I hoped, to mask my impacta"and swarmed up as if it were quite a wide tree I had to climb.
There like one of Darwin"s primates I clung. But there was nothing by which to hold on! My feet and fingers searched in vain for any projection or indentation, any ledge or luggage-rack which I might grip. Had I thought about it beforehand, I would have known I"d find none, for had the manufacturers of cabs and carriages put such accommodations on the backs of them, every street urchin and loiterer in London would have been availing himself of free transportationa"but such thoughts came to me too late. Splayed like an overlarge dark spider on far too smooth a wall, I felt myself being dislodged a little more with the brougham"s every jounce.
Indeed, within less than a block I fell off, landing without dignity upon my posterior. My chagrin, as I sat in the filth of the street and watched the brougham roll away from me, can scarcely be described.
Ignoring several laughing "drunks and hussies," in an exceedingly foul mood I got up and stalked home.
I spent what remained of the night forcing my outraged personage to accept some bread and cheese, having a wash, changing my dress for a similarly austere and scholarly costume of brown, then finally, at daylight, sitting down to struggle once again with the puzzle presented to me by the cryptic crinoline. But to no avail; dots and daisies made no sense to me.
I did, however, have one small remaining clue to pursue.
The earliest possible polite hour for social calling found me upon Florence Nightingale"s doorstep in Mayfair. This time it was the silk-gowned girl who admitted me without demur; apparently just about anyone could simply walk in here. Even at nine in the morning, I saw and heard as I entered, the drawing-room, dining-room, library, and so forth were well populated with visitors partaking of tea and scones, and already I saw "that young jackanapes" running upstairs with a note from somebody.
What a very odd household.
But I need not stay long today, I hoped. Straightaway I took myself to the front parloura"unpeopled during breakfasta"where the walls were covered with portraits either painted, photographic, or scissored with exquisite precision from black paper, such being the venerable art of the silhouette.
I found the silhouette I recognised and looked up at it again. Most such cut-paper creations, like the upper-cla.s.s beings they represent, tend to be a bit grotesquea"all nose, or all chin, or botha"but this one displayed perfectly proportioned, exceedingly pleasant features. And how often really does one see such cla.s.sic symmetry? Yes, if it were at all possible to identify a person merely from his profile, I was about to do so.
Small, as were most silhouettes, the artwork hung above my reach. Gathering resolve by thinking of poor Mrs. Tupper, wherever she might be, boldly I betook myself to the dining-room, picked up a chair, and walked off with it. As I had hoped, in this peculiar house no one seemed to wonder what I was doing.
Positioning the chair, then clambering up to stand upon it, I lifted the silhouette off its hook. Climbing down again and sitting on the chair that had served as my stool, I turned my find over.
Yes. Yes, it was as I had hoped. On the brown paper backing of the frame, someone had pencilled the subject"s name.
It read, The Honourable Sidney Whimbrel, at Embley, Summer 1853.
1853?.
Thirty-six years ago?
This could not be my aristocratic villain after all. How very disappointing.
Where was Cla.s.sic Profile today? I had not seen him following me at all. Of course, if he was thinking of me merely as Mrs. Tupper"s interfering lodger, having now concluded that I had fled to lodge elsewhere, he might have no further interest in me.
Whatever his original interest might have been.
And whoever he was.
So much for my ideas of identifying a person by means of a silhouette.
Sighing, I arose to return it to its place upon the wall, but just at that moment a group of chatting persons entered the parlour, and I lost my nerve, slipping the silhouette into an old leather satchel I had with me today, the sort of case in which a student might carry papers. I, howevera"as the capacity of my bust enhancer had limitsa"was using it to carry things I felt it would be unwise to leave behind at Mrs. Tupper"s house. Certain ribbons, for instance.
Exiting the parlour, I found myself facing the library, where the smiling yet redoubtable Mrs. Crowley held sway behind her desk.
It could do no harm, I realised, to have another go at Florence Nightingale, asking to speak with her. Indeed, I saw no other course of action before me. Yet I felt defeated in advance, as if no possible eloquence of mine could wring the favour of an interview from the Lady with the Lamp on high, and I experienced a leaden reluctance as I walked into the library in order to speak with Mrs. Crowley, compose a note, have it sent upstairsa"
Blast and confound everything! Confound especially Florence Nightingale! What an utterly coddled, perverse, and cantankerous bossy-boots she must be! Her c.u.mbersome procedure of communicating via the pa.s.sing of notes was a culpable waste of time. If the woman had the means she seemed to possess, and if she insisted on being such a stubborn invalid that she could not be spoken with, yet kept her fingers inserted into so many reform-political pies, why, then, she should jolly well arrange to have notes whisked upstairs on little wiresa"or, no, she should make use of pneumatic tubes like the ones in shopping emporiums. Or, better yeta"the absurdity of this thought offered me dark amus.e.m.e.nta"she should have a telegraph system installed. If Florence Nightingale insisted on lolling in her bed and sending messages downstairs as if from a great distance, why then, she should tap them out for a teletype machine, dit dit dah dah dita"
A shock of revelation appropriately electric in nature coursed through me, jolting me to a halt. "Ye G.o.ds in holey stockings," I cried out loud. "Morse code!"
CHAPTER THE NINTH.
UNDERSTANDABLY, NUMEROUS HEADS TURNED. Doing my best to ignore them, with feverish haste, as befit the heat in my cheeks, I made towards the opposite wall of the library, where I spied upon the shelves the unmistakable stately ranks of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Seizing volume M, I seated myself at the nearest tablea"the people already there edged away from me, giving me plenty of room. With trembling hands I found the page: "International Morse Code uses short and long sounds, which are written out as dots and dashes."
Yes! Already, instinctively, I thought of the miniature roses as dots. The daisiesa"very rudimentary blossoms of five petals; starflowersa"had to be the dashes. Grabbing . . . . / . * / . . . * / . V et cetera from my satchel and referring to the chart in the encyclopaedia (which the gentle reader will find reproduced at the end of this book for the sake of education and amus.e.m.e.nt), I began to decodea"no simple process, as I had to scan the entire alphabet in search of each letter.
Four dotsa"H. A leaf to divide it from the next letter. Dot, dasha"A. Another leaf. Dot, dot, dot, dasha"V. Leaf. Single dota"E. Two leaves?
End of word!
HAVE. Have!
Quite a while later I had decoded the first five wordsa"HAVE PROOF WREFORD SELLING SUPPLIESa"but the bulk of the message remained before me, and I faced a decision: to sit here spending more hours doing this, while Heaven only knew what might be happening to Mrs. Tupper, or to speak with Florence Nightingale at once? For I considered that I now knew how to achieve this seemingly impossible feat.
Deciding on the latter, then, I returned my papers and pencil to their satchel and approached the formidable Mrs. Crowley at her desk. This time, when I asked to speak with Florence Nightingale and she handed me the portable desk with its creamy paper and dark blue ink, I smiled and accepted it without demur.
It cannot with accuracy be said that I wrote upon the paper; rather, I penned. Or drew. Quite quickly and simply I traced: Blotting, then folding this short and unsigned missive, I handed it over, and, as the young fellow in knickerbockers took it up, I went and stood at the bottom of the stairs.
In less than a minute, Jackanapes (as I had come to think of him) trotted down again with quite a startled look on his face to tell me, "Miss Nightingale says she will see you. Follow me, please."
My every inference concerning the remarkable Florence Nightingale proved wrong, as became apparent to me within a few minutes. At the very top of the house, in a s.p.a.cious chamber awash with light from undraped windows, she awaited me: a plump, sweet, smiling old-fashioned beauty sitting up in a large bed richly and tidily arrayed with ribbon-edged pillows and silky eiderdown "puff." Her hair, parted in the centre and smoothed back in the simple manner of her youth, had not yet turned grey! Her lovely, symmetrical face showed scarcely a line! In every way she seemed as radiant as her sunny bedchamber, from which one heard nothing of the many people two storeys below, only birdsong from a back garden one could view through her open windows as if enjoying serene Eden in the midst of London City.
Just as serenely Miss Nightingale greeted me. "Please, make yourself comfortable." She indicated an armchair pulled up to the far side of the bed, pleasantly situated near the windows. With unconcealed interest she studied me as I rounded her foot-board and sat down.
"I was expecting someone a great deal older," she remarked, "given this." She held up the paper upon which I had written, in floral Morse code, S.O.S. "How do you know about my roses and daisies? But first, please, what is your name?"
Amazing, the way she exuded courtesy yet spared no honesty and wasted no time. Her manner allowed me to answer her truly. "Any name I could tell you, Miss Nightingale, I would have to invent, and at the moment I have small energy for dissembling."
She nodded as if this were an ordinary enough answer. Far back from her forehead, as if to show off the impeccable sheen and symmetry of her hair, she wore an odd sort of white kerchief that tied beneath her chin and lavished a cascade of lace from the crown of her head to the collar of her velvet bed-jacket. This singular headgear nodded along with her.
"I can see you are much distraught," she said softlya"I was to learn that she was famous for never raising her voice, not once throughout her life or her years in the Crimea. "It would seem that your trouble somehow concerns me?"
"It might," I said, and without further ado, as concisely as possible I detailed the circ.u.mstances of Mrs. Tupper"s abduction, starting with CARRIER PIGEON, DELIVER YOUR BIRD-BRAINED MESSAGE AT ONCE OR YOU WILL BE SORRY YOU EVER LEFT SCUTARIa"the thornily handwritten message itself had disappeared along with my unfortunate landlady, but I knew the words by heart. Much as I knew the words that, according to Florrie, the bearded intruders had shouted at Mrs. Tupper: "We know you was a spy for the Bird!"
"Indeed, *the Bird" is what they called me, those who opposed me," responded Miss Nightingale, "and they represented me as a bird-woman in their political cartoons." She spoke absently, with her back to me, for during my account she had turned around to rummagea"I ought to explain that the headboard of her bed was actually a large, undoubtedly custom-made cubby-hole desk neatly packed with papers of all sorts, and that upon a green-draped table at her bedside more stacks of papers surrounded an electric lampa"an electric lamp! This was indeed a house of surprises, but I supposed that, driven to reform as she was, she had undertaken the expense so that she could write through the night. I had noticed that her hands, which looked far older than her face, were bent into crescents from constant writing.
Finding what she wanted, she turned back to me and showed it: an elderly woman has been abducted by brigands, et cetera, my note from the day before.
"Yes," I acknowledged. "I wrote that."
"And I answered it quite truthfully, dear. I simply do not recall Mrs. Tupper."
Reaching into my satchel, I brought forth Mrs. Tupper"s wedding photograph, which I had carried along with me because of a presentiment that it might prove useful.
Miss Nightingale looked at this, and her gentle mouth formed an O of recognition.
"You remember her now?"
"Yes, dear, I do. I had forgotten, because she was not one of my regular couriers; I entrusted her only once, in an emergency, but her message was never delivered, and I have never found out why, or what became of her."
"So you were a spy," I whispered, much impressed.
"The commissioned officers of the army," she replied sweetly, "fought me, a woman and a civilian, with rather more pa.s.sion than they devoted to the Russian enemy. I fought back."
"But I thought you and your nurses were there to help!"
She smiled rather sadly. "So we were, but the doctors and officers saw my presence as interference, and as a threat to their party-going, picnicking, polo-playing, horse-racing, high old good times. Which indeed it was. I had insane notions that the officers should spend their days looking after the welfare of their men, and the doctors should attend to the sick."
"You meana"they didn"t?"
"The doctorsa"surgeonsa"excelled at lopping off the limbs of the wounded, but they never entered the fever-wards, such was their fear of themselves contracting the disease. Without supervision, the orderlies did as nearly as possible nothing, sometimes not even preparing food. So there, all alone except for one another, the sufferers lay in their own filth, their blankets heaving with lice . . ." Miss Nightingale broke off abruptly, her gaze focussing on me as if she were returning from a tragic past to a rather alarming present. "Tell me, my nameless friend: what ever became of the message I tried to send to Lord Whimbrel?"
I echoed, "Lord Whimbrel?"
"Yes, Sidney Whimbrel, a true statesman and my greatest ally."
How very interesting. I had just looked at his silhouette.
Miss Nightingale continued, "No reform could have been undertaken without him; he had the ear of the queen. He has long since pa.s.sed away, but his good name remains to be protected. . . . Do you know, where is that missing message?"
"If it was the one basted to Mrs. Tupper"s crinoline, I have it in my possession."
For the first time forsaking her erect posture, Florence Nightingale sank back against her pillows, studying me. From the music room on the floor below drifted the pleasant notes of a piano; someone was playing Mozart.
"You are clever," said Miss Nightingale in a way that made the statement neither praise nor censure. "Very well. You have my message that somehow went astray. I quite want it back, in order to avoid scandal."
"Scandal?"
"The reforms to which I have devoted my life are at last agreed upon and under way, with previous animosities forgotten; it would be disastrous were anyone to bring up the past. What would induce youa""
"I care nothing for politics. I simply want to know who has abducted Mrs. Tupper!"
"But I have no idea who that might be. And I quite want to find out, perhaps almost as much as you do, for if she were to tell them about the messagea""
"Mrs. Tupper," I interrupted, frustration causing my voice to rise in marked contrast with the ever-level tones of my hostess, "is so exceedingly deaf that it will be very difficult for her to understand what they want of her. She was already deaf when you entrusted her with your ill-fated roses and daisies."
"Oh, dear." Miss Nightingale"s face showed, very briefly, emotion. "How foolish of me not to realise. But I gave her a card with the addressa""
"She can read coa.r.s.e-hand, with difficulty, but not script."