“Oh, no, of course not,” Miss Laburnum assured Polly. “We wouldn’t want to upset her.” Polly was certain she meant it, but she or someone else at the boardinghouse was bound to slip. She had to find a way to get in to see Marjorie tomorrow.
“It’s dreadful,” Miss Laburnum was saying, “so many killed, and who knows how it will all end?”
“Yes,” Polly said, and was grateful when the sirens went. “I’d appreciate it if you told Sir Godfrey why I can’t come.”
“Oh, but you can’t be thinking of staying here with a raid on? Can she, Miss Hibbard?” she asked their fellow boarder as she came hurrying out of her room carrying a black umbrella and her knitting.
“Oh, my, no,” Miss Hibbard said. “It’s far too dangerous. Mr. Dorming, tell Miss Sebastian she and her cousin must come with us.”
And in a moment Eileen would open the door to see what was going on. “We’ll come to the shelter as soon as I’ve shown her where things are,” Polly promised, to get rid of them. She escorted them downstairs.
“Don’t be too late,” Miss Laburnum said at the door. “Sir Godfrey said he wished to rehearse the scene between Crichton and Lady Mary.”
“I may not be able to rehearse with you with my cousin—”
“You can bring her with you,” Miss Laburnum said.
Polly shook her head. “She’ll need rest and quiet.” And to be kept away from people who know there were five killed. “Tell Sir Godfrey I’ll be there tomorrow night, I promise,” she said, and ran back upstairs.
She waited to make certain Mrs. Rickett went with them and then ran back down to the kitchen. She put the kettle on, piled bread, oleomargarine, cheese, and cutlery on a tray, made tea, and brought it up to Eileen.
“Mrs. Rickett said we weren’t allowed to have food in the room,” Eileen said.
“Then she should have let you begin boarding immediately.” Polly set the tray on the bed. “Though, actually, it was a blessing she didn’t. This is much better than supper would have been.”
“But the siren,” Eileen said anxiously. “Shouldn’t we—”
“The raids won’t start till eight forty-six.” Polly buttered a slice of bread and handed it to Eileen. “And I told you, we’re safe here. Mr. Dunworthy himself approved this address.”
She poured Eileen a cup of tea. “I found out some more names of airfields today,” she said, and read them to her, but Eileen shook her head at each one.
“Could it have been Hendon?” Polly asked,
“No, I’m so sorry. I know I’d recognize it if I saw it. If only we had a map.”
“Did you get to the shop in Charing Cross Road?”
“Yes, but the owner demanded to know what we wanted with a map and asked us all sorts of questions. He even asked Mike what sort of accent it was he had. I thought he was going to have us arrested. Mike said he suspected us of being German spies.”
“He may have,” Polly said. “I should have thought of that. There’ve been all sorts of posters up warning people to be on the lookout for anyone behaving suspiciously—snapping photographs of factories or asking questions about our defenses—and trying to buy a map would obviously fall into that category.”
“But then how are we to get hold of one?”
“I don’t know. I’ll check Townsend Brothers’ book department to see if they have an atlas or something.”
“Would they have an ABC?” Eileen asked.
“Yes, I looked up the trains to Backbury in it,” Polly said, wondering why she hadn’t thought of using a railway guide. It listed the stations alphabetically. They’d be able to find Gerald’s airfield under D. Or T. Or P. “Did you use an ABC when you brought the children to London?”
“No, they used an ABC in one of Agatha Christie’s novels to solve the mystery,” Eileen said. “And we can use it to solve ours.”
If only it were that simple, Polly thought.
Eileen looked up at the ceiling. “Is that sound bombers?”
“No. Rain. But luckily,” Polly said lightly, “we have an umbrella.”
She took the tea things downstairs, made a sandwich to take to Mike, and set off for Notting Hill Gate with Eileen. It was coming down hard—an icy downpour that made Polly glad Miss Laburnum had brought Eileen the coat and made her wish she’d brought a second umbrella. It was impossible to huddle under Eileen’s and lead her along the wet, dark streets at the same time, and twice Polly stepped in an ankle-deep puddle.
“I hate it here,” Eileen said. “I don’t care if I do sound like Theodore. I want to go home.”
“Did you tell Theodore’s mother your new address so your retrieval team can find you?”
“Yes, and her neighbor Mrs. Owen. And on the train in from Stepney, I wrote the vicar. I wanted to ask you about that. Do you think I must give Alf and Binnie my new address?”
“Are those the children you told me about? The haystack-fire starters?”
“Yes,” Eileen said, “and if I tell them where I am, they’re likely to take it as an invitation, and they’re—”
“Dreadful,” Polly finished.
“Yes, and the only way the retrieval team would know where they are was if the vicar told them, and I’ve already told him where I am, so the retrieval team wouldn’t need—”
“Then I don’t see any reason you need to contact them,” Polly said, leading her down the steps into the tube station, hoping they wouldn’t run into any of the troupe. “Where did Mike say he’d meet us? At the foot of the escalator?”
“No, in the emergency staircase. There’s one here just like the one in Oxford Circus.”
Good, Polly thought, following Eileen through the tunnel. We’ll be safe from the troupe there. And if Mike’s been waiting in it, I needn’t worry about his having overheard people discussing Padgett’s.
But Mike wasn’t there. Eileen and Polly climbed up three flights and then down as many, calling his name, but there was no answer. “Should we go to Oxford Circus?” Eileen asked. “That’s what he said to do if we got separated.”
“No, he’ll be here soon.” Polly sat down on the steps.
“The raids weren’t on Regent Street tonight, were they?” Eileen asked anxiously.
“No, over the City and—”
“The city?” Eileen said, looking nervously up at the ceiling. “Which part of it?”
“Not the city of London. The City with a capital C. It’s the part of London around St. Paul’s.” And Fleet Street, Polly added silently. “It’s nowhere near here, and the raids later on were over Whitechapel.”
“Whitechapel?”
“Yes. Why? Mike wasn’t going there, was he?”
“No. But that’s where Alf and Binnie Hodbin live.”
Good Lord. Whitechapel was even worse than Stepney. It had been almost totally destroyed.
“Was it heavily bombed?” Eileen said anxiously. “Oh, dear, perhaps I shouldn’t have torn up that letter after all.”
“What letter?”
“From the vicar, arranging to send Alf and Binnie to Canada. I was afraid they might end up on the City of Benares, so I didn’t give it to Mrs. Hodbin.”
Thank goodness Mike’s late and wasn’t here to hear that, Polly thought. She was going to have a difficult enough time persuading him that Padgett’s five fatalities weren’t a discrepancy, let alone having to convince him that Eileen hadn’t saved the Hodbins’ lives by withholding the letter.
There were lots of ships to America they might have gone on. Or the Evacuation Committee might have decided to send them to Australia instead, or to Scotland.
And even if they had been assigned to the City of Benares, they might not have gone. Their train might have been delayed, or—if they were as dreadful as Eileen said
—they might have been thrown off the ship for painting blackout stripes on the deck chairs or setting them on fire.