It had been an exhausting day, and his feet throbbed. Darkness was true darkness, too, for the threat of German air raids had imposed blackout. He knew in a purely cerebral way that the bombs did very little damage and caused few casualties—relative to the millions of people exposed, that is—but emotionally he had no desire to become a statistic.
He found the entrance beside a tobacconist's shop and was happily surprised to see that Miss Prescott did not inhabit one of the horrible egg-crate tenements of the back streets. This was a three-story corner building, proudly bearing the date, 1896. Its yellow brick was stained by the everpresent soot of London, but it was a reasonably appealing edifice. He plodded wearily up two flights of hard, steep stairs, inhaling aromas of boiled cabbage and cooking fat. At the top he was faced with a door, four bell pushes, and four labels he could not read in the gloom. He flipped a mental coin in the dark and pressed.
With surprisingly good reflexes, the door cracked open almost at once. Light knifed out at him. He blinked.
He raised his hat. “I am looking for a Miss Alice Prescott."
"I am she,” said an educated, non-Lambeth voice.
Praise the Lord! “David Jones, Miss Prescott."
The cultured voice said, “Christ!” and the door shut.
Jones could not recall ever having heard a woman use that particular blasphemy, and few men either. Before he could catch his breath, the chain rattled and the door swung open.
"Come in, Mr. Jones! This is a welcome, if rather alarming surprise. Let me take your coat. I have just brewed a pot of tea...."
She was a very practical young lady, and self-possessed to boot. He was ushered out of the cramped entrance hall into a small sitting room and urged to take a chair. He glanced around, at first with surprise and then with something closer to astonishment.
The address might be questionable and the wallpaper regrettable, but the furnishings were not. The tiny space was almost filled by an upright rosewood piano, two armchairs, and a sofa; they were old, yet neither worn nor faded. The rug underfoot was thick and bright. The curtains were velvet, the little tables oak. The mantel above the gas fire bore several Royal Doulton figurines and a silver-framed photograph of a man in uniform. A marble-topped cupboard with a two-ring gas cooker and a gently steaming kettle served as kitchen. The cup and saucer were Spode.
The crusts of the family fortune had taken refuge in Lambeth.
His wondering gaze turned to the walls and the watercolors.
"Yes, they are genuine Constables,” Miss Prescott said drily. “You will have a cup of tea with me since you are here?"
One of the more embarrassing problems of advancing years ... “If I may just freshen up first?"
"Of course! First door on the right. Let me find you a towel."
The WC was the size of a chicken coop. The bathroom opposite was little larger, but any indoor plumbing at all ranked the flat well above average for the neighborhood. She would share the facilities with the other tenants on the floor, of course. Considering the housing situation in London at the moment, she was doing very well. Her plain, serviceable suit had suggested that she was in some sort of clerical work, certainly not munitions, like so many thousands of British women now. Idiot!—there were no munitions factories in the heart of London. As he dried his hands, Jones decided that Alice Prescott was almost certainly a secretary of some sort, and she could walk to Whitehall from here.
He returned to the sitting room. She smiled up at him and said, “One lump or two?” Thus might a Roman matron have invoked the household gods.
She was not classically beautiful—her nose and teeth were too prominent. Had she possessed her cousin's jet-black hair and startlingly blue eyes, she might have been striking. Even with nondescript coloring, she was a handsome young woman.
Jones accepted the tea with gratitude, took a sip, and found himself impaled by a very direct gaze.
She wasted no words. “Where is he, Mr. Jones?"
"I am not certain of this, I have not seen him, but ... Do you remember Julian Smedley?"
"Yes."
"He says Exeter is in Staffles, a temporary hospital in Kent."
"Under what name?"
"A pseudonym, of course. ‘John Three.’ He is pretending to be suffering from amnesia, but Smedley is certain it's your cousin."
Alice bit her lip. All she said was, “Go on."
With tea soaking through his fibers like ambrosia, Jones recounted the tale. His feet were throbbing and burning inside his shoes; his knees ached. He did not want to think of the journey home that awaited him, but hotel rooms in London were an impossibility now.
She murmured an apology and held out a plate of biscuits. They had not been in evidence when he came in. He limited himself to one. As he talked, he became vaguely aware of other changes in the room. The fire had been lit ... a table moved ... Ah! The photograph had disappeared from the mantel. Interesting!
When his tale was done, she did not at first comment, which was a surprise. Instead she said, “And how are things at Fallow?"
"Much the same. We feel the pinch less than most, I expect."
She raised her eyebrows in frank disbelief. “Then how does it feel to be raising the next crop of cannon fodder?"
"Not good."
She smiled bitterly. “How bright and glorious it seemed at the beginning! When I last saw Edward, he was far more upset at his broken leg keeping him out of the war than he was about being a suspected murderer. Another cup? And now we all know better, don't we?"
Uneasy at hearing such defeatist sentiment, Jones accepted another cup.
As she poured, she said, “Edward turning up in Flanders I can understand. He would have enlisted as soon as his leg healed. No question. But to enlist he would have needed an identity. Turning up without any clothes on sounds..."
Again she turned her intimidating stare on her visitor. It would not have disgraced Queen Mary. “I do not attend séances, Mr. Jones. I do not read fortunes in tea leaves, nor consult Gypsy witches at fairgrounds. And yet I am convinced that whatever my cousin was mixed up in three years ago was more than natural."
Jones sighed. “I have been trying to avoid that conclusion ever since it all happened, but I think I agree with you. There were too many locked doors, too much of the inexplicable. A rational explanation ... There wasn't one!"
"Edward thought he was in love with me."
What was the difference between thinking one was in love and actually being in love? “He made no secret of it."
"I mention that only because I really believed he had died. He would never have departed voluntarily without at the very least dropping me a note. Now you say he has returned under equally mysterious circumstances.... May I suppose that he was taken against his will and has now escaped?"
"Out of the frying pan?"
She smiled and turned to study the hissing gas.
"I must see him."
"I told Smedley I would visit him again on Friday."
"No, we have departmental minutes on Fridays.” A wicked gleam shone in her eyes. “One advantage of being female, Mr. Jones, is that a male employer is always too embarrassed to ask for details if you request a day off."
Shocked again, he coughed awkwardly. “Yes."
"So will you stay over tonight?"
Oh, yes please! “Oh, I couldn't possibly—"
"The settee is quite comfortable, my friends tell me. I doubt if the neighbors will notice, and we must hope the zeppelins don't. Not many zeppelins now, anyway—they have these big bombers instead. I have a largish had-dock we can share, and potatoes are back in the shops, thank goodness. If you can manage on half a haddock, two potatoes, and a sofa, then you are more than welcome."