“I agree,” said Bram. Both men kept their faces close together, so as to avoid submitting their costume disguises to unwanted scrutiny. “Let us follow Mrs. Raines and see where she is headed. For if Sally had compatriots among these ladies, they would certainly have been in Mrs. Raines’s camp.”
Arthur and Bram maneuvered through the crowd toward the stage. A few feet before it, they spied Arabella Raines holding court over a dozen young suffragists. The two huddled by the wall, near Arabella and her associates. They discussed it, and neither felt that engaging a group of real women in conversation was a prudent course of action.
Eventually Arabella Raines, with another girl in tow, headed toward the front door. Without speaking, Bram and Arthur began to pursue the women. They pressed through the crowd after them, which was slow going, as half the women in the hall reached over to shake Arabella’s hand or stopped to give her an approving smile.
Arabella’s friend, who mingled beside her, was quite small. Arthur thought that the crowd threatened to pour over her like a wave. The girl moved about in quick, nervous motions. Her black hair was falling out of her bonnet and over her ears, while her tiny nose seemed to twitch whenever she spoke. She reminded Arthur of a field mouse.
Just before they left the main hall for the lobby, Arabella and her small friend took a sharp left. They opened a door and went inside, closing it behind them. And it wasn’t until Arthur had finally pressed his way up against it that he saw the letters stenciled on the wooden door. “W.C.,” it read. With the addendum “Ladies” printed underneath.
“Oh, dear,” said Arthur. “Perhaps we should-”
“Oh, come off it, Arthur,” said Bram. “Would you like to find your killer or not?” Bram pushed past Arthur and opened the door to the ladies’ powder room. Arthur looked around, instinctively regarding this as an unholy act. When no one gave him the slightest bit of notice, he gulped a deep breath and followed in behind Bram. He felt as he were trespassing upon sacred ground.
Inside, Arthur’s boots made a heavy clap against the tile floor. Bram hadn’t been able to find a pair of ladies’ shoes that fit his massive feet, so Arthur had worn a dress that touched the floor in order to cover up his men’s boots. But it had never occurred to him that his boots were so much louder than ladies’ flats.
The women’s W.C. in Caxton Hall was the very image of Dutch cleanliness. Three flushing water closets were separated by dark wood along the right wall. The tiles spread from the toilets to a sink on the left. Of all the public restrooms Arthur had been in, this was by far the most sanitary. Even Bram, who managed his own theater and its rest areas, seemed impressed.
At the sink, Arabella had removed her bonnet and adjusted her hair in the mirror. She turned to Arthur and Bram, nodded at them politely, and returned her gaze to the mirror. She seemed not to give either of them another thought.
A flush from one of the water closets signaled the presence of Arabella’s friend. Bram walked into the far closet and shut the door behind him. Arthur was unsure what to do. He wanted to stay close to these women, to hear what they said to one another, and yet he couldn’t just stand there staring, could he?
Arthur found his solution near the sink. Two comfortable chairs had been set out, most likely for ladies who needed a place to sit and collect their breath when their corseting grew too tight. Arthur sank into one of the chairs and gave a dramatic sigh. He fanned himself with the sleeves of his frock. Though he was putting on a bit of a show, he had to admit that this clothing did exhaust the wearer. If the day hadn’t yet convinced him of the merits of women’s suffrage, it had certainly convinced him of the justness of the movement for Rational Dress.
Arabella’s mousy friend exited her water closet and moved toward the sink.
“Oh, Emily,” said Arabella to her friend, “I’m to join Dot and those Manchester girls for a late supper. I do believe they’re plotting something grand for their home town. Care to join us?”
“Thank you, no,” said the mousy girl, now revealed to be named Emily. “I left some work unfinished at home, before I came here. I should return to it.”
“A few stitches of knitting?” said Arabella with a laugh.
“Yes,” said Emily through a grin. “Some knitting.” With that, Emily placed her right foot up on the resting chair next to Arthur’s. She lifted her skirt above her knee. Arthur tried to seem uninterested while she adjusted the straps on her garters. Her stocking was white, and quite thin. Arthur could practically see straight through it. He picked a spot on the wall across from him and held his gaze on it. It wouldn’t do if she saw him staring. She pinched at her stocking, trying to shift it across her beautiful, pale leg. She moved her knee from left to right as she shimmied the stocking, and the motion hiked her skirt farther up her thigh. Arthur was becoming quite distracted.
He lost track of the spot along the far wall and let his eyes drift to Emily’s exposed thigh. He saw her muscles tighten as she leaned her weight into her leg. His eyes traveled down to her dimpled knee, which seemed to pucker out as her leg bent further. His gaze fell to her sleek shin and then around to the long back of her smooth leg and the black splotch upon it. He stared closer. It was a tattoo of a three-headed crow.
Arthur gave a start and almost fell off his chair. Both women immediately turned their heads to him.
“Pardon,” he said in his best female voice. “Dizzy.” He was trying to minimize his word count, so as to lessen their opportunity to detect the masculine undercurrent to his speech.
“I understand,” said Arabella sympathetically. “I used to pass out once a week when I wore corsets like yours. I don’t mean to pry, and you’re free to wear the clothing you choose, but there is a wonderful sale on now at Whiteley’s, on their modern bodices. My very life changed when I switched over myself.”
“Thank you,” said Arthur.
“I don’t see how we’re to win our suffrage if we can’t draw a decent gulp of air into our lungs. Right, Emily?”
“Yes. Right,” said Emily. She regarded Arthur suspiciously. She did not seem so easygoing as Arabella, nor as trusting.
“Well then, I’m off. Do give one of these ‘liberty’ bodices a try, ma’am, I’m sure it would do you wonders,” Arabella said to Arthur. She next turned to Emily. “I’ll see you Thursday next? And please, be careful with your… knitting. I’d hate for there to be any accidents. In your stitch work.” With a gentle bow, she was gone.
By the time Bram flushed and came out of the water closet, Emily had finished adjusting her stocking and replaced her skirt over her leg. She left quickly, without a good-bye to Arthur or even a friendly nod. The very instant she had left the room, Arthur burst up from his chair.
“She has the tattoo!” he cried. “On her right leg! I saw it!”
“Arabella Raines?” said Bram, confused.
“No,” said Arthur. “Her friend Emily. The other one. Quickly, man, we’ve no time to spare!”
Arthur narrowly avoided tripping over his own skirt as he hurried out of the ladies’ powder room in full pursuit.
CHAPTER 24 The Bloodstains Bear Fruit
“You have brought detection as near an exact science
as it will ever be brought in this world.”
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
A Study in Scarlet
January 10, 2010
Harold woke to the sound of running water. Groggy, he raised his head and turned to find the source. He gazed across disheveled sheets-deep blue with red stripes crossing in a grid pattern-to a cream carpet and a dark wooden desk. Harold had been in so many different hotel rooms over the past week, hadn’t he, and they all looked exactly the same. Which of them was this?