“What about that club of yours, Lily? The one you’re a ‘hostess’ in?”
“Do you mean the Emerald? I thought that—”
“We’ve
The door to Ramsay’s room was flung open. Jesus Christ—now what?
It was the little scullery maid, Phyllis, who flew into the room and said breathlessly, “Come downstairs quick—it’s Miss Edith!”
“What about her?”
“She’s dead, Mr. Coker.”
Frobisher Unbound
Frobisher had been in a dilemma ever since Gwendolen Kelling had moved into the flat above the Crystal Cup. “Above the shop,” she called it, a phrase that seemed, liked so many things, to amuse her. How was he to meet up with her now that she was no longer at the Warrender? She could no longer call on him in Bow Street, of course, someone might easily spot her—the place was full of criminals, after all （on both sides of the desk）。 News of her visits would make its way to the Coker camp all too soon. Nor could he drop in on her in her new accommodation as he would undoubtedly be spotted by one of the Cokers or their aides.
They had arranged to meet via the written word, for although her flat above the Crystal Cup was furnished with a telephone, Frobisher was cautious about using it—what if it was a party line? Or who was to say that the Cokers didn’t have the wire tapped? It was not unknown. The Refreshment Rooms in Paddington station had been Gwendolen’s suggestion. “We should be safe there,” she said. “I don’t think the Cokers ever travel by train, and they’re quite territorial. Apart from their house, they hardly leave Soho. Their house is in Hanover Terrace—Regent’s Park—did you know that?” He did. （Of course he did! Did she think him an incompetent?） “I’m trying to wangle an invitation to go there,” she said carelessly.
“Please don’t do that,” he said. Hanover Terrace was the very heart of the hive. “It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s unlikely that Nellie would assassinate me over afternoon tea.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. Do you address her as Nellie?” he asked, surprised. It seemed very familiar for such a short acquaintance. Had she already been lured? It was not so much the Cokers themselves Frobisher feared on Gwendolen’s behalf, it was that she might succumb to the temptations they offered. Paradise Lost came to mind, they had been forced to rote-learn great gobbets of it at school. Satan in the form of the serpent, looking for Adam and Eve, or perhaps just Eve—his purpos’d prey, in bower and field he sought. He disliked Milton as a poet, suspected he might have also disliked him as a man, but admired the tenacity with which he stuck to his grand design.
She laughed. “Good Lord, no, only to myself. It is ‘Mrs. Coker’ always. She likes the formalities. Quite a stickler for them, in fact.”
He saw her glance at the copy of the Mirror that was on the table in front of him—he had been ridiculously early for their morning rendezvous and had been idly perusing the newspaper to pass the time. He had been interested, too, to see if there was anything about missing girls, but they rarely made the inside pages, let alone the headlines. He was embarrassed and said, “I don’t usually read this rag.”
“Of course not,” she teased. “I’m sure you’re a Times man, Inspector.”
Tea was ferried from the counter, along with an unprepossessing Chelsea bun that he had bought for her but which she insisted on cutting in two, then allotting him half. He was not used to sharing food, it seemed disturbingly intimate. Frobisher was an only child, he reckoned it accounted for much of his character.
The Refreshment Rooms were an extraordinarily noisy venue for an undercover tryst. Frobisher had imagined them having a quiet tête-à-tête, but they were conspired against by the clatter of cutlery and crockery, the hiss and squeal of the overworked tea urn and the arrival and departure of trains from the platform alongside, not to mention the occasional ear-splitting screech of an engine letting off steam. He had to raise his voice against this cacophony.
“Well, this is exciting,” she said, without apparent irony.
“Is it?” he said doubtfully. “How?”
“An undercover tryst. Like spies. You know, The Riddle of the Sands or The 39 Steps.” She took a large bite out of her half of the bun. Everything was done with such enthusiasm, did she look for entertainment in everything? Frobisher wondered what it must feel like to tread so lightly in the world. Had she never been tempered by bereavement and hardship when so many had? He knew nothing about her, of course. The Library, that was all.