“Yes, Miss Kelling,” Niven said. “Of course.”
Night in the Square Mile of Vice
To announce dinner at the Warrender, Mrs. Bodley beat a bronze gong in reception, a vigorous feat on her part. It was the herald for a stampede of the Distressed, dressed in their finery—a motley of ancient, frayed evening wear that reeked of mothballs. Gwendolen decided to wear her old velvet at dinner, fearing that if she pitched up in her new finery it might invite unspoken criticism from Mrs. Bodley and heart-stopping excitement on the part of the Distressed.
They dined on mulligatawny soup, followed by steak-and-kidney pie, topped off with jam sponge pudding and custard. Gwendolen wondered if she would be able to dance a step after such hefty fare or whether, indeed, she would even be able to get into one of her new dresses.
She had her instructions from Frobisher. She was to be picked up by a Constable Cobb at eight o’clock. Cobb was “reliable,” Frobisher said. “A sensible sort.”
Do you have an evening gown, Miss Kelling? I do now, Gwendolen thought as she picked one out—a blue silk with silver filigree embroidery. It would do very nicely for her entrance onto the stage of duplicity and disguise. She was a snake sloughing off her old librarian tweed-and-wool skin and stepping out in a new silken one.
She camouflaged the bruises on her face with face powder—you could only see them if you knew they were there. Maquillage, she murmured to the mirror, such a lovely word for concealment. Only her hair rebelled against renovation. Nonetheless, Mr. Niven would be surprised if he could see her now, she thought, as she assessed her reflection.
Optimistically, she had hoped to avoid Mrs. Bodley, but when she left for the Amethyst she was still on guard. “There’s a cab outside waiting for you,” she said.
“Is there a man waiting as well?” Gwendolen asked, just to ruffle the feathers.
“There is indeed. You seem to have a cohort of them, Miss Kelling.”
“Aren’t I the lucky one?”
* * *
—
“Gwendolen,” she introduced herself, offering her hand to Constable Cobb, who shook it limply and echoed “Gwendolen” hesitantly, as though simply pronouncing her name might put him in jeopardy of untoward intimacy. He has no sisters, she thought. She thought of Niven. She could tell that he knew women. She suspected there were sisters at home.
“And your name?” she prompted him. “I can hardly call you Constable. I rather think that would reveal our cover. After all, we’re supposed to be a couple.”
“It’s William,” he conceded reluctantly. He seemed somewhat truculent, as though he had been press-ganged into this cloak-and-dagger escapade against his will.
At the entrance to the Amethyst, Gwendolen threaded her arm through Cobb’s. “Abandon hope all ye who enter here, William,” she murmured to him as they passed between the two brawny doormen.
“I’m sorry?”
“Dante.”
“Don’t know him, I’m afraid.” He swallowed nervously, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. It was too large for the thin stalk of his neck.
“He’s not from around here,” Gwendolen reassured him.
Was he anxious about being in her company or about the task ahead? Both, probably. “Come, William,” she said firmly, “best foot forward. Carpe noctem!”
It was not what Gwendolen had expected from the Amethyst. It was so much smarter than the “den of iniquity” that Frobisher had denounced it as. Everyone was dressed up to the nines in jewels and silks, many of the men in full white tie. The cloakroom was stuffed with furs. Everywhere, she caught the cut-glass accents of the privileged classes as well as a few American twangs and faces of many different hues. The Amethyst seemed to consist of little more than people enjoying themselves. Or perhaps that was Frobisher’s idea of iniquity.
The evening began soberly enough. Once you were past the doormen you had to pass the cashier’s kiosk, in which Nellie Coker was on sentry duty. Gwendolen was reminded of Mrs. Bodley and her reception desk. They shared the same steely look of command. Gwendolen recognized Nellie Coker from yesterday morning, even though she was now dressed in an explosion of haberdashery.
She barely glanced at Gwendolen and her counterfeit swain, but Gwendolen felt under inspection nonetheless. （“She has eyes everywhere,” Frobisher had said.） The matriarch took Cobb’s money and waved them towards a bamboo curtain, beyond which was a dark, deep staircase, at the bottom of which a smirking flunkey greeted them by pulling aside another curtain and saying, “Welcome to the Amethyst.” He seemed to be expecting a tip but Cobb pushed past, rather rudely, it seemed to Gwendolen. Perhaps the budget that Frobisher had provided for the evening didn’t cover gratuities. The ghost of the cornetist raised his mournful head and set in motion a train of thought that led first to her fall, then the theft and then her rescue. Niven. How would she feel if it was his arm she was on rather than that of the less than suave Constable Cobb?