by Kate Parker
“Mimi’s moving to London?” Esther said, suddenly excited. “Then are the rumors true, about her and the Duke of Marshburn?”
“I know the duchess can’t stand her,” I told her.
The two men looked at each other with puzzled expressions.
“You haven’t heard of Mimi Mareau?” I asked them. “She’s a French fashion designer. I did an article about her opening a showroom in London just the other day. I had an exclusive, and you turned it into an announcement.” I glared at Sir Henry.
“You had an exclusive with the tenant of the building where Elias was found? I didn’t realize you had this contact, Livvy,” my boss said. “Can you get in there with Jane again?”
“Not until next week, when she’s ready to open for business.”
“Good. Get in there as soon as you can.”
“Will you print the story this time?” I countered.
“Yes, of course. I need you to keep an eye on this Mimi. Marshburn is known to have Nazi sympathies. Does Mimi?”
“I don’t know.” It seemed odd to think of politics and high fashion at the same time.
“I’m sure she’s not alone in that building,” Esther said.
“No, she’s living there with three other women, her chief assistants, while they get the building ready for their first showing. At the same time, they’re designing and producing the costumes for a West End play.”
“What play? Who’s putting it on?” Sir Henry asked.
“I don’t know. She just said a West End play.” I should have asked, but then we’d found the body. “During the day, there are painters and carpenters all over the ground and first floor.”
“More people to have seen Elias in the basement,” James said. “Men who wouldn’t want to share job opportunities with immigrants.”
“If the director or playwright or anyone from the play has been in that building, they might have seen Elias. They might know him from some encounter in the past. We need to check up on them, too,” Esther said.
“We?” Sir Henry exclaimed.
“This isn’t Berlin,” Esther said, crossing her arms. “I believe in what Elias started, and I want to see it continue. The best way I can do that is to help Livvy find the traitor in the resettlement committee.”
James gave a loud sigh before he said, “Essie, my love. You might not only find a traitor. You might find a killer.”
That started an argument that wasn’t going to be solved that night. Meanwhile, I had to be up bright and early in the morning for work at the Daily Premier. Including any special assignments Sir Henry might find for me.
I wished them all a good night and retreated before I was drawn into a family argument.
* * *
The next morning, I told Miss Westcott that I had permission to follow up on my contact with Mimi Mareau and was going over to her couture house. Miss Westcott raised her eyebrows, but she waved me away from her desk.
I suspected she had already guessed I had a secondary role at the newspaper, a role no one would tell her about. I also suspected she could be trusted, even with a secret of this magnitude.
Knowing where I’d be going, I had dressed to catch Mimi’s eye in a cream and light-gray striped suit with a dark blue blouse that tied at the neck with a bow. I paired it with a white lacquered straw trilby with a dark blue band and two-tone blue and white shoes. Leaving nothing to chance, I even put on a new pair of silk stockings.
I took a taxi across town, marking down the cost to get reimbursed, and knocked on the door of the house on Old Burlington Street. Reina opened the door, showing me a room full of drop cloths and painters on ladders. “Come on, we’ll go to the back.”
We carefully stepped over and around a maze of painting gear. The back room had been altered, too, with a new coat of paint and more racks full of hanging cloth bags and new shelves full of boxes.
“On your own?” I asked.
“Yes. Fleur and Brigette have gone to the theater and Mimi is—out.”
“Which theater is it?”
“The Danish Princess.”
The Danish Princess theater was a little on the small side and a little east of the West End theaters where musical comedies written by uncelebrated bards were performed by unknown actors. It was great fun and wonderfully cheap. Adam and I had gone there a couple of times.
“Will Mimi be back soon?”
“I doubt it.” Said in a French accent, it sounded more dramatic than I guessed she had meant it.
I took a stab at getting some information while Reina was away from the others. “My condolences on Elias’s death. He was a friend of yours?”
Her head jerked around as she looked squarely at me. Then she bit her lip and her eyes grew moist. “We grew up in the same town on the German-Czech border.”
“In the Jewish quarter.”
She took a step or two away from me as she glanced over her shoulder. “Keep quiet.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Reina’s eyes widened with fear. “If Mimi finds out people know I’m Jewish, she will fire me. And what business is it of yours?”
“I work for one of the men who was paying for Elias’s stay in London and is raising the funds to continue his work.”
“You know about his work?” she whispered.
“Yes. I helped my boss get some of his relatives out. I know how important Elias’s work was. My job is to find out who was involved in his murder.”
“Good. I won’t sleep well until I know the person who did this is dead.”
There was clearly a lot more I could learn from Reina. “You’re Mimi’s best seamstress. You said if she found out, she’d fire you, but she’d have to be a fool. And Mimi’s no fool. You’d be snatched up in a second or be able to open your own shop.”
“She does business with Jews if she must. She is quite willing to sell expensive gowns to them. But openly employ a Jew? No.”
“Then why do you stay?”
“She’s been building her reputation since the Great War. Everyone listens to her. Even you.”
I nodded. That was true.
“If I leave, she will say bad things about me and I won’t be able to work again. And I have no desire to starve.”
“It can’t be that bad.” Mimi seemed like a reasonable person.
“Ha. I grew up with starvation. I have no wish to repeat the experience.”
Hunger was a powerful motivator. Still, I couldn’t believe Mimi Mareau, who designed such beautiful gowns, would be so vindictive toward someone who worked so hard for her. “So you stay.”
“So I stay. Please, keep my secret.”
I nodded. “Had you made plans to see Elias?”
“No.” She looked over her shoulder and trembled.
“Did you know he was staying at the Hotel Gloucester?”
“No.”
“Did you know he was coming to London?”
“No. How could I?”
“From someone in your hometown.”
She gave me a look that said I was an idiot. “I haven’t heard from anyone there in a year or more.”
“Do you know of any threats to him in London?”
“Threats?”
“Someone killed him. Was he aware of any enemies here in London?”
“He had a price on his head, thanks to the Nazis. They’d already tried to kill him twice in Germany. He was badly wounded in one attempt. He had enemies everywhere.”
“How do you know any of that if you hadn’t spoken to him?”
“My cousin in Paris has some contacts. She—she told me.” She still looked scared, but a stubborn glint in her eye told me I wouldn’t be able to shake her on that story.
“Why was he in the basement? Did he come to meet you?”
“No. How would he know I was here?” She looked around her as if looking for another answer. “Besides, Mimi sent me off to buy some fabric and thread for the play costumes. When I returned, you had already found his body. That was the
first I knew he was in London.”
She looked at me and sighed. “He’d had enemies for many years. In the end, he waited too long to escape. His enemies cornered him and killed him.”
The evidence told me something else. “No, Reina. He was killed by several blows to the back of the head. He turned his back on his murderer. He trusted his attacker.”
With a horrified look on her face, Reina clapped her hand over her mouth and raced up the back staircase.
I was left standing in the back room, wondering why my words had shocked Reina. What had she thought or known that sent her racing away from me?
Moments later, I heard the front door open and Mimi’s accented tones floated in, giving the painters specific orders on how she wanted the walls to look. She walked in and looked surprised. “Olivia. Did I forget an appointment?”
“No. I came over to ask when would be a good time for Miss Seville and me to do a feature for your opening. Reina was good enough to let me in to wait for you.”
“Excellent.” Her expression was still quizzical. “The main salon is finished, and the front room should be ready tomorrow. Could we plan on Monday afternoon?”
“We’ll arrive about one in the afternoon on Monday. We’re both excited to see your new salon.” That was true. My problem was how to question her. “The police haven’t been too bothersome, have they?”
“Only the one day. By the next, we were again working without distraction.”
“What was that man doing in your basement, did you ever find out?” She had some idea. I was sure of it.
“I don’t know. Very strange and very sad, to die alone like that.”
“Alone except for his killer,” I said, looking straight at her.
“Yes.” She stared back at me. “If there’s nothing else…”
Curiosity and my love of French fashion design made me add, “Could I have a peek at the costumes for the play?”
She smiled. “Of course. It is a musical comedy about Gypsies. I am using some of the details in my evening gown designs. Bright and cheerful in this anxious time.”
Which meant that by the end of the year, every ball gown in every shop in London would display flounces or peasant tops, copying Mimi.
Walking over to one of the racks, she opened a cloth clothing sack to show me a brightly colored, full-skirted frock with layers of petticoats beneath. “This is the basic costume for the women in the play. Clean, colorful, playful. The men will wear high boots and open-collared white shirts. They sing and dance about thieving and no one is hurt. The audience will love it.”
“I’m sure they will.” I reached out and touched the ruffled skirt, admiring the work that had gone into it.
“So unlike real Gypsies. Nasty, thieving cretins,” Mimi grumbled, covering up the dress again.
I was surprised at her sudden rant against Gypsies. “We don’t have many in London. And few in the countryside.” I’d heard there were many in Germany, and Hitler was shoving them aside to make room for his Aryan backers.
“You’re lucky. We have them in France. They’re thieves, burglars, highwaymen. Filthy. And always with a clump of children and dogs hanging around.” She changed her scowl to a smile. “But on stage they are a colorful presence. They are delightful to design for.”
As I lowered my eyebrows to a more neutral expression, she said, “I wonder if you would like to take on a commission for me.”
“What is it?” I hoped I didn’t sound too eager. I was fascinated by both Mimi and her fashion house. And it would help me in finding out more for my assignment.
“I’d like some sketches of my works for advertisements.” She pronounced it the French way. “I want the outfits to look like someone is wearing them without the details of a face or head. So all the attention is drawn to the clothes.”
“I’d be glad to.” It would give me an excuse to spend time here without being as obvious as I’d been.
She named an amount that seemed stingy, but I’d have done it for nothing but the experience.
“It sounds good. When do you want me to start?”
“Now would be good. Let’s see what you can do with this.” She opened up another clothing bag, took out a simple rust-colored evening gown with a deep vee in the front and wide straps over the shoulders, and hung it over a mannequin.
I pulled over a chair and sat. With my reporter’s notebook on my lap, I began to draw. “I’ll have to bring over sharper pencils to do this justice.”
“This is just to tell me if you can do the job.” Mimi walked out of the ground-floor room, leaving me to try to create the folds and drape of the gown.
A half-hour later, I was finished. I stood in the stairway and shouted, “Mimi.”
I heard her high heels clicking on the stairs before I saw or heard her. “Oui?”
When I showed her my drawing, she nodded. “It is a good start. You need to do something vague with the body, and it needs to be crisper, and it needs to be on a separate sheet of paper, but you will do for my advertisements. You have talent, Olivia.”
“Thank you.”
“If there’s nothing else?”
I couldn’t think of another question to slip in to the conversation that would help with the investigation. “Until Monday.”
She was ushering me toward the front door when it sprang open. The force seemed to come from the size and personality of the man standing in the doorway.
The Duke of Marshburn.
Training immediately kicked in. “Your Grace,” I said with a hint of a curtsy.
“How do you do?” he said and then looked past me. “Mimi.”
“Your Grace,” she replied with a smile. It was the first genuine smile I’d seen on her face since I met her. Then she remembered my presence and introduced us.
This was the first time I’d seen the duke up close. His deep, resonating voice matched his tall stature. I thought I’d get a kink in my neck looking up at his face. “Are you a client of Miss Mareau’s?” he asked.
“No, I’m a society reporter for the Daily Premier. We’re doing a feature on her new couture house. She does such fascinating work. And to think she can carry on with a murder on the premises.” I tried to sound amazed.
I knew of Marshburn’s approval of the Nazis and the Nazis’ disapproval of Elias. I hoped the duke would say something useful.
The duke shot Mimi a look over my head that was less than friendly. “Such an unfortunate thing to happen. I don’t know why a murderer would decide to hide a body in the basement here.”
“It has nothing to do with us,” Mimi said. I couldn’t determine if she meant those words for me or the duke. “Now, Mrs. Denis, I will see you on Monday.”
She ushered me toward the door. “Good day.”
I had no choice. “Good day.”
* * *
I set up the interview time with Jane before going back to my mundane tasks in the society page offices. The grand and powerful were off shooting animals at magnificent house parties and sending back tidbits for society reporters to turn into copy. Having been raised among these young people and their mothers, I was frequently called on to translate reports of visits and tours for my coworkers.
It was close to quitting time when Miss Westcott told me to pick up the phone. It was Esther, and she sounded like she was in a hurry. “Livvy, there’s a meeting of the committee tonight to discuss what to do about Mr. Elias’s network. Please come. Everyone you need to meet will be there. Unless Adam is back?”
“No. He’s not,” I grumbled. “Will you be there?”
“Yes, along with my father. We can introduce you to the people you need to meet for this investigation.”
I picked up a pencil. “What time and what’s the address?”
As it turned out, I had to travel straight from the office to the meeting, wearing the cream and light gray wool suit I’d had on all day. It wasn’t terribly hot and humid, but I still felt wilted. The bow on my blue blouse refused to lo
ok perky by then, no matter how I tried to tie it in the ladies’ room after work.
I felt even worse when I climbed out of the taxi at a sprawling house in Blackheath and walked inside to discover I was the last to arrive. The footman showed me into an elegant ground-floor drawing room where every seat was taken by people in evening attire and the meeting was already in progress.
Sir Henry glared at me, but Esther smiled. The footman brought in a dining room side chair for me and set it near the door.
The speaker, a thin middle-aged man with a thick head of gray hair, stood behind a podium between the windows. Finishing the point he was making, he turned to me. “Yes, young lady?”
I found myself facing a roomful of suspicious faces. I wanted to sink into the thick carpet, but I mustered all the confidence I could dredge up and said, “I’m Olivia Denis, here at the request of Sir Henry Benton and Esther Powell.”
Everyone turned to look at them on the other side of the room.
Esther spoke up first. “Livvy has traveled to Berlin and Vienna for me to help my mother’s family escape. She’s so obviously English that she has no trouble getting in and out, and she speaks fluent German and French. I think she may be able to help with this problem.”
“But will she?” the speaker asked, and all eyes bore into me.
I stared back. “Before, I traveled at the behest of Sir Henry, who’s my employer. You need to get his support before you ask me.”
“And that depends on exactly what you want her to do and whether her tasks involve traveling,” Sir Henry said.
The speaker nodded, a grave expression on his face. “That’s to be decided. We—”
A man about Sir Henry’s age, with jet black hair and a thin face like a hawk, said, “The situation in Czechoslovakia is grave. The British and French are going to capitulate, never mind what their alliances and agreements with Czechoslovakia say. By spring the whole country will be awash in Nazis. Where will the Jews be then? We need to act.”
“We all agree the situation is grave, Abram,” the speaker said. “But with Elias dead, can his network continue? Is there anything that can be done using his methods?”
