Deadly Fashion

by Kate Parker

  “I found you a good lead on where the exploding cigars came from, and all you can say is I’m not part of the investigation?” My voice began to rise. I was furious. I worked hard to find out as much as I had. Information they hadn’t learned.

  “Officially, no.” Then his tone shifted slightly. “However you two work out the details about information sharing is no concern of mine or the army’s. Understood?”

  “Understood,” I said. Unofficially, I could be as involved as Adam.

  “Yes, sir,” Adam said. The two men saluted each other and then Adam and I left.

  “Where are you staying?” I asked once we reached the outside. It was dark out and a cold wind was blowing off the river.

  “At my club. The army’s paying for it, since they ordered me here. Let me change clothes and I’ll pick you up for dinner.”

  “Someplace local and reasonably fancy?” I asked.

  “I’d take you dancing, but we both have to go to work in the morning.” He smiled and held my gaze for a moment before we hurried to flag down a taxi and get out of the wind.

  It wasn’t until we were in the taxi that we dared hold hands. Apparently, army uniforms and affection don’t mix.

  Once home, I changed into a long, blue velvet gown with small, puffy sleeves and a square neckline front and back. When Adam arrived in evening dress, looking very handsome and a little thinner, I decided I’d chosen the right dress.

  We took a cab to a nice restaurant in a hotel and spoke of trivial things until we’d been seated and ordered. I glanced around before I murmured, “You’ve lost weight.”

  “All we do is study and march. That and get drenched sailing rubber rafts. I’m not much of a sailor.” Adam kept his voice pitched so only I could hear him.

  “I’m sorry.” My hand crept over to his and he gripped my fingers tightly.

  “I’m not. It’s better to be prepared.” He dropped my hand as they brought over and poured our wine.

  Left alone again, I said, “Dickie and Rex confirmed everything I reported?”

  “Yes. So who is it, Livvy?”

  I glanced up to see the waiter coming with our soup and kept silent until he was gone. “It’s not Reina. She’s dead. It’s not Brigette. She’s no more than nineteen. And Mimi’s daughter, by the way.”

  Adam nodded and ate his soup. He must have been hungry. He finished his before I was half done.

  “Don’t they feed you?” I asked.

  “Nothing you’d want to eat.”

  They took away our soup bowls and brought chops with potatoes and greens. Adam polished off half his dinner before he looked up and said, “Now I can hear you over my grumbling stomach. Not Reina, not Brigette.”

  “That leaves Mimi, close friend of the Duke of Marshburn, and Fleur, whom I know nothing…”

  I stopped in mid-sentence, drawing Adam’s attention. “What is it?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “In a trunk in the basement, there is a collection of vials and bottles filled with different powders and liquids. Reina said Fleur uses them to work the fabric to make it do what she wants when she cuts out the frock.”

  “And you don’t believe her.”

  “It’s not a matter of believing her or not. If we knew what the powders and liquids were, we’d know if Fleur or anyone else had anything to work with to make those exploding cigars.”

  “Take some samples, you mean. We could get the Yard’s forensic lab to analyze them.”

  I nodded. We’d have an answer, one way or the other.

  “Hmmm.” Adam was considering something. “This would obviously have nothing to do with the investigation I’m supposed to be on. Scotland Yard won’t send over any of the lab boys unless they’re brought fully into the picture, which the army won’t do.”

  “Can you get some empty, stoppered glass vials and carry them in your pocket or something?”

  “What do you have in mind?” He sounded suspicious.

  “I’ll get into the salon and go down to the basement and let you in the outside door. Then we’ll take some samples from the powders in the trunk and you can leave by the basement door and take them to Scotland Yard to get them analyzed.”

  “Won’t this Fleur be suspicious of us taking samples from her trunk?”

  “We’re not going to tell her.”

  “Livvy. That’s illegal. And how can we prove who those chemicals belong to?”

  I sighed. He was right. “At least we’d be sure whether or not someone in that house was behind the exploding cigar.” His stern expression told me we’d get nothing more done that night. “Do you have room for dessert?”

  * * *

  I arrived at work early the next morning and set right to work, knowing I’d be away from my desk for a while. Miss Westcott looked at me suspiciously but said nothing.

  I left my desk in time to meet Adam in front of Mimi’s salon at ten-thirty, knowing everyone in the building would be busy then. Telling him to wait, I walked down the concrete steps and tried the door handle. It turned in my hand and the door opened.

  Peeking in, I saw the area was empty. This was better luck than I’d hoped for.

  I signaled Adam to come down and slipped inside. He was there in an instant and shut the door silently behind him.

  With a gesture, I led him across the floor to the trunk that held the glass bottles and vials. He opened it and found what I’d seen, carefully stored glass bottles and vials as well as small boxes.

  “It looks like a portable chemical lab,” he whispered as he handed me a small glass vial and stopper to collect a specimen.

  I was glad the gloves I wore were tight against my skin because my hands were trembling. The first powder I tried to collect didn’t want to leave its container and I had to carefully tap it to get a sample into the smaller container. The next wanted to pour out all at once and I spilled more of the gray powder on the floor than into the vial.

  No wonder I spilled some. We didn’t know which of these chemicals might have caused Churchill’s cigar to explode, and the idea of suddenly catching on fire made my hands shake.

  I was very careful not to spill any on my clothes. My gloves might be destroyed, but I refused to sacrifice my dark gray suit to this investigation.

  Adam collected samples from three different bottles and wrapped them in lamb’s wool before tucking them into his pocket. I noticed he didn’t seem frightened at all, calmly working with these liquids and powders as if this were an everyday occurrence.

  Then he dumped small amounts from a couple of the small boxes into even smaller boxes. I turned away, took a calming breath, and turned back to procure small amounts from two more vials. With the rest of our glass tubes wrapped in thick layers of lamb’s wool, Adam’s pockets now bulged with the collection.

  I put the trunk back the way we found it and closed it while Adam left the basement. The powders I’d spilled weren’t too noticeable unless you checked the floor carefully. I hurried to follow him, running on tiptoe so my heels didn’t click on the stone floor. In a moment, I was out the door and up the stairs, my hard breathing more from fear than exertion.

  Adam had signaled a taxi and we rode to the Scotland Yard laboratory. I leaped out of the taxi behind him, but while his badge gained him admittance, I couldn’t enter. Giving me a quick grin, he said, “Go back to work. I’ll meet you there for lunch.”

  “What time?” I asked.

  “Wait for my call.”

  I trudged away, brushing the various powders off my gloves. I wondered if Fleur would notice I’d spilled chemicals on the floor by the trunk, although in the weak light it wasn’t too obvious. I wasn’t about to risk being caught by returning to the basement and sweeping up the mess. I hoped I hadn’t given the game away with my sloppiness.

  I caught a bus and rode the short distance to Fleet Street before heading to my desk. Miss Westcott looked at the large clock on the wall before staring at me while holding up some quick-typed copy.
r />   I knew I was in trouble as I strolled up to her desk, trying to look unbothered by her frown.

  She held out the copy. “This just came in from a shooting party in Yorkshire. Take a look at the names and see if we should print this.”

  I raised my eyebrows. Decisions on printing articles wasn’t the sort of thing the Daily Premier left to me.

  “They just phoned this into us,” she explained. “I didn’t recognize the name of the caller or any of the attendees. It seems odd. See if you can make anything of this.” Her tone was dry, hinting at the skepticism in her attitude.

  I carried it back to my desk, glancing over it. On the face of it, everything appeared normal. Dreary, unimportant, middle-aged aristocrats met to shoot birds and marry off a daughter. But Miss Westcott was right. There was something odd about it.

  I sat down to analyze every word as it was phoned in to us. I had heard of some of the attendees. The name of the family who owned the Georgian mansion was correct. These people were hardly more newsworthy than I was, so I had no idea if this country house was where they’d been spending the previous days.

  But then I noticed some errors. Rievaulx Abbey was north of the pretty stone house where they were staying, not south, and the house was near York, miles from the coast and not nearby. I’d met the pinch-faced Norma Bradley-Scott and was certain her name was spelled with an “e,” not “Bradly” as the notice spelled it. Her father hadn’t been given the order of the crested leopard from George V. There was no such thing. Also, her daughter hadn’t come out in society. There was no way they’d be husband hunting for her yet, but the article was written as if this were a weekend in the country with matrimony on the menu along with shooting.

  First, I asked my colleague Anne, who’d typed up the notice, if she was sure about the details. I knew she was generally accurate, but I wanted to be clear on this. She told me she’d asked about many of the details and had all the names spelled out to her.

  She said the caller, a woman, was insistent that the item go into the paper exactly as she’d dictated it. Anne also said the line was as clear as if it were a local call.

  The call seemed odd to Anne and she reported it to Miss Westcott immediately.

  “How long ago was this?” I asked.

  “Ten or fifteen minutes ago.”

  After Adam and I had left the basement with our samples. I hurried over to our copy of Burke’s Peerage and began to look up the people mentioned.

  It didn’t take me long before I was back at Miss Westcott’s desk. “You were right to question this,” I told her. “There are several deliberate errors.”

  She frowned. “Anne is generally so reliable. I don’t understand.”

  “Anne took this down exactly the way it was given to her. ‘The order of the crested leopard’ doesn’t exist. The house mentioned is near York and isn’t north of Rievaulx Abbey. This is far beyond a simple typo.”

  “But why?” She sounded baffled.

  I held her gaze. “It reads like some sort of coded message. I think we need to let Sir Henry know.”

  “We’ve always prided ourselves on our accuracy at this newspaper. Even on the women’s pages. Why would someone want to use us this way?” She kept her composure, but in her pale eyes, I saw fear.

  “Because we are known for accuracy. They wanted to get this into the paper exactly as they’d written it. Otherwise, if it is a code, it wouldn’t do anyone any good if it had been mucked about.”

  I didn’t want to admit someone suspected me of being involved in the investigation and wanted to use me for whatever reason this message was to go out.

  “Didn’t they realize we wouldn’t run it without taking a good look at what they sent in? That we might rewrite it? Our reputation is at stake.” Miss Westcott’s voice had risen and a couple of the girls were watching us. She lowered her voice. “Back to work, ladies.”

  “We should take this up to Sir Henry,” I repeated.

  “I’ll take it up. Apparently, someone wants you on the telephone.” She did not sound happy.

  I looked over in the direction Miss Westcott had glanced and saw Anne holding up the receiver toward me. I walked over and took the call. “Hello?”

  “Livvy?” It was Adam.

  “Ready for lunch?” I had so much I wanted to tell him.

  “I’ll be over in fifteen minutes.”

  I looked over to Miss Westcott’s desk to find that she had disappeared.

  When Adam strode up to the building, I was waiting out front. We walked a few blocks to an ABC shop for a quick lunch, talking of sports and the latest movies from Hollywood. At one point, when no one was too close to us on the pavement, he said, “I delivered the samples to the analysts. We may have the answers by dinnertime.”

  I smiled, inviting myself to dinner with him. “Where are you taking me?”

  “I’ll bring in fish and chips. Make us a salad. We’ll need to have a long and detailed discussion.”

  There wasn’t a chance to say any more since the eatery was crowded. On the way back to the Daily Premier building, I took a chance and said, “We were given information on a shooting party that was patently false. Miss Westcott took it to Sir Henry. If you have someone who’s good with codes, you might give them a tip to get a copy of this message.”

  “How did it come in?”

  “By telephone.”

  He shook his head. “That’s too bad. A call won’t give us any clues.” Then he smiled. “But I know just the people who should talk to Sir Henry.”

  “And it came in after we left the basement with our samples.” I looked at Adam and raised my eyebrows.

  He nodded.

  Adam dropped me off at the building, promising to arrive at my flat at half seven that night with the fish and chips. I had to do some flying around after work, going to the greengrocer’s before hurrying home to straighten the flat, make the salad, and brush and repin my hair.

  It was worth it when I opened the door and found Adam looking handsome and smiling at me on my landing. “I could get used to this assignment,” he said before setting down the fish and chips and a bottle of wine in the dining room. A thrill went up my spine when he gave me the lingering kiss I’d been waiting for all day.

  Eventually, he set the table while I brought in a big bowl of salad. “Beautiful,” he commented when he saw it. “Can’t get anything like that on my regular assignment.”

  I wanted to ask about his “regular assignment,” but knew he couldn’t answer. I also knew how difficult it would soon be to get winter lettuce, much less any other salad greens, until spring. “You must be hungry. Let’s eat, and then you can tell me about the chemicals and the strange notice sent to the paper.”

  We sat across the table from each other, sharing salad and fish and a good wine. Finally, Adam said, “You’re not going to want to hear what I have to say.”

  My mind raced. He was leaving again for places unknown. They’d received word that Hitler planned another attack. My stomach tightened so much it hurt. “What?” came out as a whisper.

  “This morning, we took a sample from that trunk that has been confirmed as the chemical used to set fire to Churchill’s cigars and almost set fire to Churchill. Both Mimi and Fleur swore it was Reina’s trunk. Scotland Yard believes she was murdered for failing to kill Churchill, probably by her handler.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I banged down my fork and it clattered against my plate. “That’s impossible. Reina was Jewish. The Germans have taken over her village and she couldn’t get word from her family.”

  “That’s what she told you,” Adam said gently. “We found a letter Reina had received recently from her mother. Fleur said the Nazis force people to be their spies in exchange for protecting their families. Reina wanted nothing more than to protect her family in Germany.”

  I nodded. That was true. “Where did you find the letter? I searched her room after Scotland Yard had been through there.”

  �
��Under a floorboard in a corner. It was hidden well enough to get past Scotland Yard’s first search, but they weren’t looking for anything more than a routine killing.” He took my hand. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Livvy. Reina had to live a double life to be an assassin. She would have kept that part of her life secret from everyone.”

  “What’s happened to the trunk with the chemicals in the basement?”

  “Scotland Yard laboratory technicians took it back to headquarters. They want to study the contents further.”

  “Will they test it for fingerprints?”

  “Yes, but several women in the salon admit to looking in it while searching for fabric or ribbon.”

  “And they didn’t ask any questions?” I would have. Someone in that salon must have been curious. I couldn’t picture Mimi keeping quiet about anything in her salon.

  “Madame Mareau’s rule was for everyone to stick to their own task.”

  Still, everyone had opinions on colleagues. Mimi couldn’t stop her workers from judging each other, if only privately. “What did the seamstresses say who worked with Reina? What did Brigette say?”

  I was being demanding, but Adam kept his voice gentle and his tone calm. “None of them believed it. They all said she was a nice, quiet person. Not well-educated or driven. No political views. Of course, they didn’t have any evidence to explain the trunk or refute the accusations. And they said she was always the one to go down to the basement.”

  “Yes, I’d noticed that, too.” Something I couldn’t explain. Why did she keep going down to the basement? “But I still don’t believe it. Reina was terrified of something, and I don’t think it was because she was afraid of being found out as a Nazi assassin.”

  I folded my arms over my chest. “What does Scotland Yard think happened to Elias? General Alford said he was a British spy.”

  “Reina killed Elias when she met him in the basement.”