The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline Read Online Free PDF Page B

please me, Florrie frowned with distress. “I disremember her name exactly, miss, but she were famous at the time. The Lady with the Lamp, they called ’er when Aunt Flo was born, but nobody ’eard nothing ’bout ’er fer years now.”
    Mrs. Tupper had said something about a Lady with a Lamp, hadn’t she? With some strain my weary brain began to make connections. Thirty-four years ago, forgotten now. Crimean War. Fine clothes she give me, better’n what I was married in —this had to be the mid-century crinoline dress I held in my hands.
    “Now, what were that lady’s name?” Florrie muttered.
    One of those crossword-puzzle names once famous but slowly being forgotten . . . But what could any of this possibly have to do with our immediate and pressing difficulties? “It doesn’t matter.” I put the dress back into the wardrobe and closed the doors on it. “Come along, Florrie.”
    The girl obeyed, trailing downstairs after me, but she kept mumbling. “Florence. Florence something,” as I slumped in a kitchen chair and she put the kettle on for tea. “Peculiar name, sort of dark. Blackwell? Blackwood? Blackbird?”
    Suddenly it came to me. “Florence Nightingale.” “’At’s it!” Florrie appeared much relieved. “Night-in-gaol, must’ve ’ad a scoundrel back o’ the family somewheres, but she were a fine lady fer all that—”
    “Not Night-in-gaol,” I interrupted, forgetting to erase my aristocratic accent, such was my fatigue and irritation. “No slur of imprisonment exists. A nightingale is simply a sweetly singing bird of the thrush family—”
    Within my mind I experienced a sensation reminiscent of the flash powder exploding above a portrait photographer’s camera, and I rocketed to my feet, nearly upsetting the table. “Ye gods!” I shouted in a most unruly fashion. “The Bird!”

CHAPTER THE FIFTH
    THE LADY WITH THE LAMP HERSELF MUST BE deceased by now, I assumed, because any veteran of the Crimean War I had ever met had been tottering on the edge of the grave, and those men had been youths at the time of the conflict, whereas Florence Nightingale had been a middle-aged woman; surely, as I had not heard her name mentioned in years, she had long since passed away. But perhaps some surviving member of the Nightingale family might know something of Mrs. Tupper’s history, or even of her present whereabouts? It was a most tenuous clue, but I clutched at it in the proverbial manner, for it was the only straw I had.
    After gulping some bread and tea, I ran upstairs to dress, casting about in my mind for the best way in which to present myself. Miss Meshle was too vulgarly working-class to merit respect or receive admission, yet the pristinely upper-class Miss Viola Everseau would take hours to put together, and I had no patience for her; my hands shook as I snatched clothing out of my wardrobe, settling upon a plain and narrow brick-coloured merino dress. In this, with my mud-brown hair in a bun and a pair of tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles upon my bony face, I would pass as a particular variety of upper-class female, the kind who espouses causes and studies (or attempts to study, when not being harassed by proprietary males) at the British Museum, an unconventional young woman with no interest in marriage, but nevertheless a lady of sorts—even though no lady who aspired to beauty would ever be seen in eyeglasses.
    Glancing into the mirror, I quite approved of the glasses, for their heavy dark rims disguised my face, especially the length of my rather alarming nose. I added a slightly mannish black hat. Excellent. I had rendered myself such a free-thinking spinsterish object that no one would take any notice of me. There remained only the matter of jacket and gloves—ink-stained, of course—as I sallied forth, calling, “Florrie, will you stay until I get back?” I wanted her there at the house in case someone came with news.
    “Of course, Miss—” She caught sight of me, and