The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan Read Online Free PDF Page B

physicians on Harley, dead fish principally at Billingsgate Market.
    After an interval of discussion, Mrs. Fitzsimmons and Mrs. Bailey agreed that most of the caterers were to be found near Gillyglade Court, an offshoot of the fashionable shopping district around Regent Street.
     
     
    An hour or so later, a cab pulled up at a corner of that commercial mecca and quite a well-bred young lady descended: yours truly. In order to transform myself, I had made use of my secret dressing-room, where I had removed rouge, cheek and nostril inserts, false eyelashes, hair additions, et cetera, but then crowned my own narrow, sallow, aristocratic face with the most gloriously coiffed wig, to which I attached a hat consisting mostly of a pouf of feathers and lace. Next, touches of perfume and powder, then a perfectly divine promenade dress of celadon-green dotted swiss with the very latest in puffed sleeves, also dove-grey kid-leather boots and gloves, a white organza parasol, and voila! Impeccably upper-class, with my dagger as always sheathed in the bust of my corset, but now concealed by a handsome opal brooch.
    Regent Street and its environs can be summed up in three words: glass, gas, and brass. That is to say, oft-cleaned bow windows replete with finery illuminated by numerous lamps in the most resplendent of all possible surroundings. On this fine day, polished door-knobs and the like appeared even more shining than usual, because less sooty. With silk petticoats rustling beneath my trailing skirt I perambulated in and out of the glittering shops, twirling my parasol and smiling amiably and condescendingly upon clerks bobbing behind the counters. After a brief while, my seemingly aimless peregrinations carried me into Gillyglade Court.
    At each door I entered, my posh clothing plus my aristocratic accent drew instant servility from clerks. I quickly located several caterers and learned more than I wanted to know about their services. I could have rented burnished silver Persian coffee-urns, pressed-glass plates, potted ferns, showy epergnes—sublimely useless—for the centre of each table, or golden birdcages complete with nightingales to hang from the ceiling; I was offered seven-course menus, wine-lists, a selection of “refections” including but certainly not limited to bonbons with humourous mottoes folded into them upon slips of paper.
    Indeed, these caterers could do almost anything with paper.
    “I have heard that a pink-themed tea is quite the thing for spring,” I said at each of five establishments, gazing vaguely around me through my lorgnette.
    And at each the response was much the same. “Oh! Yes, yes indeed,” and I would be shown a plethora of pink gimcracks: pink doilies, pink daisies, pink paper sailboat candy-holders, pink paper rose-petal bowls, pink paper squirrels, top-hats, mushrooms, camels, pyramids…
    All of which I would regard with slight but evident revulsion as I said doubtfully, “I don’t know…something a bit more elegant…have you any fans?”
    No. No, alas, they did not.
    But at the sixth caterer’s shop, they did.
    “Oh! Oh, yes, we made them up special for the Viscountess of Inglethorpe, and they were a great success, so we made some more to keep on hand; just a moment and I will fetch one to show you.”
    And out came the pink paper fan.
    Seemingly identical in every detail to the one the girl in the bell skirt had slipped to me.
    “Let me see that,” I demanded, retaining my imperial manner but quite forgetting my pose of indifference as I grabbed the pink paper fan and held it up to the light, peering at it, nay, glaring at it through my lorgnette, for something was wrong. Different. “Is this the same paper you used for, ah—”
    “For the Viscountess of Inglethorpe? Yes, exactly the same.”
    Good-quality heavy pink paper, but plain. No watermark of any kind.
    I stood there a moment, and I am sure the hapless clerk must have wondered why I scowled so.
    “May I take this