A Monstrous Regiment of Women - Laurie R. King [31]
I lay on the sofa long in what was left of the night, struggling with myself and my options, and in the end, long before dawn, I took the only possible action: I ran away.
I walked the streets until the sky was a fraction lighter than the rooftops, then went, shivering and wet through, to the door of the ladies’ club that I had joined the year before. It was a small establishment with the cheerless and misleading name of the Vicissitude, but it did not allow its right-thinking feminist policies to interfere with the amount of hot water in its pipes or the quality of food that came from its kitchen. The old matron on night duty greeted me with horror and bundled me off to a hot bath, brought me a mug of something scalding and appallingly alcoholic, retrieved my stored clothes, and found a bed for me. I did not sleep much, but it was nice to be warm, and alone.
I was in the museum at the agreed time, ill-rested, unfed, and hastily dressed. At 12:30, Veronica had still not appeared. I decided to give her until one, and ten minutes before then, she came around the corner, as carelessly dressed as I, but pale, red-eyed, and half-focused. I greeted her with apprehension, wondering what new upheaval had tossed her here in this condition, but she managed a distracted smile and seemed to be trying to pull herself together.
“Mary, I’m so sorry. Something happened this morning, and I totally forgot the time until Margery reminded me that I had a luncheon date with you.”
“Yes, I can see something happened.” Her stockings did not match, her hair was perfunctorily combed, and she was wearing a dark green woollen dress with a black coat, an infelicitous combination. “You should have sent a message; I’d have understood. Was it something at the Temple?”
“No. Well, yes, in a way. Miles’s sister died last night. She was a member. You met her, in fact—Iris. Tall, marcelled hair.”
“Cigarette holder, red fingernails, small opal ring on her right hand. She had a terrible cold,” I recalled. She had been one of those who had run a brief and disbelieving eye across my clothing and returned, politely amused, to the business at hand. Ronnie nodded.
“What happened?”
“She was mur—murdered.” Her control slipped for an instant before it caught again, and she drew a shaky breath. “She left the meeting with the rest of us, just after eleven, but she never made it home. A bobby found her in an alleyway at four this morning, in the West End. She was… her throat… Oh God.”
She gulped and put her hand to her mouth, and I grabbed her arm hard, putting a sharp twist into it to distract her, and hustled her out the doors and into the rain, down the steps, and through the gates. I kept pushing her until we had our seats in the restaurant. The owner knew me well and responded with alacrity to my demand for strong drink and food, and soon the greenish tones had faded from her face and she could begin to tell me about it.
“Iris’s father telephoned me early this morning—about seven, I think it was—wanting to know if I had any idea where Miles might be. I said no, and he said if I heard from him that Miles should go home immediately. I started to say that it was unlikely that I should see him, but he just rang off. After I’d had some coffee I realised that he’d sounded terribly upset about something, so I telephoned back—it took the exchange an age to get through—and asked if there was anything wrong. That’s when he told me Iris was… dead.”
“And Miles was—” I started, but she spoke over me.
“We were never close, Iris and I. We were too different, I guess. But she was devoted to Miles, and very involved in her Temple work—it was through her that I met Margery. We will all miss her so much.”
Her eyes filled, and I downed a few hasty mouthfuls to silence my hardhearted appetite before steering her with equal ruthlessness back from elegy to facts.
“When you spoke with their father, Miles was missing?”
She wiped her eyes. “Yes, but that’s hardly