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ELEVEN

T here was another mention of a perfume shop.

Ursula contemplated the lines she had attempted to transcribe from Anne’s notebook.

She reminded herself that poetry could be complicated and nuanced, not to mention downright oblique.

Some poems were notoriously incomprehensible.

And then there was the fact that Valerie was not a professional author.

She was using the medium of poetry to soothe her shattered nerves.

Nevertheless, most of the verses in the notebook made sense once they were transcribed. The lines that she had just written down on a separate sheet of paper, however, did not. They looked, instead, very much like an address.

It was possible that Anne had grown bored with the dreary poems Valerie had dictated and had jotted down some private notes—reminders of appointments, perhaps, or, in this instance, the address of a perfume shop that someone had mentioned.

It would certainly not have been out of character for Anne to shop for fragrances and fancy soap.

Ursula reflected briefly on the empty perfume bottle she had found on Anne’s writing desk.

Curious, she flipped back and forth through the notebook.

The reference to the perfume shop appeared early on in the notebook, about three weeks after Anne had begun working for Valerie.

It had been slipped in between lines of poetry.

... The longing in my heart is that of the flower for the sun,

Rosemont’s Perfumes and Soaps. No. 5 Stiggs Lane

Yet tis the night I welcome for in my dreams to you I run...

Anne had never mentioned the purchase of perfume to her office colleagues and that was unlike her.

She had always been very eager to display any new acquisition.

A week or so before her death she had received a lovely silver chatelaine from a grateful client—a delicate aide-mémoire.

It featured a tiny silver notebook and pencil attached with silver chains.

Anne had worn it virtually every day to the office. Everyone had admired it.

If Anne had purchased some perfume or received it as a gift, surely she would have mentioned it.

Ursula reached for her pencil. A faint, muffled thud on the front steps stopped her cold. The fine hairs on the nape of her neck stirred.

She glanced at the clock. It was nearly midnight. No one would call at such an hour.

Metal clanged lightly on metal, the small noise was distinctive, though barely audible. Ursula shot to her feet, an unnerving chill splintering through her. Someone had just pushed an object through the letter box.

She went to the window and eased the curtain aside.

The fogbound street was very quiet. There were no vehicles but a dark silhouette was briefly visible in the glare of the streetlamp.

The figure was that of a man enveloped in a coat and a low-crowned hat.

He was rushing away from her front door.

As she watched he vanished quickly into the night.

There was no noise from Mrs. Dunstan’s room. But, then, it would take a gunshot or the Crack of Doom to awaken her after she took her bedtime dose of her own special laudanum concoction.

You are letting your imagination run away with reason and common sense, Ursula thought. But she knew she would not be able to sleep if she did not go downstairs to make certain that all was secure in the front hall.

The gas lamps were turned down very low but they cast enough light to enable her to make her way.

She saw the small package on the black-and-white tiles before she reached the bottom step.

The icy sensation grew stronger, threatening to overwhelm her.

Someone had, indeed, shoved a package through the brass letter box—at midnight.

The dread that had been gathering in the atmosphere around her struck with storm-like intensity. It took an astonishing amount of determination just to continue down the stairs.

She picked up the package. The contents felt light and flexible. Papers, she concluded, or a notebook.

She carried the package into her study, set it on her desk and turned up a lamp. Taking a pair of shears out of a drawer she cut the string that bound the parcel and slowly peeled away the brown paper.

She fully expected that whatever she found inside would come as a shock but a strange stoicism gripped her when she saw the little magazine.

It was a penny dreadful. The black-and-white illustration on the cover featured a woman in a suggestively draped nightgown, her hair down around her shoulders.

She was sitting in a tumbled bed, clutching the sheets to her bosom.

The artist had made certain that a great deal of bare leg was visible.

The woman in the illustration was not alone in the bedroom. There was a man with her. He was in his shirtsleeves, his tie and the collar of his shirt undone. His formal evening coat was draped over the back of a boudoir chair.

The woman and the man gazed in stunned shock at the bedroom door, where a well-dressed, obviously scandalized lady stood in the opening. She had a gun in one gloved hand.

The title of the small magazine proclaimed the contents:

T HE P ICTON D IVORCE C ASE

An Accurate Record of the Testimony of Mrs. Euphemia Grant and Others. Adultery! Scandal! Attempted Murder!

Ursula opened the magazine with shaking fingers. A handwritten note slipped out and fluttered to the top of the desk.

You have been discovered. Silence may be purchased. Await instructions.

Ursula sank slowly down onto the chair. She had always feared that the day would come when someone would uncover her true identity.

She had known that if that happened her newly invented life would fall apart and she would once again confront disaster.

She had put aside a fair amount of money to prepare for such an eventuality.

She’d had some notion of purchasing a ticket to Australia or America to start over yet again, if necessary.

But as she read the note a second time, it was anger, not fear, that stormed through her. She had made plans to leave the country if her past was exposed. But she had not anticipated the possibility that someone would attempt to blackmail her.

She needed a new plan.