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“Agnes, why not?” Karl cried quietly, coming inside and pulling the door closed behind him. It seemed so natural—not forward or frightening. It was the simple act of one who wished a private word with a friend. Perhaps you, too, have met a stranger with whom each hour is so open and so enjoyable that you feel you have always known each other?
Anyway, Karl sat down on the slipper chair in the corner of my room and lifted Rosie onto his lap. “Agnes,” he said, face serious and hilarious at once, “the Uncrowned King of Arabia invites you to di
Bit by bit, Karl pulled the story from me. I was trying to make a comedy of my excruciating experience at the entrance of the Semiramis when Karl raised a hand to stop me. “Winston Darling?” He looked confused and then delighted. “As in the Barrie play of Peter Pan? Like Wendy’s father, yes? Mr. Darling? Agnes, you are adorable!” he declared, then continued with specious formality: “My dear Miss Shanklin, if I am not mistaken, the gentleman’s surname is Churchill, not Darling. You really must tell me what you think of him when you meet him. I am not inclined in his favor, but I will trust your judgment.”
For my part, I trusted Karl’s own goodwill toward me, and my growing confidence in this friendship was confirmed when I got to the part about Gertrude Bell and her obnoxious remark about my clothing.
“Ah, Miss Bell,” Karl said with a roll of his eyes. “Immensely knowledgeable but not beloved, I may say to you. She must make everyone aware immediately that she is a person of importance— telling you who she knows and where she has traveled and what she has done. She believes herself the equal of any man on earth, saving her father. No doubt she is more capable than most. She can often bring men round to her way of thinking, but it must a
Karl looked into the middle distance, considering the circumstances of our encounter. “Miss Bell used to travel like a queen—her caravans had a cook, muleteers, servants. Twenty camels. A bathtub for her tent! Wedgwood china and silver cutlery for her meals. In those days she was quite stylish—Paris shops would send crates of clothing to her tents in the sand.” His merry eyes met mine. “Perhaps,” he said with a wicked grin, “when she saw you, she was dismayed to realize that she has fallen rather behind times?”
Oh, Miss Shanklin, he really is a living doll, said Mildred, and I admit I found Karl’s suggestion deeply satisfying.
“That said,” he continued more soberly, “the entire female population of the Middle East is a mille
The ivory silk charmeuse, Mildred whispered. I turned to the wardrobe and pulled the dress out. “With pearls?” I asked.
A long, slow smile bloomed on Karl’s face. “Perfect. It’s settled. You will go to di
It was a quarter of nine before my cab arrived at the Semiramis that evening. Colonel Lawrence was waiting for me at the hotel’s taxi stand, propped against a low stone wall with arms folded over his chest. He had on the same badly fitted brown suit he’d worn the day before. Oh, my, I thought, am I completely overdressed or is that the only suit he has?
He leaned in to pay the driver and held my door open as I climbed out. We could clearly hear the chant of “Ah-bah sure-shill! Ah-bah sure-shill!” a few blocks away.
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” I said. “The police have roped off the road down at the corner. There’s some kind of demonstration.”
“Egyptian nationalists,” Lawrence said. “Allenby keeps smashing their uprisings, but everyone blames Winston for the bloodshed.” He took up the chant and translated it. “À bas Churchill: Down with Churchill.”
“À bas? But that’s French, isn’t it?”
“Ever since Napoleon was here, it’s been traditional to riot in French. Where is your little dog?”
When I said I’d made arrangements for her at the Continental, Lawrence seemed disappointed. He’d been prepared to do battle on Rosie’s behalf, he told me, and produced a bad-boy giggle.
“Brace yourself,” he advised then, cryptically.
He stood aside as I approached the exalted precinct of the Semiramis lobby, gri
“Enough to turn you Bolshevik?” Colonel Lawrence supplied, reading my expression.
“Ghastly,” I agreed.
He touched my elbow briefly to get me moving again. “The dining room’s worse,” he warned and a good thing, too, or I’d have been stupefied by the display.
Just beyond tall double doors we could see a dozen round tables. Set for eight, each was crowded with extravagantly gilded porcelain surrounded by a myriad of crystal stemware and enough silver to supply the U.S. Mint with a decade’s worth of dimes. Filled to capacity by close to a hundred guests, the room was vivid with flowers and patterned silk and beaded bags. Black tuxedo jackets and red dress uniforms contrasted dramatically with white linen tablecloths. Champagne fizzed and sparkled within candlelit cut glass. Cigarettes in ebony or tortoiseshell holders dipped and waved. Now and then, shrills of feminine laughter rang out above the manly buzz of conversation.
The entry to that Aladdin’s Cave was guarded by a gentleman who stood well over six feet tall and had the physique and demeanor of a prizefighter who has yet to lose a bout. Some of my students’ fathers were more frightening, but none of them was more imposing. He and Lawrence exchanged a few words before I was introduced to the colossus. Naturally, I offered my name and waited to hear this gentleman’s in return. He seemed surprised and gratified that anyone would bother and said, “Detective Sergeant Thompson, miss.”
I don’t know what came over me. Certainly I had taken an instant dislike to the ostentation of the Semiramis and its guests, whereas Thompson seemed one of my own kind—outranked and out of place amid that dazzling assembly. Perhaps—with Karl’s encouragement—I was simply feeling confidently well dressed, and that let me imagine what Mildred might say, although with better diction. “Nice to meet you, Sergeant,” I said brightly. “Have they got you here to keep the riffraff out of the party or to guard the silver?”
He stifled a laugh. “Bit of both, miss.” And then he turned his attention to the next pair of glittering party guests, arriving even later than Lawrence and I had.
“Thompson is Scotland Yard. Churchill’s bodyguard,” Lawrence informed me quietly as we entered the dining room. “You’re not supposed to notice him.”
“He’s rather difficult to overlook,” I pointed out, smiling over my shoulder at the policeman.
The colonel gave a little giggle, for Thompson had indeed made him look half-grown by comparison. In my heels, even I was taller than Lawrence but, as we moved through the throngs of ramrod-straight soldiers and their willowy ladies, I realized that Lawrence was deliberately making himself look worse. Slouching and shoving his hands into the pockets of his cheap brown suit like a snippy schoolboy was a sort of reverse snobbery, I think: a brazen if silent disparagement of the occasion and the company.