It was Vivie to whom
the brilliant idea came of once baffling the police in the rearrest
of either Mrs. Pankhurst or Annie Kenney. Knowing when the police
would come to the building where one or other of these ladies was to
make her sensational re-appearance, she had previously secreted
there forty other women who were dressed and veiled precisely
similarly to the fugitive from justice. Thus, when the force of
constables claimed admittance, forty-one women, virtually
indistinguishable one from the other, ran out into the street, and
the bewildered minions of the law were left lifting their helmets to
scratch puzzled heads and admitting "the wimmen were a bit too much
for us, this time, they were."
In her bedroom at 88-90 she kept an equipment of theatrical
disguises; very natural-looking moustaches which could be easily
applied and which remained firmly adhering save under the
application of the right solvent; pairs of tinted spectacles; wigs
of credible appearance; different styles of suiting, different types
of women's dress. She sometimes sat in trains as a handsome,
impressive matron of fifty-five, with a Pompadour confection and a
tortoiseshell _face-a-main_, conversing with ministers of state or
permanent officials on their way to their country seats, and saying
"_Horrid_ creatures!" if any one referred to the activities of the
Suffragettes.
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