She posted the letter with her own hands in the North West
district. Park Crescent, Portland Place, she always reflected, was
still in the _Western_ district, though it lay perilously near the
North West border line, beyond which Lady Jeune had once written, no
one in Society thought of living. This was a dictum that at one time
had occasioned Mrs. Rossiter considerable perturbation. It was
alarming to think that by crossing the Marylebone Road or migrating
to Cambridge Terrace you had passed out of Society.
It took the police a deuce of a time--two months--to make use
effectively of the information contained in Mrs. Rossiter's scrap of
burnt paper; though the statement of their anonymous correspondent
that Vivie Warren and David Williams were probably the same person
helped to locate Mr. Michaelis's office. It was soon ascertained
that Miss Vivien Warren, well known as a sort of Society speaker on
Suffrage, lived at the Lilacs in Victoria Road, Kensington. But when
a plain-clothes policeman called at Victoria Road he was only told
by the Suffragette caretaker (whose mother now usually lived with
her to console her for her mistress's frequent absences) that Miss
Warren was away just then, had recently been much away from home,
probably abroad where her mother lived. (Here the enquirer
registered a mental note: Miss Warren has a mother living abroad:
could it be _the_ Mrs.
Pages:
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338