Private Investigation by Fleur T. Reid Page B

nature.
    Of course, the advert had said she should enquire of a Mr John Dermott, not of this Lucien Doyle, so perhaps the position was nothing so intriguing. The detective might well share the house with another professional gentleman—a lawyer or a medical man, perhaps. After all, Sherlock Holmes shared his lodgings with the long-suffering Dr Watson, did he not?
    Suddenly, she realised that, if anyone was watching from the net-curtained windows of the house, standing on the doorstep and dithering would not give the impression of decisive efficiency she thought a professional woman should project. She straightened her shoulders, took a deep breath, and rapped the doorknocker.
    It was answered almost at once by a rather flamboyant man with curly hair, a distracted expression and a brass-and-leather contraption on his head that magnified his right eye through a series of aligned lenses. His iris looked like a pale goldfish swimming behind thick glass. Inspectacles were the latest advance in clockwork technology, and seemed to be halfway between an elaborate monocle and a ghastly fashion mistake, though Lilly understood that despite their bizarre appearance they were all the rage. He adjusted a dial near his temple, and one of the lenses revolved in its fitting with an alarming mechanical whirring sound. He peered at her.
    “John!” he called. “There’s some sort of woman at the door. I expect she’s for you.” Then he whirled on his heel and bounded up the stairs two at a time, leaving Lilly standing with her mouth half-open and her hand extended.
    By the time another man came down the stairs, she had composed herself enough to withdraw her hand and school her features into an expression that looked slightly less stunned.
    This man was shorter, without the gangling, long-limbed flamboyance of his fellow. He moved with a smooth, assured gait and, when Lilly held her hand out again, he took it in a firm, warm, reassuring grip. “John Dermott,” he said with a smile. “Please excuse my associate—he was raised by wolves.”
    Lilly started. “Not really?” she blurted, then blushed to the roots of her hair.
    He laughed, but she didn’t feel like she was being mocked—more as though she was being asked to share a joke, as between friends. “Not really, of course, but given his grasp of the social graces it would be as good an explanation as any.”
    Lilly smiled, still feeling somewhat bewildered and off-kilter, but finding herself disposed to like this man. “My name is Miss Elizabeth James,” she said. “I saw your advertisement in The Times this morning.”
    “Splendid—splendid!” Mr Dermott beamed at her. “Tell me, Miss James, are you well-organised, efficient, hardworking?”
    “Why…yes.” Lilly handed him an envelope. “I have here my certificates from the Metropolitan School of Shorthand, and a letter of reference from Miss Caffrey, who instructed us in typing, filing and mechanical contrivances for office use.” The reference, she knew, talked about her in the most glowing possible terms.
    Mr Dermott scanned the reference and nodded approvingly. “Forgive me,” he said. “I am being unforgivably rude. Won’t you come inside? We’re lacking a housekeeper at the moment, but I daresay I can scare up some tea and biscuits while we discuss the role.”
    Lilly’s stomach grumbled its approval at the mention of food and she felt her cheeks go pink again as she hoped fervently that Mr Dermott hadn’t heard the gurgling over the clanking and whirring of the vehicles passing by on the street.
    Lilly followed him up the narrow stairs, wondering quite what she might have got herself into here. John Dermott seemed perfectly agreeable, but the first man—Lucien Doyle, presumably—had seemed downright eccentric. She shrugged to herself as they reached the door of 43a. John Dermott paused with his hand on the handle and turned back to her. He eyed her critically. “Your reference describes you as