The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets by Nancy Springer Page B

the world had become of her? Perhaps—oh, good heavens, no—she had gone out a back way?
    Quite unlikely, for Holywell Street meandered along the edge of London’s most dense, clotted “rookery,” tottering houses shouldering one another, each containing a swarming “nest” of poverty-stricken inhabitants. Spaces—no, indeed, tunnels, for the upper storeys closed together overhead—passageways no wider than gutters separated these buildings from one another, unlighted, and no cleaner than gutters either, with rats abounding, as well as lower forms of human life. Inconceivable that Mrs. Kippersalt would venture alone into such a sewer-above-the-ground unless she looked forward to the attentions of Jack the Ripper or like-minded others.
    Inconceivable that she could have slipped away without my seeing her.
    Yet with each passing moment it seemed more and more evident that she had done so, and that I was a fool. And I called myself a perditorian? No, I was a mere girl, more fit to cut out paper dolls, I despaired as dusk deepened into dark. Lamplight glowed from rooms up above, but it did not comfort me, serving only to cast me into deeper shadow, for these ancient buildings loomed like a sea-carved cliff, their upper storeys jutting out over the pavement, gables protruding, each floor with eaves and bay windows overhanging the one below, so that they seemed built upside down, larger at the top than at the bottom, and likely to crash down upon one at any moment.
    Like my little struggling self-made world. I tried to do things and find missing people, but to what effect? Here I stood in the dark, alone, cast aside by my own mother, feeling wretched enough to mew like a lost kitten—
    A glow of lamplight sprang to life in the first storey over Pertelote’s. Light sprang to life in my mind, also, as it were. My melodramatic musings abruptly ceased. The next moment, abandoning misery along with concealment, I ran across the street—unpeopled now that the shop-windows stood dark—and up the pavement to Pertelote’s.
    If that were she up there in the room over the pavement, the room under which swung the sign carved in the shape of a rooster—if, as might very well be the case, why had I not thought of it before!—she lived over her shop—
    I had to see.
    Quickly. Already they were quarreling—yes, it was Pertelote in the upstairs room; I recognised her contralto voice—she and someone else were arguing vehemently. Through a partially open window I could hear their angry tones from where I stood, although I could not catch the words.
    I had to get closer.
    But how?
    I saw within a moment how to start, at least. Taking three quick strides to the shadowy, stinking gutter-gap between Pertelote’s and the next shop, I yanked my skirt above my knees, and by pressing parts of my personage against the opposing walls—truly, I cannot with decency detail how I ascended the narrow space, except to say that up I went rather like a sweep inside a chimney.
    After the first six feet or so I felt small fear that anyone who might happen to pass by would spy me, for who would look upwards to notice a girl in such an unlikely position?
    As my head neared the level of the gas-lit window, I could hear Pertelote more clearly. “You think I’m a fool? Ye’re up to some mischief, gadding about when my back’s turned. I want to know what.”
    “I told you. Taking care of my own business.”
    Wait a moment. The second voice, husky and low, sounded almost exactly like the first. Two women. Who was the other?
    Where was Pertelote’s husband?
    Pertelote scolded, “You got no business but to stay home and don’t plant no more people.”
    “I didn’t plant nobody. Just filled out some papers to put ’im where ’e put me. The place ’ll do for ’im.”
    I heard a gasp of shock, then Pertelote all but screamed, “You’re mad as a ’atter! Me ’usband was right to ’ave you put away!”
    “But you made ’im get me out again,