Free The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline by Nancy Springer

Mrs. Tupper’s wedding photograph, which I had carried along with me because of a presentiment that it might prove useful.
    Miss Nightingale looked at this, and her gentle mouth formed an O of recognition.
    “You remember her now?”
    “Yes, dear, I do. I had forgotten, because she was not one of my regular couriers; I entrusted her only once, in an emergency, but her message was never delivered, and I have never found out why, or what became of her.”
    “So you were a spy,” I whispered, much impressed.
    “The commissioned officers of the army,” she replied sweetly, “fought me, a woman and a civilian, with rather more passion than they devoted to the Russian enemy. I fought back.”
    “But I thought you and your nurses were there to help!”
    She smiled rather sadly. “So we were, but the doctors and officers saw my presence as interference, and as a threat to their party-going, picnicking, polo-playing, horse-racing, high old good times. Which indeed it was. I had insane notions that the officers should spend their days looking after the welfare of their men, and the doctors should attend to the sick.”
    “You mean—they didn’t?”
    “The doctors—surgeons—excelled at lopping off the limbs of the wounded, but they never entered the fever-wards, such was their fear of themselves contracting the disease. Without supervision, the orderlies did as nearly as possible nothing, sometimes not even preparing food. So there, all alone except for one another, the sufferers lay in their own filth, their blankets heaving with lice . . .” Miss Nightingale broke off abruptly, her gaze focussing on me as if she were returning from a tragic past to a rather alarming present. “Tell me, my nameless friend: what ever became of the message I tried to send to Lord Whimbrel?”
    I echoed, “Lord Whimbrel?”
    “Yes, Sidney Whimbrel, a true statesman and my greatest ally.”
    How very interesting. I had just looked at his silhouette.
    Miss Nightingale continued, “No reform could have been undertaken without him; he had the ear of the queen. He has long since passed away, but his good name remains to be protected. . . . Do you know, where is that missing message?”
    “If it was the one basted to Mrs. Tupper’s crinoline, I have it in my possession.”
    For the first time forsaking her erect posture, Florence Nightingale sank back against her pillows, studying me. From the music room on the floor below drifted the pleasant notes of a piano; someone was playing Mozart.
    “You are clever,” said Miss Nightingale in a way that made the statement neither praise nor censure. “Very well. You have my message that somehow went astray. I quite want it back, in order to avoid scandal.”
    “Scandal?”
    “The reforms to which I have devoted my life are at last agreed upon and under way, with previous animosities forgotten; it would be disastrous were anyone to bring up the past. What would induce you—”
    “I care nothing for politics. I simply want to know who has abducted Mrs. Tupper!”
    “But I have no idea who that might be. And I quite want to find out, perhaps almost as much as you do, for if she were to tell them about the message—”
    “Mrs. Tupper,” I interrupted, frustration causing my voice to rise in marked contrast with the ever-level tones of my hostess, “is so exceedingly deaf that it will be very difficult for her to understand what they want of her. She was already deaf when you entrusted her with your ill-fated roses and daisies.”
    “Oh, dear.” Miss Nightingale’s face showed, very briefly, emotion. “How foolish of me not to realise. But I gave her a card with the address—”
    “She can read coarse-hand, with difficulty, but not script.”
    “Oh, merciful heavens. But I assumed—whatever was I thinking?”
    Softening my asperity, I acknowledged, “I imagine you had a great many pressing matters on your mind. In any event, as Mrs. Tupper understood not a word you said to her, one