Free The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets by Nancy Springer

pastime.
    Hothouse?
    I had come here intending somehow to find out whether she had any male customers who required false noses, but had found out instead that she had a husband who, perhaps, cultivated rather nasty flowers?
    “You dislike the hothouse?” I inquired meekly.
    “I dislike the ’usband,” she answered, grimly yet with such disarming candour that we both laughed. Then she changed the subject. “Would you like to see the latest emollients to en’ance the lips, Miss Everseau?”
    In order to placate her, I applied some rosy colour to my mouth, after which I selected amongst the “recondite emollients” she had showed me, making a purchase generous enough, I hoped, to make her think kindly of me. Once the items were done up in a brown paper parcel, I placed it in my string shopping bag, then hesitated in Pertelote’s doorway at the moment of departure. It seemed to me that, having failed to work the conversation around to my objective, I must be direct, and that I must ask now or never.
    “I wonder,” I started in a by-the-bye sort of way, “do you ever have occasion, Mrs., ah…” My pause inquired her name.
    “Kippersalt,” she said, rather reluctantly.
    “Ah. Mrs. Kippersalt, have you ever had occasion to provide false ears, perhaps, or fingers, for people who have lost their own?”
    She started to nod and declare with some small pride, “Why, certainly—”
    But I had not yet finished speaking. “Or a false nose, perhaps?”
    Her nodding abruptly ceased, and her tone of voice turned sharp. “Why do you ask?”
    “An acquaintance of mine has had a most interesting, if somewhat discomfiting, encounter with a man whose false nose came off,” I said. “I just wondered—”
    She burst out, “What’s ’e done now?”
    Interesting!
    “Who?” I demanded.
    “Never mind.” Her usual smile had quite turned into a scowl, and suddenly conscious of her big-boned size and strength, I needed to discipline myself not to step away from her. All that was motherly about her had transformed to menace. “What yer prying for?” she demanded, her accent more Cockney by the moment, her fists on her ample hips as she glowered at me. “’Oo are you? Now ye know my name, what’s yers?” Then, when I did not reply, “I don’t want yer business! Get out and don’t come ’ere again.”

    I did not linger to argue the point, but left with the most lively curiosity capering in my mind. I had, after all, come to Pertelote—Mrs. Kippersalt, I reminded myself, Kippersalt; I must remember that name—I had come only to see whether it was possible for a man with a missing nose to wear a rubber one, and, if so, did she know of any instances?
    Well. It would certainly appear that she did, painfully so, and more so than she desired anyone to know, but what should I do about this?
    Making my way down Holywell Street, I quite wanted to stop and sit somewhere to think, perhaps on paper—but I could not pause, indeed I hastened my pace, for despite my mental abstraction I had noticed quite a majority of masculine heads turning as I passed, numerous unsolicited greetings from the “gents” loitering around the print-shops, and a male pest following me—no, two of them! What in the name of Heaven—
    Then I realised I was still wearing the lip colouring and various tints, “shadows,” glosses, eyelash amplifier, et cetera that I had put on in Pertelote’s hidden alcove.
    Oh, dear. Men were such simpletons. The more artifice, the more they…such imbeciles, to be enchanted by a wig, some padding and a little paint. Had I rendered myself a bit too ravishing?
    At last I reached the more spacious pavements of the Strand. Hurrying away from Holywell Street, searching for some place of refuge, I heard the familiar call of a boy with newspapers to sell: “Piper! Piper!” in a Cockney accent. Striding to where he stood, I flipped my penny into his waiting cap and took a newspaper, which I opened at once, standing