Free The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets by Nancy Springer Page B

“Deadly nightshade, thank Yew. Ah, yes, that is an odd one. I seem to recall—”
    “We do not give out such information,” interrupted quite a starchy female voice; I glanced up to find an older woman in (also starchy) bombazine, obviously a supervisor, standing by. She glowered down upon the young fellow at the desk, but directed her remarks towards me, scolding as if I were a schoolchild, “If you were to place a personal advertisement, you would not desire to have your identity disclosed, now, would you?”
    Taking my clipping back from the hapless clerk, I turned and exited with such dignity as I could muster. So much for the Daily Telegraph.
    I proceeded towards the next newspaper office.
    Quite a long day ensued. I will spare the gentle reader a full account of my rebuffs and near-triumphs other than to say that, in general, males welcomed me and females did not; very much the opposite. I did manage to obtain a little information when males, but not females, were present. In two instances, young men—I cannot say gentlemen, as they implied that I owed them a certain familiarity in return—indeed I felt much mortified as I wheedled information out of them, but putting aside my maidenly revulsion, I found reason for satisfaction: Their accounts tallied. The “deadly nightshade” advertisement, they both said, had been placed by a most peculiar man with a grey goatee, wearing a top-hat although he seemed not to be upper class, evidently trying to make himself appear taller, for he was slight of height, stark-boned and altogether rather repulsive. Pressed as to what exactly, other than his lack of stature, caused this impression, they replied that he looked odd—“cadaverous,” said one. “Like a leper,” said the other. Asked how so, he seemed rather at a loss, but explained that there was something odd about the man’s face.
    “Kind of like a dummy made of wax, if you’ve ever seen any such.”
    It seemed to me that they might very well be depicting “just a long-faced tove in chin-whiskers ’n a top-hat, excepting that ’e took ’is nose off,” as a much-perturbed street urchin had once told me—a man with a false nose glued on, the juncture disguised with face putty. Such artifice might give his features a subtly disturbing tone, texture and rigidity.
    Given what I had learned, I felt it safe to surmise that the sender of bizarre bouquets had indeed answered my advertisement, and while gratified to verify his existence, I worried: How to find this most interesting individual?
    I had no idea.
    Except that Pertelote—Mrs. Kippersalt—might know something of him, having reacted so oddly to my questions. “What’s ’e done now?” And having then angrily banned me from her shop.
    Hmm.
    I quite wanted to know where the Kippersalts lived and see whether Mr. Kippersalt cultivated hawthorn in his hothouse—indeed, I much desired a look at Mr. Kippersalt himself, to see whether his face seemed long, leprous, cadaverous, waxen, et cetera.
    Might I find him by following Mrs. Kippersalt home after her work?
    Not tenable, I decided after brief consideration. At this time of year, darkness had not yet fallen when the shops were closed, and if Mrs. Kippersalt were to catch sight of me, no matter how I dressed she would recognise me, having seen me in so many guises already. Also, I had no desire to repeat the adventure of “shadowing” someone. The last time, walking in the street to avoid the lamplight of the pavements, and I had nearly been flattened by a Clydesdale pulling a lumber-wagon.
    No. I needed to find Mr. Kippersalt by other means.
    Kippersalt: Not a common surname, and locating his place of residence should have been simple enough were London run like a sensible city, but it was not. Indeed, the world’s largest metropolis was also the world’s worst governed. London was organised—or, more properly, disorganised—into more than two hundred boroughs, each with its own records-keeper,