Bright Hair About the Bone by Barbara Cleverly Page B

chauffeur and general factotum for a spoilt young English miss. I’m prepared to offer a remuneration of five pounds per week plus living expenses. Overgenerous perhaps, but the sum reflects the particular demands of the position. There you have it. Daniel’s own words, clarified and expanded a little by me. I’m sure my friend would have wanted nothing less than this,” he added piously.
    Esmé chortled. “In other words—no, you won’t go, Letty! A victory for common sense. Well done, Sir Richard!”
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    When the two young women arrived next morning in front of the colonnaded façade of the Fitzwilliam Museum and tethered their bicycles to nearby iron railings, Esmé turned towards the steps and the entrance.
    â€œNo. This way,” said Letty, pointing towards Downing Street. “Something to do before we go in, if you wouldn’t mind.”
    â€œNow, I ask myself: How disappointed am I to postpone the pleasure of gazing at ancient potsherds, rusty arrowheads…loom weights?” said Esmé with heavy sarcasm. All Letty’s attempts to make her friend see the fascination of ancient articles dug from the earth had so far been unsuccessful, but she never stopped trying. “So—where are you taking me?”
    â€œTo the police station.”
    â€œLetty! Why?”
    â€œBecause that’s where we’ll find policemen,” replied Letty patiently. “And if we ask the right question of the right officer, that’s how we’ll find a
retired
policeman.”
    Esmé scampered angrily after her friend as she crossed the road into Downing Street, heading for St. Andrew’s Street. “If you think you can track down ex-sergeant Ebenezer Gotobed to his retreat in Garlic Row and talk him into going to France with you, you’re barmy, Letty! He’ll be far too busy with his pigeons and his leeks. And I very much doubt that Mrs. Gotobed would be able to spare him. I’m sorry I spoke slightingly of the loom weights! I adore loom weights! Can we go back and admire them now?”
    She was still complaining when they arrived in front of the imposing and uncompromisingly austere police headquarters.
    â€œI’m not going in there,” declared Esmé firmly, looking up at the heraldic carving over the mighty front doors. “I’ve heard about this place! Don’t they have something in there called the Spinning House? When the Proctors arrest unaccompanied young ladies of the town, they lock them up in it without telling their families. And make them do hard labour!”
    â€œI think it’s closed down. And anyway—we don’t look like tarts of the town exactly, Esmé. I rather think it was the fact of being
accompanied
by male members of the university that got the Proctors excited and the young ladies into trouble. But, just in case…” Letty patted her bag, “I’ve got my cards with me.”
    But Esmé noticed that she straightened her hat and tucked away a stray lock of hair.
    As they hesitated outside, peering through the open double doors into the oak-lined, marble-tiled interior, a group approached from the direction of the city centre. Two burly policemen were dragging along between them a third man. Esmé’s attention moved at once from the smart getup of the constables to the abject appearance of the down-and-out they were hauling along with such little ceremony. He was frail, grey-bearded, and unkempt. His clothes were second-or even third-hand and seemed to consist mainly of an overlarge greatcoat and shabby boots. Tramps and beggars were a common enough sight on the streets even now, eight years after the war, and Esmé was always being reminded to pay no attention to them.
    â€œLetty! Look! You must speak to them!”
    Letty’s eye swept over the group. “They’re just constables, Esmé. And they’re busy. They