Desperation and Decision by Sophronia Belle Lyon

also edged my gown and russet hat.
Pheasant feathers completed my hat's ornamentation. I set my russet
and black, fringed parasol down in the stand by the door and
followed my hostess to a seat. "Anyone can see you have had great
success at what you do. I have come to give an interview, but I
want some information in exchange."
    The interview was very difficult, as I had
known it would be. The woman had no shame, no reserve whatsoever.
She did not, however, seem to know about my previous career. That
was extremely heartening. The Campbells really had managed to bury
it, and I breathed another silent prayer of gratitude to my beloved
husband's family.
     
    I could not fathom what the woman meant by
her "previous career". Could she have been a cheap stage performer
whom Campbell had elevated by marriage? I could not even think how
such a person would come to be noticed by American aristocracy such
as the Campbells. Madame Phoebe continued before I could solve yet
another puzzle in this most puzzle-filled association.
     
    "Really, my dear, you must give me a little
more. My readers are not looking for so much sweetness and light.
These little struggles are charming. Telling us of your first
public concert, your leaving for New York and becoming a
professional church choir singer will enchant my readers. What
tears they will shed over your tending your guardian in his
illness. But my readers also crave a peek at the darker side of a
celebrity's life, the temptations, the missteps ... " She trailed
off invitingly.
    "I'm afraid I've told you all I can. Now for
my information. I thought you once said there was news in every
famous person's life, and that the public had a right to know about
it. Yet I haven't seen any stories about important people like…" I
casually mentioned the name of the president of the firm where the
drunken young man Florizel had met was employed.
    The change in the woman was dramatic and
almost pitiable. "Ho, ho, Miss Moore, why would we be interested in
dull old bridges and roads and brownstone buildings? We moths hover
about the bright lights of celebrity, not the green lampshades of
dusty board meetings. I have no information about such a place, nor
have I any desire to know."
     
    "But she lied. She was afraid, and it was
obvious. So I left. Later I came back in my little white cap and
neat black dress. I gave the pretty little idle housemaid ten
pounds and told her she had won the Maid of the Month Sweepstakes.
She was to take the afternoon off while I took her place. I knew
her mistress had gone to a celebrity luncheon and that she would
never tell her of this arrangement.
    "I noticed that the girl was idle when I was
giving the interview, of course, seeing everything covered with
dust and the tea slow and sloppy. I got a good look, and still had
time to give that place a better cleaning than it's had in months.
Disgraceful what people pay for a housemaid who spoons over the
back fence with the butcher boy while company is present."
    This talk of posing as a servant did not
surprise me. I had done it myself. But the odd way she talked,
knowing intimately the ways of servants and actually spending time
cleaning the woman's house -- It was almost as if she actually had
been in service. Looking at this regal lady, I laughed at myself
for thinking she had ever known hard work or want.
    "At any rate, what I found was a drawer in
the lady's writing desk that had a sheet glued in the bottom under
a felt pad. Here is a copy of the sheet."
    Madame Phoebe passed around a paper with
columns containing lists of words. "Clearly this is a cipher. It's
a simple one -- just allows one word to be substituted for another.
Since this incident I have become a religious reader of the lady's
columns. Such men as the drunk whom the prince met are gathering
information at their places of work – apparently about important
papers to be delivered by a courier or meetings to be held – and
they report to the gossip-monger,