The Last Night in London by Karen White (reading list .TXT) 📕

She glanced down at the photograph, then looked up at me with a wobbly smile. “Do you like my gown?”

I shared a quick look with Arabella. “It’s beautiful. And it looks beautiful on you.”

She smiled. “I wore it that Christmas. Before . . .” She frowned, searching for her words. “Before the bombs started.”

“And it still fits you so nicely,” Laura said, bustling into the room. “Now, let’s go get you changed into something more comfortable, all right?”

We watched as Laura led Precious from the room, Precious’s shoulders as straight as if she were getting ready to walk down the runway of a designer’s showroom.

Oscar, apparently alerted to my presence, bounded into the room and began growling at me. Arabella picked him up and put him in the kitchen before returning and grabbing my arm. “Come on—let’s go open up those purses. Going through my own out-of-season bags is its own trip down memory lane. I can only imagine what Precious’s might be like.”

Leaving our shopping bags in the foyer, we headed toward the first bedroom. “My little brother Joey once kept a chicken breast he’d dissected in science class in his backpack over the summer,” I said. “It took my dad three months to find out where the smell was coming from.”

Arabella wrinkled her nose. “I can’t tell you how happy I am at this moment that I have only sisters.”

In the spare bedroom, the antique leather valise lay opened on the bed, displaying a mishmash of clothing, papers, costume jewelry, and cosmetics. It all looked like something you might find in the back of a dresser drawer, an excavation by layers of someone’s past. I could imagine Colin opening the valise to verify that its contents weren’t anything important, and then leaving them for Arabella and me to sort through.

Arabella picked out a pair of high-heeled sandals from the valise, slipped off her own shoes, and tried to put her foot into one of them. “Too small—you try.”

I slipped out of my flats and buckled the sandals on my feet, then winced as I stood up. “Some of the shoes we’ve found have fit me perfectly, and others have been a little too snug. Sadly, these are of the snug variety, which is a shame. They’re almost brand-new and really swanky.”

“Swanky?” Arabella said with a smile as I handed them back to her.

“It’s what my aunt Lucinda says to describe anything she considers fancy enough for her to wear, usually involving ruffles and sequins.”

“I’ll remember that,” Arabella said as she placed the shoes next to the door. “This is my keeper pile—items that I think should be considered for the exhibition.” She turned back to the bed and surveyed the piles. “Aunt Penelope is always threatening to clean that attic. It will take an absolute age—some of the stuff has been stored there for aeons. There’s an actual suit of armor in the back. I remember Colin making it talk when we were children playing up there when we weren’t supposed to. Scared the wits out of me.”

The image of Colin playing ventriloquist with a suit of armor made me grin, and I wasn’t fast enough to hide it from Arabella.

With a matching grin, she spun the case around so it faced her. “Looks like there were initials stenciled on here at some point, but they’ve been rubbed off. Can’t tell what they were.”

I looked where she indicated, examining the smooth leather of the case and the heavy marks of the mostly scratched-out gold-stenciled monogram. “It looks old but not worn. Definitely not worn enough to justify the monogram being scratched over like this.”

“Almost like it was deliberately removed.” Arabella straightened, examining the contents more closely. “A bunch of junk, really. Look—more menus.” She reached into the valise, pulled up a small stack, and screwed up her eyebrows as she flipped through them. “It makes me think that whoever this belonged to might have been a tourist—or, if not a tourist, then someone new to the kind of life one would have to dine frequently at these hotels. Look—the Dorchester, Claridge’s, the Ritz, and several from the Savoy. I can’t imagine anyone who wasn’t starstruck thinking to collect them.”

“Good point. Which makes me think it wasn’t Sophia. She likely ate at places like that on a regular basis. Plus, she had her memory box from her debutante year and her album full of mementos, so I don’t think this is hers.”

“Apparently the owner of the valise was also a memento keeper.” One by one, Arabella plucked out loose ticket stubs from theaters and cinemas, a telephone charge receipt from the Savoy, two ticket stubs from the gardens at Kew, and a vintage Selfridges receipt for a pair of kid leather ladies’ gloves.

I pulled out the remaining items and placed them on the bed next to the first pile while Arabella put her hand inside to make sure we’d removed everything. “There’s a label stitched into the lining at the top.” Arabella bent her head to see better. “Hand me your phone.”

She peered inside, shining the flashlight upward, then stood, shaking her head. “Whoever stitched this on was a very good seamstress—I’ve never seen such tight stitches that weren’t done by a machine. It’s especially hard when one has to look upside down while stitching. I’m afraid if I try to pull it off, it will rip the entire lining out. I’ll need scissors.”

“I just bought a pair—I’ll be right back.”

When I returned, Arabella had her hands on her hips and was frowning at the valise.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, handing her the scissors.

She dipped her head into the opening of the bag. Her voice was slightly muffled as she sawed at the threads. “It’s just odd that the address label is hidden. Usually people put it in a more visible spot, so that if the case is lost, it can be returned to its owner.”

I waited a moment. Then she shouted and straightened, holding something in the