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

palm of her hand. She stared down at a rectangle of fabric, her brows knitted in concentration. “I have no idea who this is. What do you make of it?” She handed it to me.

K. Nash, Quayside Cottage, Bournemouth, Dorset

“Well, it’s definitely an address label of some sort—written long before postal codes.”

“I think those started in the late fifties or early sixties,” Arabella offered.

I nodded, studying the block letters. “It’s hard to tell, but I’d say this looks more like it was written by a woman than a man.”

“Although because they printed, it’s impossible to tell if it matches the handwriting on any of the letters we’ve seen.”

“It might not even be related to Sophia or Precious at all. But we should still check it out, don’t you think? Maybe this is the missing link to finding Eva.”

“Unlikely, but never say never, right?” Arabella beamed. “I think you and Colin should take a holiday weekend to Bournemouth, see what you can find. It’s beautiful this time of year, and you can show Colin what you look like in a bikini.”

“For your information, I don’t own a bikini. Besides, I’m sure we can find out about Quayside Cottage and K. Nash online, without having to actually get in the car.”

“Not nearly as much fun as a road trip.” She stuck her hand back in the valise. “I guess it’s a good thing you and Colin aren’t speaking to each other. You can’t tell him that I accidentally cut a hole in the lining.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it. It doesn’t look like it’s valuable, and as you pointed out, it’s not really visible, anyway. Chances are that K. Nash is long dead, too. He or she won’t be looking for it.”

“True.” She leaned over and lifted a bundle of silk stockings from one of the piles. “I don’t think it’s a he. These are real silk—can you imagine the luxury of wearing silk stockings?”

“No,” I said. “But until you forced me to go shopping today, I couldn’t imagine wearing anything but jeans.” I frowned, looking at the bundle. “Wasn’t silk rationed during the war? So it could be used as parachutes or something? And women drew seams on the backs of their bare legs, so it looked like they were wearing something.”

“K. Nash must have been a hoarder, then,” Arabella said matter-of-factly. “Or maybe she dealt in the black market.” She raised her eyebrows. “These look like they’ve never been worn. Maybe she was a model, like Precious or Eva. Didn’t Precious say that Madame Lushtak required them to wear silk stockings?”

“Yes, she did. Let’s ask her if she knew of a fellow model named K. Nash. Not sure why her valise would be in the attic at Hovenden Hall, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.”

Arabella picked up the empty valise to put on the floor, then quickly set it down. “We missed something—there’s a paper stuck between the bottom and the side. Hang on.”

She reached inside and pulled out what looked like another receipt, folded in half, the ink bleeding through to the back. Arabella’s eyebrows arched. “K. Nash certainly had money to burn. This is from a furrier on Bond Street—one mink coat, for the very reasonable price of three hundred pounds sterling.”

I took the paper from her and scanned it, focusing my eyes on the amount at the bottom, double underlined. “Seriously? That’s a lot of money—now and then. Whoever this K. Nash was, she appears to have been rolling in the dough. No date but definitely before PETA, right?”

“Definitely.” Arabella brushed her hands together as if she were finished. “Come on, Maddie—let’s go hang up your new clothes and put away those blue jeans.”

“We’re not done, Arabella, remember? We still have the purses.”

“Oh, right. I’d like to match some of them up to the outfits we’ve already chosen for the exhibition. A nice contrast to the gas masks that Mia has managed to secure on loan from a military museum. Some are in brown boxes with strings for straps. Not very attractive but necessary. Others are a little more high-end and decorative. Mia managed to find an Arden pigskin holdall—worth a small fortune even then and so pretty. Gas masks were carried everywhere, regardless of what a person was wearing. Definitely a fashion look for the period.”

We restuffed the valise and placed it on the floor, then picked up the box full of old purses—lots of sequins and velvet and paste jewels—and dumped them on the bed. There were about twenty or so, mostly small, evening-sized. Apparently the oversized-bag craze wasn’t yet a twinkle in a designer’s eye.

The first three purses we opened were empty, but the fourth and sixth yielded lipsticks, both red, and chalky with age. Arabella found a compact and a lacy white handkerchief in a black velvet ball-shaped purse with a rhinestone clasp and a gold chain strap.

“This is lovely,” Arabella said, placing the strap on her wrist and parading the purse about. “Definitely one for the exhibition. Then I’m going to beg Precious for it. It’s very ‘swanky.’”

“Aunt Lucinda would approve.” I reached for a beaded bag with most of its beads missing, leaving red satin bald spots on one side. Inside, I found a single page of card stock, folded in half. “It’s a cocktail menu from the Savoy,” I said, admiring the bold vintage fonts and the ingredients and instructions for an absinthe cocktail. “I wish it hadn’t been folded—now there’s a crease in the middle. It’s so pretty, and I’d love to have it framed.”

“What’s that on the back?” Arabella asked.

I flipped it over. In the white space between the Washington Cocktail and the Waterbury Cocktail someone had handwritten in ink: Jsi v nebezpečí. Utíkej!

Frowning, I asked, “What language is that? Hungarian?”

Arabella shook her head. “I don’t know. I think it might be Czech.” She met my gaze. “Isn’t there an app for that?”

“There is,” I said, pulling out my phone. “I don’t know how accurate it is, but I