Chapter Fifteen

It was going to be a long day waiting for Uncle Mick's impending job this evening. I was still angry that I had been excluded from the planning, but I managed to keep from going to the major's house to pester him for details.

He'd wanted me out of the way, and I was determined to show him that I wouldn't butt in where I wasn't wanted.

I hoped he would miss my interference just a little.

In the meantime, I returned to my flat and looked again at the decoded message that had been in the book of Greek myths.

Hand off your information to Chambers. The flowers are dying.

What on earth did it mean? Even assuming it was a real name and not an alias, I didn't know anyone named Chambers, and I couldn't recall our family ever having dealings, personally or professionally, with someone of that name. Of course, if they had been involved with my father's espionage, and possibly his murder, I doubted they would have kept up communication with the family.

For lack of a better place to start, I took the City Directory from my shelf and flipped to the Cs. I scanned the list. As I had suspected, Chambers was not an uncommon surname. There was no way to know which of them might be the Chambers in question.

On a whim, I went through the list again, looking for floral first names. There was a Violet Chambers as well as a Rose Chambers. I contemplated ringing them up, but what would I say? Besides, if the flowers had been dying, it was not likely they would be in the telephone directory twenty-five years later.

An idea struck me suddenly, and I turned from the list of personal telephone numbers to the trade directory. It was just possible…

A moment later, I was looking down at it: Chambers Flower Shop.

What were the odds of that, I wondered.

"What do you think?" I asked Burglar. He had been in my flat for only a few hours, and I was already glad of the company. It was nice having someone to talk to, a companion who would listen without judgment.

He tilted his head at me and blinked.

"That's what I think, too," I said with a nod. "There's only one way to find out."

I found the little shop in Finchley. It was a small building wedged between a tea shop and a greengrocer in a row of tidy Victorian-era buildings.

I stood on the other side of the street and studied it. There was certainly nothing sinister looking about it. Then again, if it had been designed to conceal the activities of spies, it would be best if it fit in.

Not that I suspected I had really hit upon a clue this easily.

I decided it wouldn't hurt for me to go inside and look around. After all, any association it had had with my father had been decades ago. What were the chances there was still some connection to be discovered?

And so I crossed the street and went inside.

I expected to be hit with the scent of a perfusion of flowers as I entered, but, in truth, the shop was somewhat bare. I knew, of course, that the flower trade was dwindling during the war. There were a lot more important crops to be grown now that many of the former trade routes were effectively cut off.

Of course, people still needed flowers. There were a lot more funerals now than before.

There were shelves and small, high tables around the room with flowers on them. One corner still held wreaths and evergreen and holly arrangements leftover from the holidays. In the center of the room were two tables with large, bare tree branches that stretched artfully toward the sky. It was a clever way to fill up space and, I had to imagine, cost-effective. Still, there was something elegant about it.

In addition to the bouquets of fresh flowers, I noticed that there were arrangements of silk flowers. It was a smart idea. No doubt this shop's adaptability was what had kept it in business through two world wars—perhaps that and its sideline of espionage?

Looking around, I found it hard to believe that this place had anything to do with that sort of thing. It merely seemed like a little shop doing its best to carry on.

A woman approached me as I entered. She was perhaps sixty, her gray hair swept up stylishly, her dark green dress fashionable. "Hello, miss," she said. "May I help you?"

"I'm looking for a bouquet of flowers," I said. "I'm not awfully particular about what. I just want something pretty."

"We have several already arranged. Would you like to take one with you?"

"That would be lovely."

She walked me around the shop to show me what was available. I looked the bouquets over, trying to determine which of them would be cheapest. I didn't have a lot of spare money to spend on flowers, but I was certainly willing to spend whatever I could afford if it led to information about my father.

I decided to try out the phrase that had been written in the coded message.

"It must be hard to keep bouquets in stock during winter," I said. "The flowers are dying."

Was it my imagination or did she give a slight pause at the words? "We have a good partnership with a local greenhouse," she said. "They keep us in stock all winter."

"Oh, that's wonderful. Well, I'll take this bouquet," I said, indicating one of roses, ferns, and baby's breath, and some kind of dark berries I didn't recognize.

"Do you want the vase?"

I imagined that would cost extra. "That's not necessary. I have one at home." Or, at least, an old jar I could put them in.

"Very good. I'll wrap them up for you."

She took the vase to the counter.

My visit was drawing to a close. I tried to think of some way to introduce my name, to see her reaction to it.

"I think I may have had a bouquet of flowers delivered to me from this shop before," I said. "Though I can't be sure. I don't suppose you'd remember if you've ever delivered a bouquet to Electra McDonnell?"

If I was looking for a reaction, I wasn't disappointed.

She dropped the vase, and it shattered on the floor.

"Oh, how clumsy of me!" she said. "Please watch out for the glass. I'll have someone come and clean this up."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" I asked.

"No, no. I'll get the shopgirl to bring out the broom." She picked up the bouquet from among the glass and shook it to dislodge any shards.

"Would you like a different bouquet?" she asked.

"No, that one's fine. I don't imagine the glass harmed it."

She nodded and began wrapping the stems of the flowers in a large sheet of tissue paper.

"As to your question, I'm fairly certain we haven't delivered flowers to you before. Your name isn't familiar."

"Electra is an unusual name," I said. "I suppose you'd have remembered."

"Yes," she said, though she didn't meet my gaze. I felt certain I was onto something, but I didn't know what to do next. Should I press her for answers?

"My middle name is unusual, too, for a girl. It's Niall, after my father."

She looked up at me, and this time, there was something sharp in her gaze. I kept my expression blank.

The note had spoken of Chambers as an ally, a person to hand the information to. But in that case, it meant these people were likely German spies. I would have to tread carefully and weigh my options.

"That's a pretty name," she said, after a long pause. Then she gave me the price for the flowers.

I paid her and picked up the bouquet. "These are lovely," I said. "I'm sure I'll be back soon."

Her eyes met mine, and she nodded. If she knew something, she wasn't going to tell me, not now.

But I had made it plain who I was. I would give her time to think things over and then I would come back.

I said goodbye and left the shop, the bouquet tucked in the crook of my arm. Between the lovely flowers and my new flatmate, Burglar, things were going to be quite cheery at home.

Uncle Mick left after dinner for his rendezvous with the criminals. We hadn't told Nacy much about the nature of what he would be doing, so she wasn't as anxious as I was. Besides, she'd had many more years than I had to learn to be sanguine about Uncle Mick's criminal forays.

I spent the evening with her in the parlor, Burglar curled up on my lap. As I had known she would, Nacy had muttered about the kitten being another mouth to feed and then commenced serving him prime scraps of meat from yesterday's stew, minced into kitten-sized mouthfuls.

At last, she went off to bed. I remained in the parlor near the fireplace, waiting. The minutes ticked slowly by, an hour, then two. I had hoped the thieves didn't intend to do any sort of job this evening, just to meet and discuss whatever they were plotting. It was a lucky thing for us that they'd needed a safecracker, but I did wonder what safes they intended to break into. The note we'd found in the ashtray in Anna Gillard's hotel room had pointed us to Nico Lazaro, but the thieves hadn't seen that note. So where did they intend to strike?

At last, the door opened, and Uncle Mick came in along with a burst of cold air.

"Ah, Ellie girl," he said, pulling off his coat and gloves. "You haven't been waiting for me, have you?"

I had been worried about Uncle Mick's safety, but I had to have known that he would simply find the whole thing an enjoyable lark. His eyes were bright with amusement, and there was an energy about him that I hadn't seen since the last time we'd been about to pull a job.

"It all went well, I take it?" I said.

"Right as rain, Ellie girl," he said with a grin. "Those fellas took to me like a duck to water. I've been initiated into their gang of thieves, and we're ready to pull a job."

I knew I shouldn't ask any questions, especially since Major Ramsey didn't seem to want me included in this part of the mission. All the same, I was curious about the gang of killer thieves, and what they were after.

"Did they say what they're looking for?" I asked, unable to help myself.

"I went to see Ramsey on my way home tonight," he said. "He told me to send you his way tomorrow afternoon, and he'll tell you everything you need to know. Now I'm off to bed. All that plotting makes a man bone weary."