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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sheelba of the Eye" data-source="post: 9722986" data-attributes="member: 7046890">Thursday, September the First, 1921.Our adventure starts in Nell’s Teacake and Tea shop on a main street in Camden, London. Dorothy has taken the afternoon off and planed to meet her friend from her book club Yasmine, and an old school friend who she has kept in touch with, Percy. She arrived first and was soon joined by first Percy and then a slightly put-upon looking Yasmine who had a middle aged gent with her, distinctly foreign and too wealthy for the likes of Nell’s. Introductions were made - the interloper was Michel Blabla from France. Apparently a star of the silver screen but neither Dorothy nor Percy recognised the name or the face. Still, he seemed cheerful enough, enquiring after the hot chocolate and apparently finding it delightful. A pleasant couple of hours passed before they decided to move on. Dorothy nearly barrelled into a rotund gentleman standing just out of view to the left of the doorway. Apologising she was slightly taken aback when the gentleman, who was very well dressed, appeared to hardly notice and muttered “Where have I seen...” Squinting int the direction he was looking Dorothy could see the retreating figure of Mr. Corbitt, a neighbour of her parents, 10 years older than she and somewhat aloof, albeit a pleasant sort.“What, no, the fault is entirely mine” the gentleman relied to Dorothy’s apology, dragging his gaze away from Corbitt. “I shouldn’t be standing in doorways.”Privately agreeing Dorothy joined the stranger in watching Mr. Corbitt disappear around a corner.“I’m sure I’ve…” The gentleman shook his head and apologised absentmindedly once more before entering Nell’s.Percy suggested a stroll through the park and Michel cobbled together enough English to say that he had heard of a famous zoo in the park, perhaps they could visit. And so they went to the zoo.Come evening and reluctant to go their separate ways Dorothy invited her companions back to her parent’s abode and offered to cook. Arriving they saw M.r Corbitt drive away from his house in a general northerly direction. Dorothy waved but was ignored. She felt a little disgruntled. An enjoyable evening followed a pleasant afternoon and sometime later we see Dorothy in turn seeing off her guests as they looked up and down the road for a cab. As they did so they realised that Mr. Corbitt must have driven up just a few moments before they emerged form Dorothy’s and was extracting from his car boot what was presumably his purchase - a longish object wrapped in a thick canvas. Or perhaps just a bundle of canvas. He didn’t notice his observers and walk to his front door, fumbled with his keys, dropped them, then dropped his parcel when retrieving them. Conversation had turned to Dorothy’s wonderful cooking (passable thought Michel, but the English are so easily satisfied when it came to food) and they were all distracted. Michel found himself feeling a little uneasy but couldn’t quite put his finger, as the English say, on it. After seeing the last of her guests off Dorothy locked the front door behind herself and immediately her gaze fell on Percy’s hat. He always forgets it!The next morning Yasmine went to work as usual, as did Percy, irritated by his loss of his newest hat, and Dorothy, who as always opened top the library and started re-arranging the books. Michel, however, awoke somewhat troubled. The tiny amount of laudanum which he had quaffed to aid his sleep had instead given him unpleasant dreams and he had risen thinking about the funny little English man Corbitt. But what was it about him? Just as he was combing his moustaches  in front of his shaving mirror it came to him. He would bet a guinea to a franc that he had spotted something jutting out of the canvas Mr. Corbitt had been carrying. And that thing jutting out was a human hand! He knew the English were an odd lot but this didn’t feel right even for them. Hmm, what to do. Perhaps Yasmine would know. She was a journalist of sorts, and the only person he was on first name terms with in all of England. Apart from his boot maker, but he didn’t seem like the appropriate fellow to ask to about this. After a fine breakfast Michel requested a cab be called and had a tiny absinthe to aid his digestion before getting into carriage and being driven to Hammersmith.Yasmine was too busy to entertain a film star, no matter how rich. However, good manners matter and she heard him out.“You went home, got drunk and imagined it!”“Pardon, I tell you I did not. The parcel had a hand in it.”Good grief, thought Yasmine, what do the French get up to think that a suburbanite has a hand in a bag at home? Hmm, unless he’s a doctor, in which case… Yasmine couldn’t remember what Dorothy had said about Mr. Corbitt, being too interested in the fabulous house which her friend had been brought tup in. Dorothy had woke this morning with a determination to reach the top of her profession and own a house like that one day. And now she was having to humour Michel again. Oh well, it couldn’t be helped. He would only go to the police and embarrass himself if she left him to his own devices.“Let’s go and ask Dorothy about him, she’ll know what’s going on.”So off they went, back to the hansom cab and the relatively short journey to Notting Hill from Hammersmith. As always on a Thursday morning Dorothy could be found in the children’s section rueing the children’s inability to books back on the shelf they took them from. Too polite to show her surprise Dorothy stoked up the little fire place in the office and placed a small kettle on it.“Tea, anyone?”</blockquote>

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