“If you’d like to wait here, I can run over and drive the motor back here. It won’t take five minutes,” he said.

“Oh, that would be—yes, I do think it would be a good idea to just sit and think for a moment,” she said, ignoring the fact that she’d had some significant amount of time to think whilst pinned to a brick wall by Miss Pankhurst’s motorcar.

“Myrtle will stay with you,” Bradford said, and then dashed off into the darkness before she could argue—quite deliberately, she was certain.

Phyllida looked down balefully at the beast, whose dark eyes gleamed up at her. “I suppose it’s all right, as long as you keep your distance and don’t even think about licking my stocking,” she added quickly and fiercely as the mop sniffed at her leg.

To her surprise, Myrtle didn’t attack. Instead, the beast plopped down onto its bottom so close to her that it sat half on top of her shoe, giving her foot the appearance of wearing a very large, dark wig.

Phyllida sighed, but for some reason, she couldn’t quite bring herself to remove her foot from beneath the creature. The beast wasn’t all that heavy, and it was warm and—she loathed to admit it—almost comforting to have a living, breathing creature right next to her after the horrors of her evening.

“Only this once,” she informed the pile of curls. “And only because of my frock. It is one of my favorites.”

But when she heard the sound of the Daimler approaching, Phyllida slipped her foot from beneath the mop’s rump and moved away. Myrtle didn’t seem to mind, for she must have recognized that the sound heralded the return of her master.

Phyllida climbed silently into the front seat of the motorcar and for the first time in her recent memory, she sat.

And closed her eyes.

* * *

It wasn’t until she entered the sanctuary of her apartments that Phyllida remembered the papers she’d stuffed into her pocket.

The short story results, at last!

She had just pulled them out and was spreading them over the desk in her sitting room when there was a knock on her door.

Stifling a groan, she said, “Yes?”

To her shock, it was Agatha—and she was carrying a tea tray!

“Good heavens, what are you doing?” Phyllida said, shooting to her feet. “It’s nearly midnight and you’re—”