Mrs. Leary came, and Mike’s editor and Miss Snelgrove and two men, awkward and stiff in black suits, who for one heart-jarring moment Polly thought might, against all odds, be the retrieval team, but who turned out to be two firemen whom Mike had rescued on the night of the twenty-ninth. They told Polly and Eileen that Mike had warned them when a wall was about to fall on them and saved their lives, and they were sorry that they hadn’t been there to save his.

Alf and Binnie came, too, bearing a bouquet of browning lilies Polly was convinced they’d stolen off someone’s grave. “We seen when it was. In the papers,” Binnie said, looking around St. Paul’s in awe.

“Coo, this church is fancy!” Alf said. “There’s lots of nice things in ’ere.”

“Yes, and anyone who tries to steal one of them goes straight to the bad place,” Eileen said, sounding almost like her old self for the first time since Mike had died.

With the vicar’s arrival, she had abandoned her vigil at the foot of the escalator and had agreed to a memorial service. And when Miss Laburnum told her she simply couldn’t wear her green coat to it, she’d let Miss Laburnum lend her a much-too-large black coat.

Too willingly, Polly’d thought. Eileen was still quiet and withdrawn, and Polly feared she’d gone from denial to despair, though it was difficult not to, with Mike and Mr. Simms dead, and the gentle vicar going off to war. Eileen was right. He was almost certain to be killed.

Polly had wanted her to face reality, but now she was afraid that that reality might crush her, and she was glad to see some of her spirit return as she took charge of the Hodbins. “You must sit still and be absolutely quiet,” Eileen told them.

“We know,” Alf said, offended. “When—ow!” he wailed, and his voice echoed through the vast spaces of the cathedral. Mr. Humphreys came scurrying down the south aisle toward them.

“Binnie kicked me!”

“Kicking’s not allowed in church,” Mr. Goode said calmly.

“And neither is hitting each other with floral offerings,” Eileen said, extracting the lilies from them and handing them to the vicar.

She steered Alf and Binnie through the gate and into the chapel, told them to sit down and stay put, and then took Polly by the arm and led her out into the south aisle. “Alf and Binnie said you found them and told them about Mike.”

“Yes,” Polly said, afraid Eileen would consider that somehow a betrayal. “I thought they might be a comfort—”

“Where did you find them? In Whitechapel?”

“No, I didn’t know where they lived, so I looked in the tube stations.”

Eileen nodded as if that had confirmed something.

“We’re about to begin the service,” the vicar said, coming out.

“Yes, of course,” Eileen said.

They went back in, and Eileen sat down between Alf and Binnie, telling them they had to be quiet, and showing them the correct place in the prayer book, and Polly felt reassured all over again.