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Dora hesitated, then turned and shut the door behind her, before crossing his office to stand before his desk. “To be perfectly candid, I have an ulterior motive when it comes to Mr. Ewell,” she confided. Clem forgot to breathe, and by the time the pounding in his head stopped, she was in full flow.

“—so you see, I feel like he would be an excellent study for me,” she enthused, her eyes sparkling. “Only imagine if I was to secure a future role, playing a sporting young gent or even a suitor from a less than salubrious background! Just think of all the material I could glean from an hour spent in his company!”

By the greatest of efforts, Clem managed to dispel the red fog that was crowding his brain. “You want to study his mannerisms,” he ground out with dawning realization and relief.

She nodded, bright-eyed and practically clasping her hands with enthusiasm by this point. “Then by all means,” Clem said urbanely, or as close to it as he could manage, present circumstances considered. “You may go with my blessing.”

“You really won’t come?” she sounded gratifyingly disappointed. He shook his head and she looked resigned. “And should I take just Eddie with me or him and Sam both?” she enquired.

“Neither,” Clem replied shortly. “You won’t need protection from the masses if you’re with Ewell.”

Still, after she had left the office, he had the strangest feeling of light-headedness. Almost like you experienced after shutting your finger in a door. Stupid really, for Dora was not Barty’s type at all. Far from it. He was a handsome devil and had his pick of the girls. He liked them short and curvy, not tall and gangly. Dora probably equaled him in height. Likely Barty was hoping for an introduction to some other act, not realizing they all held Dora at arm’s length.

Maybe it was Florrie Foss who had caught Barty’s roving eye. She was more his type than Dora, Clem kept telling himself as he glanced repeatedly at the clock, though in truth, Florrie was likely too long in the tooth and not pretty enough either, strictly speaking.

They would not even have finished their pre-dinner drinks by now, he told himself grimly after another half an hour passed. Dora would be watching Barty’s every move and filing away each gesture to practice later. No doubt Ewell would think her manner bizarre and her way of dressing ugly. Afterward, he would laugh later to the likes of Claude Pfeiffer and Jeb Morris that Clem’s wife was a peculiar sort of female.

Clem’s mouth flattened into a thin line as he imagined it. Dora would be frank and artless as always and a cocky prick like Barty would write her off long before her natural charm started to shine through. At least Clem hoped to God he would, for the alternative was unthinkable.

At two o’clock, Clem’s composure finally gave way. He strode out of his office and made his way resolutely toward Dora’s dressing room. Hearing Dora’s voice high with distress, he burst the door open without hesitation and found her sat kneeling on the floor examining a newspaper with her young friend Albert.

“Clem!” she burst out, scrambling to her feet at once. “Look at this!” She thrust a page toward his face. “I don’t understand it at all.”

Clem gazed blankly at the newsprint and then back at her troubled expression. “What exactly am I looking at?”

Instead of pointing to a critic’s review, she pointed her finger instead at a prominent society column. “Here!”

“Read it out to me,” Clem ordered, feeling quite thrown off course.

Dora rustled the page agitatedly and then read out. “A little bird tells me that Sir Matthew H has been seen around town squiring a new favorite, an actress bearing the initials R.B. after his Dresden shepherdess fell from grace and quite shattered her reputation.”

“What does all that mean?” Clem asked, his eyes roaming over Dora’s pale face. “I don’t read those kinds of columns.”

“Well, their stock in trade is usually vague hints and innuendo,” she replied, “but I very much fear that ‘Sir Matthew H’ refers to Sir Matthew Hillingdon and that the ‘Dresden Shepherdess’ they mention is none other than my sister! Her last role was as the titular Faithful Shepherdess in Fletcher’s play.”

“How can that be?” Clem asked, frowning. “I thought you said they’d eloped to France.”

“Well, so Hetty’s telegram led us to believe, but Albert here brings other news.” She turned back to gesture toward the lad who was sat cross-legged, eating an iced bun. “Tell him Albert.”

“Thas’ right, guv,” he said, sticking his hands in his braces. “I ‘eard it from my friend Arfur. ‘E said as ‘illingdon’s back in the city and taken up wiv’ some new piece of skirt by the name of Rhonda Bettinew. She’s playin’ in some melodrama at The Royal George. She’s caused quite a stir on account of ‘ow she dances in a see-fru petticoat in the second act.”

“You see,” said Dora eagerly. “R.B.” She stabbed a finger at the newspaper page. “The initials. It all fits.”

Clem was bursting to ask where Ewell was but realized this was not the time. He cleared his throat. “This all sounds like idle gossip to me,” he said damningly. “If your sister was back in London, surely you would be the first to know about it.”

Dora’s cheeks turned a little pink. “But what if he’s abandoned her in France, friendless and without a penny to her name?” she demanded.

“Sounds unlikely to me.” Clem shrugged. He could not admit that the last time he had seen her, Henrietta Fields had walked away with a tidy sum of money from his own bank account. “This is just hearsay, Dora. I would not worry about it if I were you.”

She stared at him a moment. “But I am worried, Clem,” she said frankly. “She is my only sister.”

That evening however, over dinner, her brother also pooh-poohed the idea of their sister languishing stranded over the channel. “Henrietta?” Fields had repeated, lowering his book. “Dear me, Theo, have your wits gone a-begging? Is it possible you have forgotten just how capable Hetty is? She is quite ten times as resourceful as you or I. No, no, the idea is quite preposterous.”

“But Albert’s friend swears he sold a newspaper to Sir Matthew in the street where his father’s townhouse lies,” Dora responded with forced calm. She turned impetuously to Allsop, making Clem bristle. “What do you think, Harold?”

Allsop considered a moment, then said with quiet dignity, “I cannot imagine Henrietta ever doing anything to bring her reputation into any disrepute as that column implies. She is too much a lady.”

“Hear, hear!” Fields echoed. “A snot-nosed ragamuffin is hardly a credible source.”