Just then Ngaio blurts out, “All this is well and good, but why are we here?”
“Ngaio!” Emma scolds. Her voice, however, isn’t sharp this time. She sounds like a mother gently chastising a mischievous but beloved child.
I’m relieved at this lightening of the tension between Emma and Ngaio. Otherwise this venture might have been over before it had even begun. To smooth over any remaining rough edges, I smile and say, “I’m actually glad Ngaio spoke aloud the question I’m certain you’ve all been thinking. I was just about to explain everything.”
Reaching for the open bottle of Champagne on the table next to the sofa, I refill everyone’s flutes. I want the women to be in the best possible spirits for my request, no matter the expense. I’ll have to pen a short story or write an extra review of a detective novel for theSunday Timesto cover this bill, but I have every hope that it will be worthwhile.
Waiting until they’ve each had time to sip from the effervescent wine, I finally say, “Recently, I’ve been involved in forming an organization called the Detection Club, which has the purpose of bringing together the leading mystery writers in Great Britain so that we can champion our genre. It’s just come to my attention that there’s a quiet reluctance among certain members to expand the number of women in the club beyond two—Agatha and myself.”
“Well, Inever,” Emma huffs, and I imagine that indeed she may have not dealt with these issues before. As a baroness, she occupies a rarefied space, and her position and title may well buffer her from the sorts of disparagement the rest of us have undoubtedly endured. Resistance to publishing books by women who write about murder is commonplace, in my experience.
“Sadly, Ihave,”I reply. “I’ve encountered this attitude countless times before, even among men I consider friends and fine colleagues. Although, I admit, never in a club I helped form. But it doesn’t sit well with me. The standard-bearers of the mystery genre should bethe best writers,and that includes you three.”
Ngaio lifts her glass to me. Without a word, she finishes it, then refills the flute to the rim. When no one launches in with the questions I’d expected, I continue. “You’ve seen today that we do best when we work together. The murder game could not have been solved by any one of you alone, and we will not make names for ourselves in the mystery canon alone, either. What say you to banding together in a club of our own making and infiltrating the ranks of the Detection Club as a group?”
No one stands and issues a rallying cry, but no one walks out, thankfully. Instead, Margery asks, “How will we do that if the other Detection Club members don’t want us?”
“Agatha and I have hatched a plan. As long as you feel aligned with our purpose and have an interest in uniting—within the Detection Club and without—we will make it happen,” I reply, hoping my words are rousing these women to action.
No one moves a muscle. Ngaio’s crystal Champagne flute, in fact, catches the light of the chandelier as it hovers in the air midway to her mouth. Then, as if a frozen film screen has restarted, the women continue their actions—finishing a drink, twisting a wedding ring, exhaling cigarette smoke, twirling a lock of hair around a finger.
To my surprise, Emma is the first to speak. “I say we gird our loins and proceed. Ladies, we cannot let the men have all the fun.”
“Or all the glory,” Agatha adds.
“Shall we drink to it?” Ngaio asks.
I watch as each of the women takes a drink from her glass, and, meeting Agatha’s eyes, I smile. Will we really manage to pull this off?
“What shall we call ourselves?” Margery asks, her cheeks flushed, I hope from the excitement of this venture.
I glance around, not wanting to squash any ideas by announcing the name I’ve been considering. But the room is silent, and the women are waiting for me.
“What say you to the Queens of Crime?”
Chapter Five
MARCH 20, 1931
LONDON,ENGLAND
The procession of the Detection Club leaders makes its way to the dais in the ballroom of the Northumberland Avenue Hotel. Here I wait in a special place of honor as a club founder, wearing my usual black evening gown, freshened, I hope, with a newly embroidered spray of crystals. The dark robes of our president’s cortege swirl as they approach with flickering candles held aloft to gently illuminate the dimly lit, cavernous space. Finally, Gilbert, swathed in a crimson cape as colossal as he is and carrying a skull on a silver platter, reaches the podium.
He pivots, the folds of his blood-red cloak swooping around him until they pool at his feet. Facing the twenty-four standing club members, he recites the oath I painstakingly crafted:
I vow that the detectives I create will actually detect the crimes and mysteries presented to them using the intellect I grant to them, and I will not allow those detectives to use hocus-pocus, trickeries, superstitions, epiphanies, acts of God, skullduggeries, or divine intervention. All detectives will use fair play in solving their mysteries.
I mouth the words along with him as he continues, careful not to let my volume rise above a whisper—a first,I think. I rememberthe many times my late parents—an Oxford-educated vicar and a gentlewoman with only brazen me for a child—asked me to lower my voice or make my gestures smaller. This was especially the case in church, the rectory where we lived, and our small village of Bluntisham. Although, truth be told, Gilbert’s voice booms so loudly throughout the space that I doubt anyone would hear me even if I shouted.
But my ebullience in hearing my oath being chanted aloud for the first time must have gotten the better of my reserve, because I suddenly feel eyes upon me. And realizing I’ve been reciting the words along with Gilbert—rather loudly, I’m afraid—I seal my mouth tight.
Our formidable president finishes and crooks his finger toward the procession, beckoning them forward. The carefully chosen members form a queue that snakes through the ballroom in a line so long I cannot see the end.Fortunate,I think,for the purposes of our plan.
As the ritual requires, one author after another approaches the dais and places a hand on the skull, a theatrical prop we’ve named Eric. Gilbert then asks each one in turn, “Will you abide by this sacred oath? Because,” he warns, “if you fail in your solemn duty, other writers will anticipate your plots, total strangers will sue you for libel, your pages will swarm with misprints, and your sales will continually diminish!”
I watch as a veritable who’s who of mystery writers wends its way to the front. I smile and nod at this cadre of talented wordsmiths and puzzle masters, all of whom I know and, for the most part, respect. I try to suss out the authors’ shadow selves, their fictional detectives who, I’m guessing, lurk beneath the surface. I know that Harriet Vane, my intrepid mystery novelist, whose paths have begun to cross with my gentleman detective, Lord Peter Wimsey, hides just beneath the self I present to the world. Increasingly, her journey resembles my own, but Freud would beterribly disappointed in how long it took to me to realize that. Now that I do, though, I sometimes wonder where Harriet begins and I end.
Finally I see a flash of color in the queue. The last of the black-suited gentlemen swears his oath and steps aside, revealing the striking, self-possessed Ngaio in a gown of moss green. She, like the other women, had marked time in the corridor outside the ballroom, waiting until this moment to reveal themselves.
