Gold, Frankincense, and Morphine

Excerpt

Gold, Frankincense, and Morphine
Winnie Frolik © 2025
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

“Marley was dead, to begin with…dead as a door-nail.”

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

Night of December 7th, 1938

Hospitals are not places generally associated with Christmas festivity. Yet the staff of St. Stephen’s made an effort anyway. Not even the disapproving glances of the Matron, Nurse Bellemont, unofficially known among the wards as the Battleaxe, could dissuade them from trying to bring in a little Yuletide cheer. It started with the arrival and unveiling of a new advent calendar in the main reception room. The calendar in question had an elaborate picture of an unknown cathedral surrounded by carolers and clergymen. Each of the cathedral’s windows and doors revealed a hidden picture. The first such drawing to be revealed was a classic English plum pudding trimmed with holly. Other flourishes soon joined the calendar. A small, rather frail potted fir tree was produced and its sparse branches hung with tinsel and red balls. Dr. Henry Owens, that old rogue, found a convenient spot to hang some mistletoe.

Pharmacy dispenser Jill Rowlands put up a large nutcracker on the counter from where she dispersed the drugs that kept the whole hospital running. Some wag joked that she could use it in lieu of mortar and pestle when mixing up formulas.

“No,” Rowlands proclaimed primly after pretending to ponder the matter first. “It’s just so much harder to keep sterile. And you all know how I feel about cross-contamination!” It was true; Rowlands was famous for keeping all her equipment and workspace spotless. When not immediately occupied with dispensing, she could often be found endlessly scrubbing her counter space with lemon-scented disinfectant.

Meanwhile, Nurse Charters and Nurse Grey had both taken it upon themselves during the night shift to make homemade ringed paper garlands to adorn the halls.

“Already a real nip in the air, isn’t there?” Nurse Charters observed to Nurse Grey. “Likely or not we’ll get snow soon!”

“And with it a new flood of patients injuring themselves in slip and falls,” Nurse Grey opined grimly while Charters gave a rueful chuckle. Nurse Mary Grey was an attractive, dark-haired woman of some thirty or so years of age whose features bore a vague resemblance to ancient icons of the Holy Virgin. Christine Charters was a few years younger, generously endowed in both freckles and bosom. The two of them often excited much appreciation among male patients and staff alike at St. Stephens. With Mary, any such hopes were alas quite forlorn. Charters, however, was a single girl who frankly admitted to being on the lookout for a husband someday. She flirted freely with anyone who came her way.

It was Mary’s first Christmas with St. Stephen’s, having joined the hospital staff here only a few weeks prior. Before that, she’d been a private duty nurse, a district nurse, and even, for a brief period, assistant to the renowned private detective Franz Shaefer. But she’d been given a choice between remaining an investigator and staying at the side of Harriet West, the love of her life. For while Mary’s detective skills had helped free Harriet from false imprisonment in a French jail, the hazards of the job were too much for her nerves. As Harriet told Mary, “I’m sorry but I haven’t the courage to be a policewoman’s wife. I need to know you’ll be coming home safely to me at the end of the day. Besides, if you continue working with Shaefer, we’d have to move to London, and I quite like the place we already have. And our social circle here in Rosby.”

Rosby was a bustling industrial city where Harriet’s family had first made their fortune. It was a growing community with a great deal of new construction. Cheaper rents than could be found in London gave the place a thriving artistic community as well.

Mary had moved back into the comfortable flat she shared with Harriet and returned to nursing. Since there had not been any openings for a district nurse available in the area, she had at first taken on private duty nursing. But she’d found the work a little quiet for her liking. So, she applied to St. Stephen’s. Which was most definitely not quiet. Centrally located with about three hundred beds, St. Stephen’s was one of the busiest hospitals in Rosby. It had originally been built in 1889 as an extension to the Rosby Union Workhouse. The workhouse closed in 1930 and, despite neighborhood efforts to preserve the historic site, had been demolished to make way for a large commercial space. But the infirmary rechristened as St. Stephen’s had survived and was now Mary’s new second home.

Strictly speaking, she didn’t really need to work at all. Harriet had more than enough money for them both. But Mary preferred not to be a kept woman. Besides, she liked nursing and had been called to the profession at an early age. It was another reason why she’d left her position with Shaefer. Though she and the London-based German Jewish émigré kept in touch. He always had some exciting case to tell her about. In fact, business of late was going so well for him he’d taken on a secretary. Mary had felt a twinge of jealousy at the news. She had rebuked herself for the unworthy thought, but she’d felt it anyway. It wasn’t that she was unhappy working at St. Stephens. She quite liked her fellow staff—well, most of her fellow staff at any rate, except Matron Bellemont. She was doing meaningful work, and her patients sorely needed her. And she had Harriet and the two of them had made friends in town. They also had Ahab, a large orange tomcat who ruled their flat with an iron paw.

All in all, Mary knew she had a pretty good life. One far better than most women of her sexual appetites—or most women period—could ever hope for. And she tried to remember to be grateful. Even at times like this when she’d been unfortunate enough to draw night shift as a last-minute replacement for Nurse Robinson, who had been called to attend a sick aunt in Lincolnshire.

But detective work, while dangerous, had also been so exciting. There had been a thrill of the hunt and capture of criminals that nothing else could truly match. And even amid hanging garlands, Mary once more grew wistful. Fortunately, she was distracted by the needs of her job. It was time to check in on Mrs. Bisbee.

Rhoda Bisbee was a red-faced, stoutly built widow between the ages of forty and fifty who happened to be the proprietor of a local bakery known for its Madeira cake. When her stomach pains first began, she had originally ascribed them to overindulgence in her own pastries or perhaps simple indigestion. When matters worsened, her assistant, Flossie, had insisted on her visiting the hospital where the doctors quickly diagnosed her as having a severe case of appendicitis and ordered her into the operating room.

Fortunately, the appendectomy had been a perfect success with no complications whatsoever. Unfortunately, she’d been at St. Stephen’s now five days since the operation, and Rhoda had been bored sick since the second day. Her niece, Lizzie, to her credit, had come down on the first train from London, taking time off from the school she worked at to do so. Her visits were the only bits of stimulation Rhoda had. Otherwise, she’d nothing else to do but lie around all day listening to the radio and, with the sole exception of a swing band concert, found it intolerable. She couldn’t care less about sporting events, and the news was all too bloody depressing, especially everything from the continent. Between the Communists and the Nazis, what was the world coming to? She longed to leave her miserable sterile white prison and return to the warmth and comfort of her beloved bakery. And while Flossie was a nice, hardworking girl, Rhoda was not at all sure she was up to running the business all by herself yet. Especially around the holiday season no less when they were always swamped. Lizzie had told her firmly to put aside such concerns as all the doctors had stressed the need for her to rest, but Rhoda worried despite herself.

She worried about Lizzie as well. Her niece had been the first member of the family to attend school after the age of twelve. Her scholarship to a teachers’ training college had been a mark of great pride to all concerned, as was her graduating at the top of her class. She was immediately offered a place at a prestigious girls’ school in London. It was a good position, and Lizzie seemed quite happy there. What would they think of her taking such a lengthy leave of absence for the sake of an ill relative? Oh, Lizzie claimed, it was of little consequence since the school had been nearing the time for the Christmas holiday anyway, but Rhoda knew better. Employers never liked being left short-handed—she certainly didn’t! But Rhoda also knew there was no chance of Lizzie returning to work until she had at least left the hospital. Yet another reason why she was eager to be discharged.

All these things and more Rhoda shared with the polite Nurse Grey as she changed her bedpan and returned with a covered tray provided by the hospital kitchen.

“What’s that?” Rhoda asked suspiciously.

“Shepherd’s pie,” Mary replied, and Rhoda answered her with a sniff.

“The quality of the food here,” she grumbled. “Are you trying to poison people?”

“No one’s ever informed me about any such plans,” Mary quipped. “But I am the new girl.” Rhoda chuckled. “In all seriousness,” Mary continued, “poor Gladys and the rest of the kitchen staff do their best.”

Rhoda snorted. “They can barely manage beans on toast!” she proclaimed.

Privately, Mary shared her sentiments, but she said, “You really should eat though. You do have to keep up your strength if you want to get out of here before Christmas.”

Rhoda groaned at the reminder. “Good lord, they couldn’t possibly keep me here that long, could they?”

“Depends how you’re doing,” Mary answered. “But for the record, I suspect the doctors will clear you in a couple of days to go home. Though you’d still have to be on bed rest quite a while longer,” she added sternly. “So don’t think of returning to work anytime soon!”

“Of course not,” Rhoda chirped. She began to mentally calculate which tasks at the bakery she would tend to first.

“Hmmm…” Nurse Grey gave Rhoda a shrewd glance as if she knew she was lying.

Desperate to throw her off the scent, Rhoda asked, “What about you, eh, Nursie? Will you be spending your Christmas here?”

“I’d certainly hope not,” Mary replied with a sigh as she straightened Rhoda’s pillow. “But it may well happen. We’ve yet to see who among the staff will draw the short stick for the 24th and 25th. The only bright side is if you work either of those, they usually won’t ask for you on New Year’s Eve.”

“Certainly must be hard finding anyone to volunteer for those times,” Rhoda agreed. “Except maybe that battleaxe of a matron. Can’t imagine she’d have anywhere else to be anyway.”

Mary’s lip twitched. “Can’t make assumptions,” she rebuked, “though I haven’t heard Bellemont once mention any sort of holiday plans. Or family. Or friends.” She frowned. “Here, at least take your sleeping pill, will you?” Rhoda obeyed in response to Mary’s coaxing. “Honestly, now that I think about it, Bellemont may well spend the holidays here on the wards. That certainly won’t make things any cheerier for the patients.”

“Won’t be cheery for them anyway,” Rhoda noted. “Doesn’t matter how many decorations you put up or even if Saint Nicholas himself arrives. A hospital’s a miserable place to be for Christmas. Glad I’ll be long gone! No offense to you, miss. Got nothing against you, ma’am. Wish I could I say the same for my neighbors.” She gave a rueful nod to the door. By sheer mischance Rhoda Bisbee occupied the room directly opposite that of Patty Hagen who was widely considered the bane of St. Stephen’s for hospital workers and fellow patients alike.

“Nurse Grey!” A harsh voice ripped in from the doorway. There stood an imposing middle-aged woman with silver-lined hair and a permanent angry furrow on her brow.

“Yes.” Mary turned around, wondering how long the matron had been standing there.

“Why are you here lollygagging when you have other rounds?” Matron demanded.

“I was just leaving,” Mary answered and exchanged a wry look with Rhoda. “At least take the daily vitamins the dispensary sent you,” she added as she stepped out of the door. She ruefully reflected how one of the things she missed most about district nursing as opposed to working in a hospital was the greater autonomy and independence the job afforded her. And she never missed it more than when she was dealing with Matron.

“Miss Grey,” Matron addressed her icily. “It is our job here at St. Stephen’s to treat the patients, not to befriend them!”

“But surely there’s no harm in getting to know them a bit?” Mary suggested. “Might make it all the easier to treat them, actually.”

“Humph!” Matron sniffed. “I expect that sort of nonsense from younger nurses, but by your age, Miss Grey, I’d think you ought to know better. Think what kind of example you’re setting Miller here.” She gestured toward Student Nurse Miller who had been listening in on the whole exchange.

Ginny Miller was not even twenty years old and still training to be a full nurse. Her headscarf was always a bit awry, and she perpetually seemed out of breath. She was something of a klutz, truth be told, and Matron had made no bones about her opinion that Miller would never make it as a full nurse. Mary was more sympathetic to Miller, remembering her own difficult training years, but even she harbored some doubts on occasion as to whether the girl was truly cut out for the profession. Most weren’t: the pressure of the job acted on the soul like a cider press on apples. Miller’s interest in nursing purportedly began after a street accident left her injured for a while. Mary, though, suspected Miller was one of the many women who took up nursing not so much out of any particular calling but because it was one of the very few professions open to them. Many such women, in Mary’s experience, would have been happier in other careers—and their patients might have been better served by professionals who actually wanted the job. More than a few of Mary’s old classmates at the Queen’s Institute for Nurses had by now left the profession for marriage, and it was Mary’s decided opinion Miller was likely to be another such casualty for the profession. If and when that day came, Mary would heartily give Ginny Miller her best wishes.

Mary attended to her other rounds, including a recovering tonsillectomy patient and a regal old lady with a chest infection, before being flagged down by a desperate Dr. Tennant for assistance with their charity patient and terror of the ward. Patty Hagen was a wee little Irishman, not much taller than Mary, who reminded her unaccountably of a leprechaun. Not so much in stature but in terms of malicious character. In his youth, he’d been quite the lady-killer with his bright-blue eyes and curly brown locks. The locks were now grey, and years of dissipation had robbed his face of any beauty it had once possessed. The eyes, though, remained as blue as ever, and he trained them on people with a gaze as alert as it was malevolent. He’d been ill a long time and most expected him to have died already, but he clung to life out of sheer mulishness.

Patty was notorious for possessing a mouth to make a sailor blush, which he used to curse out anyone who ever entered his room. He’d been known to make lewd comments while receiving sponge baths and had thrown his breakfast oatmeal at his unfortunate server’s head. Many of the nurses now refused to attend him at all. Mary was one of the few who could handle him. In part, because at their very first meeting she had reminded him that she not only kept a scalpel on her person but also controlled his pain medication. It was not perhaps a strategy that Florence Nightingale would have approved of, but it did the job.

The latest trouble had begun with the discovery that Patty had somehow had a bottle of whiskey smuggled in. Dr. Tennant was a perfectly nice man—for a doctor at any rate—and he knew his anatomy all right. But as Mary had noticed in the past, he was somewhat lacking in the fortitude required for dealing with the more aggressive patients. Too often Dr. Tennant cowered in corners when he needed to be cracking a bullwhip. It had been up to Mary to wrest the whiskey bottle out of Patty’s hands as he let out a string of curses in Gaelic. On the floor lay an upturned tray with the meal splattered about the tiles, for Patty was no fonder of hospital grub than Rhoda. Even though he certainly needed more meat on his bones.

“Shall I go get Mr. Hagen his nightly sleeping pills?” Mary suggested at last.

“Yes, please do that!” Dr. Tennant agreed all too eagerly, and Mary left for the dispensary. First, though, she stopped at the staff room to lock up the whiskey bottle for the rest of the shift.

“What do you have to put a wicked drunk Irishman to sleep?” she asked the fair-haired and apple-cheeked Miss Rowlands who clucked her tongue.

“Patty’s been at it again, has he?”

“Where does he even get the whiskey from?” Mary wondered. “He has no visitors or friends of any kind. He must have bribed one of the porters or something.”

“You know”—Miss Rowlands tapped her chin—“sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to just let him drink himself to sleep.”

“Possibly,” Mary agreed, “but I can’t trust he wouldn’t just drink himself to death!”

Miss Rowlands nodded in commiseration as she handed Mary the sleeping pills.

By the time Mary had returned to Patty’s room, Tim the attendant was mopping up the floor.

“Where’s Dr. Tennant?” she asked him.

“Said he had to attend to other patients,” Tim answered as Patty cackled.

“I’m sure he did,” Mary muttered. After much struggle, during which she all but threatened to shove the pills directly down his throat, Patty finally downed his medicine.

“Won’t do me any good, these pills,” he grumbled. “Even when I take them, I still can’t sleep. Now if ye gave me a wee bit more of that good morphine of yours,” he wheedled. Patty had been on a morphine for a while and like most patients had developed a taste for it. Unlike most patients, however, he had tried hobbling out to the hall to grab more off the medical cart, and it had taken the combined efforts of Mary, Nurse Charters, and Dr. Owens to return him to his room as Tennant watched anxiously from the hall.

“No.”

“Bitch!” Patty pronounced.

“Yes, I am,” she announced with pride, and Patty gave a coarse laugh.

“No wonder a bonnie lass like you isn’t married. Don’t know any man who could handle your tongue.”

“I could not agree more.”

She left to get back to her other rounds before Matron said anything. But first she made a point of pouring the contents of the whiskey bottle down the drain in the staff room.

“Seems a shame, doesn’t it?” Dr. Owens walked in as she did so. “Getting rid of perfectly good drink like that.”

“We can’t have it on hospital grounds,” Mary noted. “Besides, Patty might find it again.”

“So wasteful!” Dr. Owens shook his head.

The night wore on and on. Mercifully the patients by this time were all asleep. Not just the patients either. At one point, Mary found Tim sprawled in a chair snoring. At first, she tried waking him by clearing her throat as loudly as possible. When this had no effect, she tapped him on the shoulder, first lightly and then with increased force until a startled Tim came to.

“Wasn’t asleep!” he squawked loudly. “Just resting my eyes a minute.”

“Of course,” Mary replied with a straight face. “But you better get a move on before Matron sees.”

Tim scurried off. Staff did that a lot on graveyard shifts when the wards were quiet. Mary had done it herself in her student days. Yes, in theory, staff should always be awake, but in practice, a lot of people were given ridiculously long shifts, and they needed sleep.

They also needed food. Which was why Gladys from the kitchens personally visited the staff room with fortifications. “This should keep you all going,” she stated as she presented them with pitchers of coffee and sandwiches galore. When one imagines a cook, the picture that comes to mind is invariably that of a bluff but jolly individual, likely to be plump if not outright stout. Gladys, however, was lanky with anemic coloring. Some uncharitable persons claimed her almost sickly appearance was the result of consuming too much of her own food. Fortunately for the staff of St. Stephen’s, sandwiches were a simple enough foodstuff that even Gladys couldn’t ruin them. Mary and the others gobbled them all up eagerly.

At one point, Mary and Nurse Charters even found time to do a crossword puzzle together while Matron was otherwise occupied with paperwork.

“All right. Latin American country with eight letters, second letter A…” Nurse Charters frowned.

“Try Paraguay,” Mary suggested.

“That fits!” Charters happily filled it in with a pencil. For while some people dared to do crosswords in pen, Charters was all too aware of her limitations. “Now—famous trickster, nine letters?”

“Harlequin?” Mary guessed.

“Right again! My lord, Nurse Grey, you are good at puzzles,” Charters spoke admiringly. “Have you ever considered entering one of those contests?”

“Not the kind of puzzle I’m most interested in.” Mary thought wistfully of her detection days.

“Huh?” Nurse Charters looked confused, and Mary realized she’d inadvertently spoken aloud. “Oh, by the way,” Charters went on, “did you hear about Mr. Ballard?”

“The sixty-five-year-old banker with the pneumonia?” Mary recalled. “But he got better so we sent him home.”

“He died!” Charters informed her.

“No!” Mary gasped.

“It’s true. I ran into his wife on the street the other day. Said he’d appeared to be doing fine, taking all his pills, but then one day just fell asleep and didn’t wake up. Poor thing was beside herself.” Charters shook her head sadly.

“I wonder what happened? What made him take a turn for the worse like that?”

“Who knows?” Charters shrugged. “It may be 1938, but there’s still so much about life and death we don’t know, isn’t there? For all we know, he may have been helped along with a pillow over the face or the like. Happens with some of those older folks, you know. Relatives get tired of waiting.”

This was a fascinating topic which Mary would have enjoyed exploring further, until she looked at the clock.

“Look at the time!” she exclaimed. “I have to make my rounds again and check on everyone. So do you.”

Charters rose from her chair with a sigh. Mary suppressed a smile. Charters wasn’t a bad nurse, really, but Mary had noticed she tended to coast a bit unless prompted. There were whispers of past involvement between Charters and the dashing Dr. Owens who, even though he was pushing forty, was a most attractive man. But any romance there had come to naught—as, from the gossip Mary had heard, was frequently the case for Dr. Owens and his workplace entanglements.

“Always seems a shame, don’t it?” Charters said. “Disturbing folks in their sleep.”

“Not if you do it right,” Mary told her firmly. “Besides, do you really want to let Matron catch you sliding off?”

The word “Matron” acted like a hot poker and sent Charters bustling off on her rounds.

As Mary went about the ward, she was almost surprised to see how quiet it all was. Everyone was doing fine. Even the devilish Patty Hagen was, for a change, perfectly quiet. Mary had only one last patient to check on: Rhoda Bisbee. Carefully, she crept into Rhoda’s room so as not to wake her, but Rhoda didn’t stir. Good. She was getting her rest. Then Mary frowned. Rhoda was lying very still indeed. And Mary saw no signs of breathing. With a measure of alarm, she decided to check Rhoda’s pulse. She put her fingers to Rhoda’s neck. Not only was there no pulse, but the skin was ice cold.

Rhoda Bisbee would not be going back to her bakery ever again. Nor would she ever celebrate another Christmas. She had clearly been dead for some time.

Mary walked quietly down the hall. Dr. Tennant was engrossed in conversation with Dr. Owens who was forming an hourglass figure with his hands.

“Splendid figure. And pneumatic too! Very pneumatic. Eh?” He looked at Mary inquisitively.

“Miss Bisbee is dead. I need a doctor to certify it.”

The two men looked at each other.

“Your turn, Tennant,” Owens argued. “I did the last one.”

Tennant grudgingly followed Mary to Rhoda’s room and examined the body.

“Death confirmed,” he pronounced with a sigh. “Gone for hours clearly. Looks like she had a cardiac episode in her sleep. Probably never felt a thing.”

“But she was only here to recover from an appendectomy!” Mary objected. “How could that have triggered a heart attack?”

“Appendicitis doesn’t preclude heart trouble,” Tennant pointed out. “She’s probably had issues with her ticker for years. Just a spot of bad luck it happened to give out here. Have a gurney sent up to take the body to the morgue. Is there any family to notify?”

“There’s a niece. Lizzie.”

“I’ll be the one to notify her then. God, I hate this part of the job,” he muttered, twisting his finger through his hair at a rate that would soon make him bald.

Mary hesitated a moment, then spoke up. “Dr. Tennant, are you sure?”

“Sure of what?”

“That this was just a heart attack? Nothing else?”

“Of course I’m bloody sure!” Tennant snapped. “What else could it be possibly be? Except maybe a stroke?”

Mary didn’t answer but simply left to call out time of death.

“Oy there!”

She heard the unwelcome voice of Patty Hagen cry out and turned with a sigh to see him now out of bed and leaning up against the doorway.

“Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping right now?” Mary asked crossly.

“I told you I can’t sleep a wink without me whisky or morphine,” Patty retorted. “Now what’s going on? Did that other lady die or something?” He widened his eyes at Mary’s expression. “She did?” He let out a low whistle. “Well, I’ll be buggered!”

“Please return to your bed,” Mary hissed. “Before you wake up the entire ward.”

Patty grumbled but obeyed, much to Mary’s relief. Matron soon came along, just as Tim and another attendant wheeled the gurney out. “Lost another one, have we?” She shook her head. “At least it was quiet this time.”

“Yes, it was,” Mary echoed thoughtfully. Hospitals, by definition, are places where people die all the time. Rhoda Bisbee was by no means the first person Mary had seen die or even the first person at St. Stephen’s. And as deaths go, Rhoda’s had indeed been a peaceful, even gentle, one. Nor was it at all unheard of for patients to survive perfectly routine surgical procedures, then have unexpected complications. Mary had seen it happen plenty of times before; the universe, she knew all too well, was quite unfair.

So why then did she feel so uneasy? Perhaps because Mary had come in contact over the years with an inordinate number of persons who’d died from unnatural means as well. And a voice inside her head was telling her that she had inadvertently stumbled upon another one.

This voice refused to be silent during the rest of her shift that night. When morning finally came and Mary was relieved, she went straight home.

“Hello, beautiful!” Harriet greeted her with a kiss on the cheek while Ahab rubbed himself against her ankles and howled. “He misses you when you’re gone, you know,” she commented as Mary scooped him up into her arms.

“Does he?” Mary asked as Ahab started aggressively rubbing his face against hers.

“Quite. He waits by the door and cries. I have to say it’s a little unflattering from my perspective,” Harriet noted. “He obviously considers me a poor substitute!” She chuckled, then caught a glimpse of something in Mary’s face. Like a switch had been turned, bemusement shifted to worry. “God, was it a rough night?”

“You might say that.”

“Poor baby! You know it’s really a shame how they keep giving you the night shifts.” Harriet frowned. “You should demand more regular hours. Or find another nursing post.”

It was a long and familiar argument, and Mary was ready with an answer. “They really do need me where I am now. But I promise I’ll look into other options in the new year.”

“Hmmm.” Harriet gave her a skeptical glance followed by a sigh. “Fine. But for now at least, you’d better run along to bed. You need your rest.”

Once Mary had switched to a nightgown and slipped under the covers, she was joined by a purring Ahab. But sleep didn’t come. That wretched little voice would not be quiet, and Mary realized there was only one way to shut it up. She crawled out of bed, earning her an indignant yowl from Ahab in the process.

Much to her relief, Harriet had already left the flat, having an early morning appointment with the local refugee center. In the last year or so, Harriet had decided that being an heiress, while highly enjoyable, wasn’t sufficient and that she should have some other form of occupation. Owing in no small part to her friendship with Franz Shaefer—whom Harriet quite liked even if she was adamant Mary shouldn’t be working with him—she had become interested in the plight of Jewish refugees from the Continent. As the Third Reich’s territory grew and grew, swallowing up Austria and the Sudetenland, the swell of refugees became a veritable tide. Thousands of Jewish persons went to Shanghai and another thirteen hundred to the Philippines. They knocked on the proverbial doors of any country who might take them. Including Great Britain.

Great Britain was less than welcoming. Much of the British public felt they had plenty of problems of their own without taking in a lot of a lot of sickly, impoverished, homeless persons who didn’t even speak English. The country was struggling with high unemployment as it was without a bunch of desperate foreigners to compete with. Security concerns abounded; some of the so-called Jews in question, particularly the German ones, might be foreign spies. Other more suspect types brought up pressing geopolitical concerns. It was imperative the British Empire maintain good relations in the Arab world, particularly within the Middle East. Admitting too many Jewish persons to England might well inflame things in Palestine and bring on further tensions throughout the region.

So, it was hard going for anyone trying to bring Jewish émigrés to England—or anywhere else for that matter. But one important victory had been made. The British Government finally gave the go-ahead to bring a number of child refugees into the country, charity for children always being an easier sell than charity for adults. After all, children were less likely to be spies, or to compete with native born workers for jobs anytime soon. They were even less alarming to the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, parents across mainland Europe were increasingly frantic to get their children out. They sent their children abroad to any friends or family who would take them. Those who didn’t have foreign friends or family got creative. For months, British newspapers had featured advertisements from families on the Continent pleading for someone to take in their offspring.

“FERVENT prayer in great distress. Who would give a Home to a grammar school scholar aged 13: healthy, clever, very musical.”

“My God,” Harriet had said when she’d come across one such ad posted alongside the listings for radio programs. “How desperate would you have to be? To send your child off to total strangers in a foreign land not knowing if you’d ever see them again?” Her eyes were haunted as she spoke.

“It’s truly a great thing you and the organization are doing,” Mary told her sincerely. “You are answering these parents’ prayers.”

The first shipment of two hundred children, though, consisted of orphans. Specifically, they’d been occupants of a Jewish orphanage destroyed during the Kristallnacht. The immediacy of their plight had captured public sympathy, and they had arrived on December 2nd. Harriet and her organization were preparing for another upcoming shipment on the 9th.

It also meant that Mary had the apartment to herself with no fear of being eavesdropped on for the telephone call she had to make.

She dialed the old, familiar number with a mixture of trepidation and excitement. On the third ring, it was answered by a sleepy, German-accented voice.

“Yes?” Shaefer asked.

“It’s me.”

“Miss Grey!” Shaefer needed no further identification, and his voice suddenly sounded far more alert. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Mary saw no point in beating around the bush.

“I think I’ve got another murder for you.”