CHAPTER I
THE ARRIVAL
I
The fog of November in its descent upon Laxton, one of London's busiest suburbs, had effaced the whole of Beaconsfield Villas, including the Number Five on the fanlight over the door of the last house but two in the row. To a tall girl in black on her way from the station this was a serious matter. She was familiar with the lie of the land in the light of day and in darkness less than Cimmerian, but this evening she had to ask a policeman, a grocer's boy, and a person of no defined status, before a kid-gloved hand met the knocker of her destination.
It was the year 1890. Those days are very distant now. Victoria the Good was on the throne of Britain. W.G. went in first for Gloucestershire; Lohmann and Lockwood bowled for Surrey. The hansom was still the gondola of London. The Tube was not, and eke the motor-bus. The Daily Mail had not yet invented Lord Northcliffe. Orville Wright had not made good. William Hohenzollern used to come over to see his grandmother.
