When Pascale Auber is forced out of the airship of the evil Dr. Simpelstur, she finds herself rescued by a handsome Ruritanian diplomat, Theo von Hentzau. Pascale soon realizes that Theo is hiding something - something to do with the evil doctor, th...
It took me several minutes of skulking beside the newsstand before I was able to work up the initiative to ask for a day old copy of the Ladies' Dressing-Room Review. I needed to read the paper before I faced my boss, and I needed to see my boss before I made my way to the Ruritanian embassy. The flat-capped newsman laughed.
"You mean you have none left?" I asked.
"I mean that the young woman who drops off today's edition takes any left-overs from yesterday to be pulped," he said. "At five in the morning."
I looked at my feet. I would already be in trouble if my boss ever learned that I had missed reading Dahlia's article the day it came out. I would be in much, much more trouble if I did not read it at all.
I expect my emotions must have showed on my face, because the newsman advised, "You could try a library I guess, miss?"
I shook my head. No library in the city opens before 10:30 on a Thursday, and I had to be at the Ruritanian embassy for 11:00. "Which way did she go?"
"Who?"
"The woman from the Dressing-room Review, of course!" I demanded.
The man removed his hat to scratch his head. "West, I guess?" he gestured down the street, "But it was three hours ago and she was on a bicycle - you'll never catch her."
"Do you know where they pulp the papers?" I asked.
"No idea," the man replied.
I made a face, my brain racing. It occurred to me that any reputable newspaper prints the address of the editor's office somewhere inside the paper. And any sensible newspaper office keeps back issues. With any luck, going straight to the source would give me answers early enough that I would be able to read the paper and still have time to meet with my boss before my lunch at the embassy.
I exchanged a handful of coins for today's edition and hastily paged to the publication information. Then I was off.
~*~
The Ladies' Dressing Room Review has its offices in a dour, limestone building with white lintels and regularly-spaced, rectangular windows. It is in an old neighbourhood of narrow, winding streets near the old port. The main door, up a short flight of stairs from the roadway, boasts neither mechanical nor living doormen. The road itself is busy in the morning; I had to dodge a flight of delivery boys on their steam-powered velocipedes to cross the street in my attempt to make my way to the door.
I never made it. A decidedly human-powered bicycle nearly bowled me over, and I found myself once again eye-to-eye with the same cub reporter whom I had fed on Tuesday.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Dahlia!" I exclaimed.
Her machine canted over so she could stand with one foot on the pavement and one a pedal, she stared at me. "Oh no!" she said, "This is about the quote, isn't it?"
