Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 151, Nos. 1 & 2. Whole Nos. 916 & 917, January/February 2018

“We have a name for her! She’s called Rosa. After her creator, Miss Rosa Blandford. And... yes... she’s the original sofa doll! The famous one! She’s been out of circulation for a long time. No one had any idea where she was. Well! As they say — you’ve come to the right shop! I’ve made quite a study of this lady over the years. Tracked her through the pages of the London Illustrated News and suchlike. Not easy — she’s never been put up for sale. I’ve discovered there’s a rather ghastly story attached to her. At least I’ve always thought it ghastly, but then I’m a man. Most women would find it very romantic, I think. Lost love, mysterious disappearances... the Dolly’s Curse, you might say! Hang on a minute, Ellie. This deserves a celebratory drink!”

He dashed off into the rear quarters and after an interval filled with clanks, chinks, whistles, and a chorus of “The Wassail Song” he returned with a silver punch jug, steaming delectably. “I’ve had this brewing on the stove in the back. For favoured customers... Old Parson Pinche’s Seventeenth-Century Receit. It’s called ‘Bishop’s Beard’ or ‘Shepherd’s Socks’... something like that. You’ll have to leave the car and I’ll walk you home. We can reel along down the hill together. But let’s do this in style! I’d be embarrassed to bring out the kitchen plastic in front of this lady.”

In great good humour, Tom selected three antique rummers from a shelf, wiped them on a linen napkin marked at £5, and set them out on the counter.

The hot punch was delicious, a traditional balance of sweetness and citrus fruit, of spices and brandy. Tom and I drank ours rather quickly and poured ourselves a second. Rosa sat curling a lip and politely ignoring the offering before her. “Milady only drinks lemonade,” I confided, joining in his game. There aren’t many men about these days who have the lightness of spirit to conjure up a dolly’s tea party at the end of a tiring day jousting with the great British public. Overbearing boors who consider their manhood in question if they don’t haggle brutally; women who flirtatiously trail impressive phrases in front of him: art gothique... art nouveau... art decorative... I’ve seen Tom’s face, inscrutable, as he watched objects he’d chosen, loved, and valued being stuffed into the backs of four-by-fours by oafs who didn’t know their arts from their elbow. I would always join Tom in one of his flights from reality. Even if we touched down in Wonderland.

“Rosa. It’s a lovely name. And was Rosa Blandford a real person? I don’t think you need to refer to your compendium to know that, do you, Tom?”

“Everyone in the trade knows her story! We all love a mystery. We’re eternally on a quest for that special long-lost object, from the Holy Grail down to Auntie Edna’s missing upper set.” He leaned to the doll, twirled an imaginary moustache, and addressed her confidentially in his dark-honey with a touch of gravel voice that oozes into a girl’s ear, setting her tympanic membrane a-quiver: “I say, Miss Rosa, would you mind awfully if I were to recount your intimate history right here in front of you? I’ll try to be discreet and spare your blushes!”

“She’s cool with that,” I said sharply as an antidote to his old-fashioned gallantry. “Let’s hear it. We’re listening.”

He started with the calculatedly inviting dip in the voice of a skilled storyteller: “Ladies — you’re to picture the glamour of the Governor’s Christmas Ball in Government House in Calcutta at the turn of the last century. The December nights are still warm and the ladies are dancing in diaphanous silken dresses. The men are overheating a bit in their starched white collars and tails or their scarlet uniforms. A lot of military men are there, paying attention to the shoals of young girls who’ve come over from England with what they unkindly called ‘the fishing fleet.’ Fishing for husbands, that is!

“But there’s one young girl who is not trawling her net in the water. She’s in the fortunate position of being already spoken for. Engaged to a handsome young cavalry captain on leave back home the previous year, she’s come out to join him in India. She’s wearing a fashionable ankle-length dress in gold which chimes with the colour of her flaxen hair, wound around her head like a crown. On a finger of her left hand she has an engagement ring. It’s a gold hoop studded all the way around with small diamonds. Like the girl who wears them, her things are tasteful, not showy. Nothing too bold. She is to be the wife of a lowly cavalry officer. In the regimented world of Indian society, she must know her place. But none, however hidebound by precedence, can disregard Rosa’s shining beauty.