“That is a word used in condescending jest,” she said. “It is a taunt thrown at us by the Americans, and by the shortsighted editors of our own Daily Mail.” Saying this, she gazed down onto the front row and gave a look of extreme chilliness to one of the assembled reporters. “They say we are ‘suffragettes’ because we play at revolution. I say we are not playing at all, and that this is no game. I say, rather, that we are perfectly serious as to our aims, and that we are perfectly serious as to the means required to achieve them.”

At this, the room exploded in a volley of bitter shouts. Unspeakable insults were lobbed back and forth across the hall. The woman in white jumped to the lectern, where she banged her gavel upon the wood again and again, to little use. Millicent Fawcett did not so much as flinch amid all the commotion. She stared out at the crowd, straightbacked and still. Yet Arthur saw something in her eyes, even from as far away as he sat. There was a sadness. Some sense of opportunity lost, perhaps. This was not the meeting for which she had hoped.

Within a few moments, the room had settled down. The two speakers continued their debate, one after the other for an hour. Their points did not change, and their opinions seemed only to have hardened. Though they fought on the same side, as far as Arthur was concerned, the gap between them grew as the hour wore on. Millicent Fawcett remained ever calm and professional, while Arabella Raines allowed herself a greater range of emotions on the stage. Neither granted the other an inch. Only at the very close, in her final statements, did Millicent Fawcett remind the house that despite the barbs flung between them, they were united in their pursuit of women’s suffrage. The crowd seemed united only in their disapproval of her gracious attempt at conciliation.

“The suffragists quarrel like the House of Atreus,” said Arthur after the speakers had finished. Though the event had concluded, few of the attendees seemed eager to leave. They milled about in small packs, sharing their opinions in hushed tones. “Mrs. Fawcett appears to preside over a divided kingdom. But from what the tattooist told us, I’d wager that our girls were in the anti-Fawcett camp. That they were among the more radical suffragettes.”

“I agree,” said Bram. Both men kept their faces close together, so as to avoid submitting their costume disguises to unwanted scrutiny. “Let us follow Mrs. Raines and see where she is headed. For if Sally had compatriots among these ladies, they would certainly have been in Mrs. Raines’s camp.”

Arthur and Bram maneuvered through the crowd toward the stage. A few feet before it, they spied Arabella Raines holding court over a dozen young suffragists. The two huddled by the wall, near Arabella and her associates. They discussed it, and neither felt that engaging a group of real women in conversation was a prudent course of action.

Eventually Arabella Raines, with another girl in tow, headed toward the front door. Without speaking, Bram and Arthur began to pursue the women. They pressed through the crowd after them, which was slow going, as half the women in the hall reached over to shake Arabella’s hand or stopped to give her an approving smile.

Arabella’s friend, who mingled beside her, was quite small. Arthur thought that the crowd threatened to pour over her like a wave. The girl moved about in quick, nervous motions. Her black hair was falling out of her bonnet and over her ears, while her tiny nose seemed to twitch whenever she spoke. She reminded Arthur of a field mouse.

Just before they left the main hall for the lobby, Arabella and her small friend took a sharp left. They opened a door and went inside, closing it behind them. And it wasn’t until Arthur had finally pressed his way up against it that he saw the letters stenciled on the wooden door. “W.C.,” it read. With the addendum “Ladies” printed underneath.

“Oh, dear,” said Arthur. “Perhaps we should-”

“Oh, come off it, Arthur,” said Bram. “Would you like to find your killer or not?” Bram pushed past Arthur and opened the door to the ladies’ powder room. Arthur looked around, instinctively regarding this as an unholy act. When no one gave him the slightest bit of notice, he gulped a deep breath and followed in behind Bram. He felt as he were trespassing upon sacred ground.

Inside, Arthur’s boots made a heavy clap against the tile floor. Bram hadn’t been able to find a pair of ladies’ shoes that fit his massive feet, so Arthur had worn a dress that touched the floor in order to cover up his men’s boots. But it had never occurred to him that his boots were so much louder than ladies’ flats.

The women’s W.C. in Caxton Hall was the very image of Dutch cleanliness. Three flushing water closets were separated by dark wood along the right wall. The tiles spread from the toilets to a sink on the left. Of all the public restrooms Arthur had been in, this was by far the most sanitary. Even Bram, who managed his own theater and its rest areas, seemed impressed.

At the sink, Arabella had removed her bonnet and adjusted her hair in the mirror. She turned to Arthur and Bram, nodded at them politely, and returned her gaze to the mirror. She seemed not to give either of them another thought.

A flush from one of the water closets signaled the presence of Arabella’s friend. Bram walked into the far closet and shut the door behind him. Arthur was unsure what to do. He wanted to stay close to these women, to hear what they said to one another, and yet he couldn’t just stand there staring, could he?

Arthur found his solution near the sink. Two comfortable chairs had been set out, most likely for ladies who needed a place to sit and collect their breath when their corseting grew too tight. Arthur sank into one of the chairs and gave a dramatic sigh. He fanned himself with the sleeves of his frock. Though he was putting on a bit of a show, he had to admit that this clothing did exhaust the wearer. If the day hadn’t yet convinced him of the merits of women’s suffrage, it had certainly convinced him of the justness of the movement for Rational Dress.

Arabella’s mousy friend exited her water closet and moved toward the sink.

“Oh, Emily,” said Arabella to her friend, “I’m to join Dot and those Manchester girls for a late supper. I do believe they’re plotting something grand for their home town. Care to join us?”

“Thank you, no,” said the mousy girl, now revealed to be named Emily. “I left some work unfinished at home, before I came here. I should return to it.”

“A few stitches of knitting?” said Arabella with a laugh.

“Yes,” said Emily through a grin. “Some knitting.” With that, Emily placed her right foot up on the resting chair next to Arthur’s. She lifted her skirt above her knee. Arthur tried to seem uninterested while she adjusted the straps on her garters. Her stocking was white, and quite thin. Arthur could practically see straight through it. He picked a spot on the wall across from him and held his gaze on it. It wouldn’t do if she saw him staring. She pinched at her stocking, trying to shift it across her beautiful, pale leg. She moved her knee from left to right as she shimmied the stocking, and the motion hiked her skirt farther up her thigh. Arthur was becoming quite distracted.

He lost track of the spot along the far wall and let his eyes drift to Emily’s exposed thigh. He saw her muscles tighten as she leaned her weight into her leg. His eyes traveled down to her dimpled knee, which seemed to pucker out as her leg bent further. His gaze fell to her sleek shin and then around to the long back of her smooth leg and the black splotch upon it. He stared closer. It was a tattoo of a three-headed crow.

Arthur gave a start and almost fell off his chair. Both women immediately turned their heads to him.

“Pardon,” he said in his best female voice. “Dizzy.” He was trying to minimize his word count, so as to lessen their opportunity to detect the masculine undercurrent to his speech.