Day Twenty-Eight - Friday, September 4
League HQ
Still no real success in investigating the Prufrocks, though Lord Peter (he insists on being called that and not 'Lord Wimsey') reported today that he's all but got the organization willing to hire a girl operative of his as a secretary. I wish him luck with that. Prufrock Shipping is wrapped up as tightly as the location of a miner's lucky strike, and they've got a lot more to lose by letting other people in on the secret.
Yes, I have been going through the public records that I've been able to find about the company. I realize that we've already got Lord Peter and Cranston on the case, but one more day of sitting around reading without doing SOME kind of police work and I'd have exploded. A man can only tell himself so many times that reading children's books is serious research before he starts to feel like a fraud. It's not as if it were an official investigation, anyway. I don't tread on other Mounties' cases, but we're supposed to be in this investigation together. Another pair of eyes on the available documents couldn't hurt. It doesn't seem to have helped much, but it didn't hurt.
As it stands all that we know for sure about the Prufrocks is that the organization has roots in the Americas- Maine, specifically- and the South Seas. They hire all their own people internally and have nothing to do with union workers. They house their workers themselves. They do imports and exports, and it's devilishly hard to track down exactly who hires them. They invite no external investors and pay a great deal of money to ensure that their operation moves smoothly, with a minimum of interest or interference from the authorities.
Unfortunately, this isn't much more than what we learned after Glasgow. I'll keep looking when I can, but I'm unfortunately in a bit over my head when it comes to the financial and legal records of London. They do things differently in Canada.
Day Thirty - Sunday, September 6
League HQ
The halls of records aren't open on the weekends here, but the museums are. Since I'd never been to a proper museum I thought I'd see if Dorothy wanted to go visit the National Galleries today. This time, Miss Poppins came along for the trip.
Miss Poppins can take people into paintings with her.
I will consider writing more about the visit when my stomach settles. That's even worse to experience than it is to watch.
Day Thirty-One - Monday, September 7
League HQ
Just returned from the evening's jiu-jutsu lessons. I took a different route back than I had going there- I've been doing that this whole time, trying to learn what I can of the parts of the city that lie between Oxford Street and here. I haven't told the others in the League about the lessons, so imagine my surprise when I passed Hugo Danner on the way back... He looked about as surprised to see me as I felt to see him, but there was something else about the look of him, too. I got the feeling he didn't especially want anyone to know where he was, or what he was doing. He didn't carry himself like someone doing something dishonorable, though. Just something he didn't want known.
Far be it from me to go against a man's wishes when my own run the same way. I gave him just enough of a nod to let him know I'd seen him, and kept on going without stopping.