The Man With Two Watches

The Rand Club was not the sort of place where a fourteen-year-old girl in a cotton dress was expected to ask questions at the front desk. The man behind the desk made this very clear with the kind of silence that has opinions in it.

Daphne had prepared for this. She had prepared for a great many things on the train from Shannon — the blue overnight train that smelled of coal and leather and the particular kind of excitement that comes from doing something you have been told not to do. She had a letter. She had her father's name. She had the name of a man with two watches who was always at the Rand Club on a Thursday.