Never underestimate Dahling Alice

 

'Dahling Alice, this is all very well my deah, but is this really the right time to swan about, seducing all the neighbours, banging away at your ukulele, swathed in jewels and keeping a pet lion?'

'Yup.'

Anja and Clive know the obsession I have with the mystery surrounding the murder of Lord Erroll and how unspeakably dull and hectoring I can become when the subject is mentioned.

Well, I just finished another set of books and in one titled The Temptress by Paul Spicer it would appear that dahling Alice (de Trafford, de Janzé, née Silverthorne a.k.a. the fastest gun in Gare du North) was the one who done did it (are you paying attention Sherlock?) - portrayed with glazed and dirty elegance by Sarah Mills in White Mischief.  

In the past week I have been dissecting the book. She was riddled with madness and style, abandoned her children, adopted a baby lion, etc., etc., etc. . . . as the King of Siam was wont to say.  The writing is diligent, but dull, and its accuracy I am unable to vouch for, but The Temptress made for interesting and entertaining reading.  Let’s call it Kenyan Rashomon.

I think that in his book Vertical Land, Frédéric de Janzé painted the most intimate portrait of Alice.

Alas, the telling of her fascinating story was long overdue.  Perhaps a more intuitive author will write another someday. 

Ah well, while residing in my happy valley the urban hipsters in our reading circle, blood sugar low because they've just had double maths, have worked themselves into an indignant lather because they weren't born in Kenya – “It’s were all the action is!”

In the meantime I’m putting on Alice’s hat; park my derriere on a veranda, minus the lion cub, and shout at the houseboy to bring me Sundowners.

Thank you Anja.