She had been told that a lady there was in urgent need of a travelling companion willing to stay on as house-help when the destination was reached. It sounded promising, and Lisa was full of hope as she gave her name at the reception desk. On this July day she had been ten months at Madame Ruby’s and she longed to get away from the laundry tubs quite apart from any other reason. “You are expected, Miss Shaw,” the reception clerk informed her. “Room 10.” Lisa went up the red-carpeted staircase, a mirror on the wall reflecting her neat appearance. She wore a new dress she had made of sprigged blue cotton with a band of trimming around the ankle-length hem, a straw sailor hat adorning her pinned up pompadour hair-style. Eagerly she traversed the corridor and found the door she was seeking. She knocked and was told to enter. Stepping into the room, she barely had time to register that whoever had spoken was nowhere to be seen when she received a savage push in the back that sent her staggering for-ward.
