London Lark
By JL Merrow
The first time I met Miss Pandora Piper, her what was to become the shining star of the Criterion and the darling of London society, she was in a right state, lying in the gutter with both legs broken and her head hanging off to one side.
“It’s proper criminal,” I told my gaffer, old Arthur the tinkerer, as folks call him, although it’s Mr Tunstall to the likes of you and me, “what the toffs’ll do to their playthings.”
Top notch goods, she was, fine featured and with soft ivory skin, so lifelike you’d almost have mistaken her for human, if it hadn’t been for the metal poking out of her poor torn limbs. Lying there abandoned in the gutter, like any other beggar what’s fallen on hard times. “It ain’t right,” I muttered.
“Now then, Hodgkins,” old Arthur said in t
