The dear, dead days before direct dial

[nineveh_uk]

Following on from antisoppist’s recent post on whether Peter Wimsey enjoyed his job in advertising in part because it gave additional opportunities for stalking running into Harriet leads me to a further question:

when Peter rings up Harriet’s flat for the first time in Gaudy Night, how did he get her phone number?

Harriet has just been abroad for 18 months. Peter knows she is back because she’s been mentioned in the Times*. She has recently returned to a new flat, and a new telephone number. I think we can assume that the new number is not in the phone book on the grounds that even if she weren’t ex-directory**, which I’d expect her to be given that if she can’t avoid nasty letters from strangers she doesn’t want nasty phone calls as well, there hasn’t been time for the number to enter a new book in the few weeks in which she’s been in London again.

A quick search of the internet has not been especially fruitful, but the Daily Mail tells me that directory enquiries started with the first telephone service, so that would have been an option, except that Peter doesn’t know Harriet’s new address (she tells him that she has moved flat in answer to his comment that she has a new phone number), and if the books were being used we’re back to the original problem of her not being in them.

So how did he get the number so quickly? Would the operator have sufficient local knowledge to put him through to Miss Vane, newly living in a Bloomsbury flat at an unknown address? Has he phoned the host of the literary party, or got Sally Hardy to do so? Has he phoned Harriet's agent with an excuse, or is that too embarrassing? As Parker lives round the corner, has he got him to make an official enquiry?

I am assuming that he didn’t in fact see her at Ascot, have her trailed home, and only waited for the paper to give him an excuse for knowing she was back, or got whatever border agency there was at the time to report...

*As Bunter’s duties including reading the paper and picking out notable articles, one can only imagine what he was thinking as he marked that particular column in black ink.

**Assuming that to be an option at the time.

Comments

[serriadh]

How much of an excuse would he need to get her number from her agent? Or how unscrupulous would we expect Peter to be? (Considering that he's ringing her up when she's gone abroad and then moved flat without giving him either the address or phone number, he should have guessed she's not that keen for him to be in touch.)

I wouldn't be surprised if Notable Detective Lord and Well-Known "Friend" of Harriet Vane called up her agent and said. 'Oh dear me, so dashed silly of me, forget my monocle if it wasn't screwed in, but I can't seem to find Harriet's new phone number, what, and was rather hoping she'd be able to take me to [restaurant/show] this ev'ning. Don't suppose you could help out a silly fellow, could you?' And the agent handed over the number like a meek little lamb.

[edited because I clicked send too soon]

[antisoppist]

If "By the way you have changed your telephone number" isn't a way of telling her that he has ways of tracking her down no matter what she does (which would not be conducive to asking her out), it sounds accusatory and slightly miffed, which I take as implying he has just rung the old one and found she wasn't there.

I'm inclined to think it's a helpful telephone exchange operator but my knowledge of operators comes from my grandmother's tales of a small village where everyone knew everyone else and the operator knew everybody and possibly London didn't work like that. Unless the new tenant of her old flat gave him the number (would the new tenant have her number and would they give it out to stray gentlemen callers?)

Also Harriet doesn't answer "yes, how the hell did you find out what it is?"

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Asked mutual friends, perhaps (asking Marjorie Phelps to make enquiries?). I imagine most of Harriet's friends would have wanted to preserve her privacy, but some might well have been misguidedly romantic enough to pass on the information.

[helenajust.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly sure that Directory Enquiries would have been able to provide the number for Miss Harriet Vane without needing to know her address - it's an unusual name, and there were very few subscribers in those days. I can remember being able to get numbers very recently without knowing the address as long as there weren't two people with the same name. (I'm going back to just before they started charging for it.)

I see your point about Harriet's being ex-directory, but I'm guessing that nuisance phone calls would have been unusual precisely because the operator connected all calls before direct dial, and therefore would have known who was calling (or at least from which number). (Plus the type of person who writes anonymous letters might feel a phone call was too personal.)

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Given Harriet's somewhat - ahem - conflicted feelings about Peter, I wouldn't put it past her to have mentioned her new number more than once to a talkative mutual acquaintance (not Marjorie, I hope - I want Harriet to be tactful where Marjorie's concerned) without ever admitting consciously to herself that the information might mysteriously filter through to him.

Although I admit that directory inquiries is the much more likely option.

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

She would have been in a Kelly's Directory (or equivalent) for the area - they listed entire streets by name, occupation and phone number. I've played with the Cambridge version and have yet to spot a break indicating someone had been omitted...

[auntyros.livejournal.com]

Might he have phoned the old number and the new residents there have been able to give him the new number? A bit like forwarding mail. I have no idea whether people did this, but it seems plausible.