Tuesday 27 May 1930
Bessie and Milly spend the days talking with theatre managers – between them they know most of them – and eventually find one where they can get unsupervised access to the boiler-room late in the evening.
Audrey digs out meteorological records from the West Indies that “long, hot summer”; it got up to about 104°F.
Bessie, backed by Audrey’s money, rents a closed car.
Gertrude spends the day brewing up some herbal drugs to produce disorientation and unconsciousness; the substance will be fairly bitter.
The group does a test run, with Audrey as the semiconscious body, and things seem to go reasonably well; a second trinket loses its shine when the temperature reads about 105°F. (It’s still getting hotter, so whether that’s a longer exposure at a lower temperature isn’t clear.) Bessie ties up Audrey to make sure she’ll be able to release her once the ropes have taken on water in the boiler-room.