Birds of a Feather

As soon as they returned to the office, Maisie and Billy set to work, adding new information to the Charlotte Waite case map as well as reviewing other cases in hand. While Maisie was away from London, Billy would complete reports for two clients, in addition to his other duties. Issuance of a final report also meant submission of an invoice, and with clients tending not to pay “on the button,” as Billy observed, timely presentation of a final account was vital.

They worked together until six o’clock, when Maisie sent Billy home. For her part, Maisie would return to Ebury Place to prepare for the short visit to Kent. She had planned to leave early Saturday morning for the drive down to Chelstone. The next few days would be busy indeed: A letter had arrived from Dame Constance in the afternoon post, informing Maisie that, despite nursing a heavy cold, she would be delighted to see her again, and there was time to be spent with Maurice and with Lady Rowan before leaving for Camden Abbey. As she made her way back to Belgravia, Maisie added another task to her trip: Chelstone was only an hour or so from Hastings on the Sussex coast, and she had ascertained that Rosamund Thorpe had lived in Hastings.

Traffic was mercifully light as Maisie made her way to Ebury Place. As rain spattered across her windscreen, compounding the dregs of a yellowish-green smog, Maisie thought not of the work ahead, but of her father, Frankie Dobbs. Whenever she visited her him, he assured her, “Me? Don’t you worry about me, love. I’m awright, like a sheep in clover down ’ere.” But Maisie did worry, yet was ashamed that her concern had not led her to visit him more often.

She entered the house by the kitchen door. When the Comptons arrived back in town she would resume using the front door, which would once again be opened by Carter, the Comptons’ long-serving butler. And once again Mrs. Crawford, who had put off retirement for just one more year—to add to last year and the year before’s “one more year”—would be mistress of all she surveyed in the kitchen. Maisie would straddle two levels of household life and knew only too well that her good standing both upstairs and downstairs was was terrain to be negotiated with great care.

She placed her document case on the writing table in her sitting room and slumped down into the armchair by the fire, which was already burning brightly. Home. Was this home? Had she been too easily persuaded by Lady Rowan to reside at Ebury Place because she did not want to refuse the woman who had given her so much? When had she last felt truly at home?

Sighing, Maisie moved to draw back the long curtains and looked out at fog swirling around a streetlight. Soon the days would be longer and, she hoped, warmer. London’s smog would dissipate as coal fires were extinguished and hearths cleaned out for the summer. As she looked at the streetlight illuminating the twists and curls of fog in front of her, Maisie remembered the small soot-blackened terraced house in Lambeth where she had lived with her parents. With both parents, that is, until she was thirteen, when her mother died in Frankie Dobbs’s arms, her last words instructing him to do right by their girl. Her last true home, she remembered, had been with her father, until he had done his best for her by finding a place in service at the Ebury Place mansion of Lord and Lady Compton.

There was a knock at her door. Maisie called out, “Come in.”

Sandra opened the door quietly and smiled. “Good evening, M’um. Would you like supper in your rooms or in the dining room, M’um?”

Maisie smiled. She was M’um again, upstairs. Maisie checked her watch. Seven o’clock. A plan was forming in her mind, inspired by the prospect of an evening alone in her rooms. Though she could not identify a place that was now home, there was a person who was home, and Maisie acknowledged her yearning to be with him.

“Sandra, I wonder if you could pack me up something for me to eat in the car, perhaps a piece of pork pie, or a cheese sandwich—and a bottle of Vimto or something like that?”

“Oh, M’um, you aren’t going out in this, are you?” Sandra nodded toward the fog, which seemed to be growing thicker outside.

“I don’t think it will be any better first thing in the morning, do you? I’ll collect my supper on my way to the motor car. I just have to pack a few things, then I’ll come straight down to the kitchen.”

“Right you are, M’um. I’ll have it all ready when you come down.”

“Thank you, Sandra.”

Maisie edged the MG out of the mews behind Ebury Place and into the damp London night. She drove through south London carefully, making her way along the Old Kent Road, and on toward Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, and from there along narrow country lanes to Chelstone.

As Maisie left London behind, the smog gradually dispersed, leaving only a light rain to contend with. She uncovered the small wicker basket positioned on the passenger seat beside her, and reached for a sandwich. There was something soothing in this journey through the night, with only the flash of headlights as an occasional car passed. The engine rumbled confidently, and Maisie considered not only aspects of her own life that lately seemed to claim attention when she least expected such interruption, but the lives of Charlotte Waite and her women friends.

Keeping her right hand on the steering wheel and her attention on the road, Maisie reached out with her left hand to the basket again, took out a linen cloth, and wiped her hands and mouth. She reached for the bottle of Vimto and pulled the cork out with her teeth. Sandra had already removed the top and replaced the cork halfway to make it easier for Maisie. She took just a few sips, then set the open bottle carefully in the basket, using one hand to tuck a table napkin around it, to keep the bottle upright and within easy reach. She slowed down as rabbits scurried across the open road, requiring that she swerve around them as they froze in the beam of the headlamps.

At last she reached Chelstone. She drove first through the village, where the lights were still on at the Fox and Hounds, probably for the landlord to see by as he pushed a heavy broom across the flagstone floor, for it was well past last orders. Finally, she turned into the carriage sweep leading to Chelstone Manor, the gravel spitting and crackling under the weight of the MG’s tires. A few lights were on at the manor house. The Comptons—especially Lady Rowan—kept late hours. Maisie passed the Dower House, where Maurice lived, and turned left several yards along. The lane narrowed as she parked outside the Groom’s Cottage, and quietly took her bags from the car before tiptoeing along the path. And as she looked in through the latticed window, Maisie saw her father, illuminated by the mellow light cast by a single oil lamp, staring into the fire.

As flames reflected on the folds and furrows of his face, Maisie realized there was another reason at the heart of her reticence to visit Frankie as often as she might. Though still vital, he was now an old man, and she did not want to confront the truth of the matter: that the person who was home to her was in his twilight years and might be taken from her at any time.

“Oh, Dad,” whispered Maisie, as she ran to the back door and let herself into her father’s house.

She awoke the next morning to the smell of bacon cooking on the wood-fired stove in the kitchen below. As splinters of sunlight cast a morning glow across her counterpane, she leap out of bed, took her old woolen dressing gown from behind the door and, ducking her head so as to avoid the low beams, ran downstairs into the kitchen.

“Morning, Dad.”

“And a very good mornin’ to you, love.” Frankie Dobbs stood at the stove and turned two thick rashers of back bacon. “Two eggs or one? Collected them myself this mornin’, so they’re nice and fresh. None of your shop-bought nonsense, sittin’ in a warehouse for days before it gets to your plate.”

“One egg’ll be lovely, Dad.” Maisie poured tea for Frankie and herself from a brown earthenware teapot.

“I expect you’ll be off to see Dr. Blanche as soon as you’ve ’ad your breakfast, eh, love?”

Maisie looked up at Frankie, knowing that he expected her to leave, to go immediately to the house of her teacher and mentor. How many times had she spent a moment with Frankie only to seek Maurice’s company and counsel for hours? Though she had little time to spare, Maisie sat back in her chair.

“No, I don’t have to hurry, Dad. I thought we could chat until you go out to the horses.”

Frankie beamed at his daughter.

“Well, I’ve already been out once this morning,” Frankie looked the clock. “But I’d best go to check on the mare again after I’ve ’ad a bit of bacon and egg. I don’t like to leave ’er for long, not with the littl’un due any minute. I’m a bit tired this mornin’, to tell you the truth, love.”

“I’ve missed you, Dad,” said Maisie.

Frankie smiled, and slid a slice of bacon and two perfect fried eggs onto a warm plate, which he put in front of Maisie. “There you are, get that down you, love. That’ll set you up for the day.”

Maisie waited for her father to depart before she in turn left the cottage, taking the narrow path that led from the bottom of her father’s garden to the Dower House grounds. At the edge of Maurice’s garden, where the man who had been feted by the governments of France, Belgium and Britain for his services during the Great War now grew prizewinning roses, another gate led to apple orchards and paddocks beyond.

“Ah, Maisie, so very good to see you.” Maurice Blanche, now well into his seventies, clasped Maisie’s hands with his own veined and bony ones.

“And you, Maurice, and you.” Maisie held his hands tightly.

“Come, child, let us sit, and you can tell me why it is that you have come to see your old teacher.” Maurice led Maisie to the drawing room, took a pipe from a stand next to the inglenook fireplace, and pressed tobacco from a leather pouch into the bowl of the pipe. Maisie relaxed into a wing chair, and watched as he held a match next to the rim at just the right angle to the tobacco, and drew several times on the pipe.

“Now then, what is the case?” He threw the extinguished match into the cold fireplace and settled into his favorite leather chair.

Maisie told Maurice about being summoned to see Joseph Waite, and the search for his daughter Charlotte. She referred to the murders of Philippa Sedgewick and Lydia Fisher, and the suicide of Rosamund Thorpe, which she intended to look into. She immediately noticed the almost imperceptible response in Maurice’s eyes when Waite’s name was mentioned.

“Maurice, I have to ask—”

“You have no doubt seen my notes on Waite from so long ago.”

“I have. Can you tell me what happened? What caused you to break off communication? I couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t like you.”

Maurice drew several more times on his pipe, then looked at Maisie intently. “Joseph Waite, as you can probably tell, is a natural and decisive leader. He is essentially a good man but at times a hard man, a difficult man. He is generous with those in straitened circumstances whom he believes genuinely cannot help themselves. He is no stranger to hard work and demands hard work from others, which is then repaid accordingly. He is, in fact, the epitome of the self-made man.”

Maisie waited as Maurice drew again on his pipe. A “but” was imminent.

“As you will have seen from the notes, Waite was an interested and generous benefactor of my clinics in the poorer areas of east and southeast London. He gave immediately and unstintingly, but . . .” Maurice drew breath deeply and cupped the pipe in both hands, his elbows resting on the arms of the chair. “But he is a man who likes to be in control, or to at least believe that he is in control.”

“What happened, Maurice?”

“In short, he began to instruct me in the finer points of doing my job. That may seem harmless enough. However, his instructions revealed deep prejudices. He began to make demands regarding the type of people my staff could or could not serve at the clinics. He tried to stipulate the nature of illnesses or indispositions that we could and could not treat. The people who came to the clinics were human beings, and as a doctor I could not turn away one who was sick, whether a felon or a drunkard, though certainly those who abused their health were subjected to strong words of advice.”

Maisie was thoughtful as Maurice carefully composed the next part of his story.

“As with his shops, Waite had the habit of turning up at the clinics unannounced. I had always allowed access to benefactors. After all, seeing the work done on behalf of the poor encouraged further contributions from them. Few came. However, Waite was one of those who wanted to see his money at work. On the occasion in question—I was not there at the time—one of my staff was interviewing a girl. She was very young and with child herself, though at an early stage.” Maurice brushed some ash from his sleeve. “Those who helped at the clinic were instructed by me personally that our concern was for the health of the mother and her unborn child. We’d given refuge to young women in similar situations, or placed them where they would be cared for. They were never to be put in a position of having to give up a child.” Blanche shook his head. “The clinics are not large affairs, usually just two or three rooms, then a little extra space to store supplies. Though we do all we can to ensure confidentiality, Waite heard part of the conversation, rushed to judgment and gave the nurse and the young girl—already emotionally unstable—a piece of his mind. The girl ran away. I was alerted at the earliest opportunity and left Waite in no doubt that his money was no longer welcome.”

Relations between Maurice and Waite at the time must have been incendiary, thought Maisie. “What happened to the girl?”

Maurice sighed. “By the time my staff located her, she had already taken her problem to a back alley. She was rushed to the clinic again. It was too late. I did all I could to save her life, but she died clutching my hand.”

“Oh!” Maisie brought her hands to her mouth.

Maurice stood up and tapped tobacco from his pipe against the brick of the fireplace, emptying it into the grate. “Even from Chelstone, I am still very involved in the work of my clinics. All the more reason to ensure that the health of women and children is provided for and protected by those who are qualified for such a task. I also now ensure that no benefactor visits a clinic without my express permission. A gift is unconditional by its very nature. Waite brought his tendency to dominate, along with prejudices rooted in experience, into my clinic and, I believe, killed an innocent child. No—two innocent children. I refused later requests to accept funds from him. A difficult man, Maisie.”

They were both silent for several moments. Maurice suggested a walk to the orchard. Fortunately Maisie had dressed with such an excursion in mind, knowing Maurice’s maxim: “To solve a problem, take it for a walk.” Her dark brown trousers, fashionably wide, were complemented by brown walking shoes, an ivory linen blouse and a light-brown-and-cream Harris tweed jacket with a shawl collar and large square pockets at the hips.

They strolled through still-damp grass and trees laden with blossom buds that gave a promise of summer’s bounty, and they spoke of Maisie’s work, her challenges, and how she had fared in the year since Maurice formally retired and she had set up in business on her own. Finally, Maisie spoke of her worries about Billy.

“My dear, I believe you already know what is at the root of Mr. Beale’s erratic behavior.”

“I have my suspicions,” she confessed.

“How might you confirm them in such a way as to protect Billy?”

“First of all, I think I should visit All Saints’ Convalescent Hospital in Hastings. It’s where Billy was sent after being discharged from hospital in London. They should still have his medical records. The problem will be gaining access to them.”

“I think I can help, my dear. The physician in charge is known to me: He was one of my students at King’s College in London.”

“Maurice, I do believe you know everyone!” Maisie moved a low bough aside as they walked through an avenue of trees.

“Not quite, but my contacts are useful. I will telephone him prior to your arrival—when will you go?”

“This afternoon. I know they are open for visitors on a Saturday.”

“Good.”

“Of course, what I really need to do is find a way to get him to a doctor to do something about the continued pain in his leg.”

Maurice stopped. “Maisie, I sense that Billy has had enough of doctors. Sometimes people who have endured a chronic illness cannot face even a discussion with a doctor. And though I am a doctor, I can say that often there is good reason for such a reaction. We don’t have all the answers.”

“What do you suggest?”

“First, you must find out whether your suspicions are grounded. Then you must confront Billy. You know this already. But a confrontation of this sort is best followed by a plan, an idea, a lens through which the future can be viewed once the secret has been revealed. May I make a suggestion?”

“Oh, please.”

“I suggest that you bring Mr. Beale to the Dower House, where I would like him to meet a new acquaintance of mine.”

Maisie inclined her head. “He’s a German by birth, though he came to this country as a child. While he was interned during the war, he met a very interesting man, also a German. The man had developed a means of exercise and movement that helped maintain health in the camp: Even during the first flu epidemic in 1917, not one of those interned was lost. In fact most of those in the camp were released in a healthier state than before the war, despite being poorly nourished. The physical movements incorporated in the regimen have been used to rehabilitate the severely wounded with great success. My friend is a practitioner of the regimen.”

“Who is he?”

“Gideon Brown. After the war he changed his surname from Braun, and his Christian name from Günther to Gideon. It made life a little less difficult for him, given the manner in which those of German extraction were treated at the time. The man whose work he has followed now lives in America. His name is Joseph Pilates.”

Maisie smiled. “I’m glad that at least I have the bare bones of a plan now . . . But my first step is All Saints’. In fact, I may be able to kill two birds with one stone, as Rosamund Thorpe lived in the same area.” Maisie checked her watch. “Eleven o’clock. If I leave by noon, I should be there by half past one.”

“You’d better get along then, hadn’t you, Maisie? Remember to ask for Dr. Andrew Dene. I will have spoken with him by telephone before you arrive.”

CHAPTER NINE

Maisie reversed the MG out of the narrow lane onto the carriage sweep that led from the main gate to the manor house. As she drove slowly along the gravel road, Lady Rowan waved from the edge of the lawn where she was walking with Nutmeg and Raven, her two black Labradors, and a Welsh Springer Spaniel who answered to the name of Morgan. Though Lady Rowan walked with the aid of a silver-tipped cane, her posture gave the impression of youthfulness. She wore a tweed walking skirt, a brown corduroy jacket and a small fur scarf around her neck. Her ensemble was topped off by a jaunty brown felt hat, a single feather pinned to the band with an amethyst brooch. She waved again at Maisie, who slowed the car to a halt.

Maisie stepped from the MG. “Lady Rowan, how are you?”

“Hallo, Maisie, dear. So lovely to see you. How is the motor car running? Serving you well, I hope.”

“Oh, yes, very well indeed.” Maisie smiled warmly. “It’s never broken down, and goes very smoothly. I’m off to Hastings this afternoon.”

“Anything exciting, Maisie?” Before Maisie could respond, Lady Rowan held her hand up. “I know, I know, you can’t divulge the nature of your work. I never learn, do I? It’s just that you always seem to be involved with something so very intriguing!” Lady Rowan’s eyes crinkled to emphasize not a little envy at Maisie’s employment. “Mind you, I’ve had my day, Maisie, I’ve had my day.”

“No you haven’t, Lady Rowan. What’s all this I hear about breeding racehorses?”

“It’s most thrilling. Your good father and I have pored over breeding records. He is a most knowledgeable man when it comes to horses, so we expect to see the will to win in the eyes of this one! I confess I am beside myself with anticipation, which is why I am pacing back and forth across the lawn. Otherwise I would make a nuisance of myself in the stable.”

“Dad’s keeping an eye on the mare, but he said it could be a day or two yet.”

“When do you leave, Maisie? Will you come to see me before you go back to London?” Lady Rowan refrained from displaying the affection that would embarrass them both, but in truth she viewed Maisie almost as a daughter.

“I am here until tomorrow, Lady Rowan. Aren’t you coming back to London at the end of this week?”

“Hmmm. I confess, I’m tempted to stay at Chelstone until after Merriweather foals.”

“Shall I call on you when I get back from Hastings?”

“Yes, that would be lovely. Don’t let me detain you a moment longer. Come along, Nutmeg. Morgan, come here! Oh dear, it seems I’ve lost Raven again.”

Maisie laughed, took her seat in the MG, and continued down the driveway, then along the country lanes until she joined the main road for Tonbridge. The journey to Hastings was an easy one. She saw few vehicles as she cruised through the Weald of Kent, crossing into Sussex near Bodiam, where she could see parts of the old castle beyond the hop gardens.

She entered Hastings from the east, negotiating the narrow streets of the Old Town, which was still so much like a fishing village, in stark contrast to the development along the promenade toward St. Leonards, built up during Queen Victoria’s reign to cater for the town’s increase in popularity with day-trippers.

Her first stop would be a visit to All Saints’ Convalescent Hospital, a red-brick mansion on the Old Town’s East Hill. It commanded sun-filled views over the channel on a good day, only to be battered by wind and rain when the weather turned. It was just after one o’clock, she had estimated the journey exactly. Because it was such a fine day, Maisie decided to park the car along Rock-a-Nore, then take the path that led alongside tall wooden net shops where fishermen hung out their nets to dry. She would make her way to the East Hill via the Old Town’s small funicular railway, a carriage that took passengers from sea level to the upper lift station, with its castellated towers that each contained an iron tank filled with more than one thousand gallons of water to operate the water-balance lift. Once outside the station, visitors would set off along the cliffs, where they could enjoy the fresh, if sometimes biting, sea air. At the top Maisie would have just a short walk to All Saints’.

Having made her way past the shacks with counters where day-trippers bought small bowls of tasty jellied eels, whelks, or winkles, or strolled while lunching on fish and chips wrapped in newspaper, Maisie bought her ticket, and found that her companions on the ascent were four women clad in walking skirts, leather boots, and heavy pullovers; they were clearly prepared for a day’s hiking. She felt her stomach turn when the funicular began to move. As the carriage made its way up the cliff, Maisie wondered if Billy had used this means of coming down into the town when he had reached a point in his convalescence at which short excursions were allowed. She knew that he had met Doreen in Hastings. Had it been on her day off, perhaps, when each had gone with friends to the pier to listen to the band and drink sarsaparilla? She imagined Billy cracking jokes as Doreen blushed and turned away toward her group, then back again to smile in a way that was just a little coy. The carriage lurched again, and Maisie waited while the four women alighted first, maps flapping in the wind, one pointing toward the Firehills at Fairlight where out-of-work Welsh miners had been brought in to create a series of walking paths along the cliffs.

Seagulls whooped and called below her as she walked along the edge of the East Hill. From her vantage point she could see the rooftops below. The architecture revealed the history of the town, from beamed medieval hall houses with huts and fish smokers in the back, to Regency mansions, and brick two-up-two-down cottages built perhaps only sixty years earlier.

Maisie stopped once to look at All Saints’ Convalescent Hospital before setting out along the path lined with low trees and shrubs before it turned toward the broad front doors of the house. The route she had taken was infinitely more enjoyable than driving along the ancient streets that spiraled precariously up the hill. The building was laid out in an exact square and had been constructed of red brick and wood at the turn of the century. Its architecture was of the new style, with clean lines and a shallow roof. Some outbuildings had been added during the war when it was requisitioned for use as a military convalescent home. The owner had eventually sold the property to the local authorities, possibly to preempt compulsory purchase at a reduced price, and it was now used for all manner of convalescent cases though many of the patients were still old soldiers.

The door, constructed from a single substantial piece of wood, moved easily after Maisie turned the brass handle, opening into a large entrance hall with wooden floors and plain white walls. There were arched wooden beams above the staircase before her. A lift had been added to assist those who were unable to move themselves. Rubber strips ran along the floor in strategic places, minimizing slippage for invalids learning to walk again with caliper splints, crutches, or new artificial limbs. Despite vases of flowers and a lingering aroma of lavender furniture polish, if one turned quickly or took a deep breath, there was the unmistakable hospital smell of disinfectant and urine.

Maisie knocked on the frosted glass window of the porter’s office and was asked to wait while Dr. Dene was summoned.

“Miss Dobbs, delighted to meet you.” Andrew Dene began reaching out his hand when he was still three steps from the bottom of the staircase. “Maurice said to expect you here around one-thirty. Please.” They shook hands, and he indicated another door, which led to a long corridor. Though he had been one of the students who attended Maurice’s medical school tutorials, Maisie had expected someone far older. He seemed to be only four or five years her senior. If she was right, then he had certainly made his mark early. Dene’s light brown hair fell into his eyes repeatedly as they made their way toward his office. Maisie had to walk quickly to keep up with his athletic gait. She noticed with pleasure his ease of manner, as well as his obvious respect for Maurice and, by default, herself.

“You know,” said Dene, “I always wondered what it must be like to work with Maurice, at his side. He said something once about his assistant, but you could have knocked me down with a feather when I found out that the accomplished assistant was a woman.”

“Really, Dr. Dene?” Maisie’s tone caused Dene to rephrase his remark “Oh dear, that’s not what I meant.” Dene opened the door of his office and allowed Maisie to enter before him. “That’s me all over: Open mouth, insert foot. What I meant was . . . well . . . sometimes the work sounded so, you know, so tricky that . . .”

Maisie raised an eyebrow.

“I think I’d better just take it all back and get on with the business at hand before I have to show you out on my hands and knees.”

“Indeed, Dr. Dene, I can think of no better punishment at this moment.” She removed her gloves, and took the seat indicated. Despite his faux pas, Maisie thought Andrew Dene was rather fun. “Perhaps we can get down to business.”

“Oh yes, quite.” Dene checked his watch and reached for a manila folder with frayed edges that was already set to the side of the other stacks on his desk. “I have a meeting in twenty minutes. Mind you, I can be late.” He smiled at Maisie. “I understand you want to know more about the convalescent history of one William Beale, Corporal.”

“Yes, please.”

“Well, I’ve already looked at the file. I had to rescue it from what we refer to as the Dungeon down in the cellars. Unfortunately, the attending doctor has passed on now but the notes are all here. Looks like he’s lucky to have kept that leg. Amazing what those doctors were able to do over there, isn’t it?”

“I thought you . . .”

“Oh no. I was in medical school when I enlisted, but I was not qualified. They pushed me into the Medical Corps anyway, though not as a surgeon. As an assistant. Not quite a nurse, not quite a doctor. I ended up in Malta finding out more about surgical procedures on the job than I ever learned when I returned to medical school. By that time I had become more interested in what happened to soldiers when they came back, their recuperation, their post-operative care, and how I could best help them.”

“I see. So what can you tell me about Mr. Beale’s recovery?”

Dene looked through the notes once again, sometimes turning the file to one side the better to see a chart or diagram; then he closed the folder. He looked up at Maisie. “It would be less like finding a needle in a haystack if you were to tell me why you are interested—the medical aspects, that is.”

Maisie was taken aback by Dene’s manner but understood the need, given the array of procedures and therapies that would have been noted in the file. Maisie described her observations of Billy’s behavior, adding that his family life was also disturbed by his mood swings.

“Is this is a recent development?”

“Over the past few months, along with the increased pain in his legs.”

“Ah. Yes.” Dene reached for the file again. “Miss Dobbs, you were a nurse in France, weren’t you?”

“Yes, I—”

“And later, according to what I know, you worked with shell-shocked patients before returning to Cambridge. I understand from Maurice that you spent some time at the Department of Legal Medicine in Edinburgh.”

“That’s all correct.”

“So you don’t need me to tell you what’s going on, do you?”

Maisie looked at Dene intently, her deep blue eyes sparking. “I thought it best to confer with the attending doctor, or his successor, before jumping to conclusions.”

“A wise and very professional decision. Oh, and by the way, I’m her successor. Mr. Beale’s attending physician here was Dr. Mrs. Hilda Benton.”

Maisie’s cheeks reddened.

Dene leaned back in his chair and made a church-and-steeple with his fingers. It was the same way Maurice sat when considering a problem.

“Here’s what I suspect is at the root of Mr. Beale’s behavior, and I would add that it is not uncommon, though a terror to address. According to the notes,” Dene opened the file and passed two pages to Maisie, “he was initially treated for pain with massive doses of morphine. I would imagine he was hard to medicate, probably one of those who can soak up medication and still feel everything.”

Maisie remembered Billy being brought in to the casualty clearing station in June, 1917, his eyes wide even as the surgeon’s knife cut into his flesh, and his promise that he would never forget the doctor and nurse who saved him.

“Of course, we didn’t know as much about dosage then as we do now. In fact, the military was rather slap-happy with morphine, cocaine, and various other narcotics. You must remember that people could buy heroin kits from the corner chemist’s, even from Savoy &Moore, to send to their soldier loved ones in France, just in case. Then everyone cheerfully expected the need for medication to go away along with the pain as soon as the men were out of uniform. Boom-boom, good-bye, soldier, you’re on your way! Unfortunately in many cases the pain and the craving lingered. And even when both went away, recurrence of pain naturally re-creates that craving for medication. Doctors are a bit more careful now but there’s a healthy black market in cocaine, especially among old soldiers. I don’t want to cast aspersions, but to be candid, Miss Dobbs, I believe that Mr. Beale is struggling with a dependence upon narcotics. Though from what you say, I would imagine he’s not in too deeply. Yet.”

Maisie nodded. “Dr. Dene, I wonder if you could advise me on how I might go about initiating Mr. Beale’s withdrawal from the use of such a substance?”

“I think we can assume that increased physical discomfort was at the root of his initial self-medication. Now we have the addiction itself to cure, and I’m afraid that there is precious little to draw upon. I’m sure there are psychiatrists who would speak of their successes, but frankly I take such claims with a pinch of salt.”

Dene leaned forward on the desk and looked up at Maisie. “If you want to help Mr. Beale I would suggest the following: Get him away from the source of supply, that’s the first step. Then ensure that the pain is acknowledged and experiment with physical therapies. If necessary we can admit him here as an outpatient and I can prescribe controlled doses of painkillers. Finally, fresh air and something to do that he truly feels is of importance while he recovers. I do not hold with cures for such conditions while the mind and body are idle, it only gives the patient time to consider the desirable effects of the substance that is now no longer available.”

Dene watched as Maisie nodded her head in agreement.

“Thank you, Dr. Dene, for your advice and your time. You have been most kind.”

“Not at all, Miss Dobbs. A summons from our friend Dr. Maurice Blanche is as good as a call to arms.”

“Before I leave, Dr. Dene, I wonder if by any slight chance you might have known a Mrs. Rosamund Thorpe? I understand she lived locally before her death in February.”

“How extraordinary that you should ask! Mrs. Thorpe was a visitor to the hospital. There’s a group of women in the town who visit regularly, to read to the patients, talk with them, you know, make the long stay here a little easier to bear. She was widowed not that long before she died, but she never stopped coming here. Mrs. Thorpe was especially good with the old soldiers. Of course she was the same age as most of them, but we do insist upon calling them old, don’t we?” Dene shook his head, and continued. “It was such a shock when we heard. I’d spoken to her many times in the course of my work here, and would never have believed she would take her own life.” He looked again at Maisie. “May I ask why you inquire about her?”

“I am engaged in work that has brought me into contact with one of her friends. I can say no more. I want to know about Mrs. Thorpe’s life, and her death. Is there anything you can tell me, Dr. Dene?”

Dene seemed to consider whether to voice his observations, then continued. “Of course, she had been very sad at the passing of her husband, but I think the death was not unexpected as he was a good deal older than Mrs. Thorpe and toward the end was heavily medicated. In fact they had moved here because of his health, hoping the sea air would effect a cure.” Dene shook his head. “The behavior of the younger Thorpes—her stepchildren, who were closer to her in age— over her late husband’s will was reprehensible, but she seemed to evince none of the gloom one might expect to see in one at risk of suicide.”

“I see.” Maisie hoped that Dene might add more depth and color to the picture he was painting of Rosamund Thorpe. He did not disappoint her.

“I will say, though, that she seemed different from the other volunteers.” Dene allowed his gaze to wander to a view of the sea beyond the pile of books and notes on the sill above the cast-iron radiators. “She was very intense in her work here, always wanting to do more. If visiting ended at four, most of the women were on their way home at one minute after the hour, but Mrs. Thorpe would spend extra time, perhaps to complete a letter or read to the end of a chapter for some poor soul who couldn’t hold a book. In fact, she once said to me, ‘I owe it to them.’ But it was the way that she said it that caused me to remember. After all, we all feel that we owe so much.”

Dene turned to Maisie and looked at his watch. “Crikey! I’d better be on my way.” He pushed back his chair, and placed the file to one side, having scribbled on the front: “Return to archives.”

“Thank you so much for your time, Dr. Dene. Your advice is sound. I appreciate your counsel.”

“Not at all, Miss Dobbs, not at all. One caution, though: I need not remind you that in taking on the responsibility of helping Mr. Beale, you are also becoming involved, technically, in a crime.”

“Yes, I am aware of the implication, Dr. Dene. Though I hope—no, expect—Mr. Beale to destroy any illicit substances soon after we speak.”

Dene raised an eyebrow as he opened the door for Maisie. “Don’t underestimate the task. Fortunately, Dr. Blanche can assist you.”

As they continued along the corridor, Andrew Dene gave Maisie directions to Rosamund Thorpe’s house and the name of her housekeeper. Clearly everyone knew everyone else in the Old Town.

When they reached the door, Maisie had one more question for Andrew Dene. “Dr. Dene, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but you seem to know Dr. Blanche very well, more than one might expect from someone who was simply one of many students in a lecture hall or tutorial. And your assessment of the situation with Mr. Beale and your subsequent advice are very much what I might expect to hear from him.”

Dene affected an accent he had lost long ago, explaining, “I’m a Bermondsey boy, ain’t I?” Then he continued, reverting to his previous Home Counties diction, “My father died when I was young—he was a steeplejack—and then, when I was barely fifteen and out at work at the brewery myself, my mother became ill. There was no money for doctors. I made my way to Dr. Blanche’s clinic and begged him to come to the house. He visited each week and instructed me in her care, so I was able to administer medicine and make her comfortable even at the end. I paid him back by helping him. At first he trusted me with errands, then I helped at the clinics—obviously not with patients, as I was just a boy. If it hadn’t been for Dr. Blanche, I might never have known what I wanted to be, or what I could be. He helped me to apply to Guys, which I attended on a scholarship. Mind you, I had to work night shifts at the brewery to earn my keep. Then the war broke out, and I think you know the rest.”

Maisie smiled. “Yes I do, Dr. Dene. I know the rest very well.”

CHAPTER TEN

Maisie parked the MG on the West Hill and looked across toward the East Hill, where she had strolled just thirty-five minutes earlier. She had walked down the 158 steps from the top of the cliffs onto Tackleway Street, then through a narrow alleyway known to locals as a “twitten,” one of the many almost-secret paths that crisscrossed the Old Town of Hastings. It led out onto Rock-a-Nore, where she had parked the motor car. No wonder smugglers loved this place, thought Maisie.

It was a fine Spring afternoon. The sun and a light breeze conspired to glance light off whitecaps in such a way that the view across the Channel seemed to be repeatedly punctured by shards of crystal. Maisie shielded her eyes from the prismatic flashes of light as she looked out over the water before making her way to the four-storey Regency house that had been the home of Rosamund Thorpe. She was anxious to interview the housekeeper and be on her way back to Chelstone, to plan the next part of her visit to Kent. She was abundantly aware that the initial meeting with Joseph Waite had taken place almost a week ago, and she was not yet certain she had located her client’s daughter.

A short woman answered the door and smiled warmly at Maisie. “You must be Miss Dobbs.”

Maisie returned the smile. She thought the housekeeper resembled the quintessential grandmother, with her tight white curls, a plain dress in wool the color of heather, and stout black shoes.

“Young Dr. Dene from the convalescent hospital telephoned me and said to expect you. Very nice man, isn’t he? Surprised he’s not married, after all, it’s not as if there’s a shortage of young women. Mind you, he was walking out with that one girl last—Oh, excuse me, Miss Dobbs, I do go on at times! Now then—” Mrs. Hicks showed Maisie into a drawing room with bowed windows that commanded a view across the West Hill. “Dr. Dene said that you were a friend of a friend of Mrs. Thorpe’s and wanted to know more about her passing on.” The housekeeper regarded Maisie intently. “Normally, I wouldn’t be talking to anyone outside the family, but Dr. Dene said it was important.”

“Yes it is, Mrs. Hicks, though I can’t really say much about it at the moment.”

Mrs. Hicks nodded and wrung her hands together in her lap, revealing her discomfort and, Maisie suspected, the fact that she wanted to speak of her employer very much. Maisie would give her that opportunity.

“Tell me, Mrs. Hicks, is the house for sale? Mrs. Thorpe passed on some two months ago now, didn’t she?”

“They—Mr. Thorpe’s children by his first marriage, that is—have asked me to stay on and keep the place up until it’s sold. It has only just gone up for sale, as there was a lot of legal to-ing and fro-ing and paperwork and so on to go through after . . .” Mrs. Hicks’s bottom lip wobbled, and she hurriedly pulled an embroidered handkerchief from her pocket. “I’m sorry, Miss, but it was so very hard, finding her there. . . .”

“You found Mrs. Thorpe?”

Mrs. Hicks nodded. “I went up in the morning because she was late rising. Since Mr. Thorpe passed away, the house has been so quiet. Even though he was that much older, they were always laughing together. I tell you, if they saw two raindrops running down the window, they’d bet on which one would reach the bottom first and have a giggle over who’d won.” Mrs. Hicks kneaded the handkerchief between her hands. “Anyway, Mrs. Thorpe had trouble sleeping and was an early riser, so it was a change to not to see her up and about.”

“Was she in bed when you found her?”

“No, she was . . .” Mrs. Hicks rubbed her eyes with the handkerchief. “She was lying there, on the floor in her sitting room. It’s a small area that connects to the bedroom. She liked to sit there to have tea, for the view. The tea tray was still out from the day before, and there she was.”

“When had you served tea?”

Mrs. Hicks looked up at Maisie. “Well, she must’ve made it, because it had been my afternoon off. She often made herself a cup, especially if she thought I was busy with something else. They didn’t keep a big staff here, the cleaning’s done by Mrs. Singleton and Mrs. Acres who come up from the Old Town every morning, and if they were entertaining, they called in a cook and maids. There was only the two of them for me to keep for.”

“Mrs. Hicks, I know this is difficult for you, but did you notice anything that made you think twice when you went into the room, or when you looked at it later?”

“It was all such a shock, but I suppose there was one thing that I thought about, you know, afterwards.”

Maisie sat forward to listen.

“The tea tray was set for two: Two pieces of malt loaf, watercress sandwiches for two, two scones and some biscuits. But only one teacup had been used. So I wondered if she was expecting someone who hadn’t arrived. Mind you, she hadn’t said anything to me in the morning. Apparently she’d taken it, the poison, and washed it down with a cup of tea and a biscuit. But, I don’t know . . . .”

“What don’t you know, Mrs. Hicks?”

“She was a funny little thing at times. She would spend hours up at All Saints’ with the soldiers. I used to tell her that she did too much, but she’d say to me, ‘Mrs. Hicks, I have to make things right.’ Anybody would have thought she was responsible for their suffering, the way she said it. She was well-liked in the town, would always stop to talk to folk if she was out walking, not one of those uppity types.” Mrs. Hicks bit her lip. “I know she was sad, very sad, when Mr. Thorpe passed on, but I never, never knew that she was in such a state as to take her own life.”

“Mrs. Hicks, I know this is a strange question, but—do you really think she committed suicide?”

Mrs. Hicks sniffed and dabbed at her nose; then, emboldened by loyalty to her employer, she sat up. “No, Miss Dobbs. I do not.”

“Do you know of anyone who might have wanted her gone?”

“The younger Thorpes were jealous of her, no doubt about that, but to do away with her? No, they haven’t got it in them. No gumption at the best of times, that pair. Still, they did want the money and property that was left to her by her husband, even though they were very well taken care of. They quite enjoyed all the back-and-forth with solicitors. Made them feel important. Otherwise I don’t think she had an enemy. Though she must have, if her life was taken by someone else. I don’t think she’d’ve done it by accident, either. Very careful, she was, very careful. Wouldn’t even take a powder if she had a cold. Of course, there were still medicines in the house from when Mr. Thorpe was ill. For the pain. That’s what the doctor said she’d taken. An overdose of the painkillers. But I just can’t see her doing it.” Mrs. Hicks rubbed the handkerchief across her eyelids and dabbed at her nose again.

Maisie reached out and touched the housekeeper’s arm. “Would you show me where you found Mrs. Thorpe?”

Maisie stood in the light and airy room, a gentle breeze blowing curtains through sash windows that were half open. She was sorry that the death was so far in the past, for the room had doubtless been cleaned several times since Mrs. Hicks found the body of Rosamund Thorpe, as she had shown Maisie, lying between the small table set for tea and the settee placed at an angle to the window, offering views across the rooftops to the East Hill and out toward the Channel.

“Mrs. Hicks, I know this may sound a little unusual, but would you mind if I spent a few moments in the room alone?”

“Of course, Miss Dobbs. Has a funny feel about it, this room, doesn’t it? Can’t put a finger on it myself, but it was always there, even before she died.” Mrs. Hicks dabbed at her eyes. “I’ll just be outside if you need me.”

Maisie closed her eyes. She stood perfectly still and allowed her senses to mingle with the aura of Rosamund Thorpe that still lingered in her room. Her skin prickled with sensation, as if someone had stood next to her and touched her lightly on the arm, to share a confidence, to say, “I am here, and this is my confession.” She opened her mind to the secrets held within the walls and recognized the familiar presence of a troubled soul, kindred spirit to the veils of emotion left behind by Charlotte Waite and Lydia Fisher. She suspected already that Philippa Sedgewick had been equally troubled. Four unsettled women. But what could be at the heart of their disquiet?

As she breathed deeply and silently, Maisie framed a question in her mind: What can you tell me? It was immediately answered with a picture in Maisie’s mind’s eye, an image that began as a simple outline, gaining form and texture as if it were a photograph set in a tray of developing solution. Yes, she could see it. She hoped Mrs. Hicks might be able to offer an explanation, and summoned the housekeeper.

Mrs. Hicks poked her head around the door before entering. “All done, Miss?”

“Yes, thank you.”

The housekeeper led the way downstairs, and opened the front door for Maisie.

“I wonder, Mrs. Hicks, if I might ask one more question.”

“Of course, Miss. Anything I can do to help.”

“Do you know what medicines Mr. Thorpe was prescribed by his doctor?” asked Maisie.

“Well, I do know that there were different mixtures and tablets. Mrs. Thorpe was most particular to measure them out in the morning, putting them in little saucers. He had pills breakfast, lunch, supper, and bedtime. But at the end, you know, the doctor prescribed morphine. Mrs. Thorpe was very upset about it. She said you know there’s no hope when they start giving a patient morphine, because it means there’s nothing more they can do to save a life. All they can do is stop the pain.”

Maisie loved to drive the motor car, whether weaving in and out of traffic in London—which was always a challenge given the noisy mixture of motor lorries, cars large and small, and horse-drawn delivery vans carrying groceries and beer—or meandering along country roads with only her thoughts for company. She found it easy to think in the car, turning over facts and ideas as she changed gear, or slowed down for a farmer moving sheep from one field to another.

Conversations were replayed, possibilities for action assessed and considered, and all manner of outcomes pictured in her mind’s eye. Sometimes another driver might stop alongside the MG in slow traffic, look across at the young woman in the fast car with the cloth top down, and see her speaking to herself, her mouth opening and closing as she asked a question. Then, hearing the words aloud, she would nod.

She was driving across Kent to Romney Marsh. Dame Constance Charteris, Abbess of Camden Abbey, expected her at ten o’clock on the dot. She had left her father’s cottage at Chelstone just after eight, allowing more time than was required for the journey because she wanted to think, to run through yesterday evening’s conversations with Maurice and Lady Rowan, as well as to recollect the time spent with her father.

Maurice had quickly stepped forward to help Billy Beale, assisted by Dr. Andrew Dene who, it seems, had been busy with his telephone again, speaking to Maurice after his meeting with Maisie to offer support in Billy’s recovery. Billy could not be admitted as an in-patient at All Saints’ Convalescent Hospital, but Andrew Dene offered to monitor his health along with his progress in overcoming a dependence on narcotics—if Billy was agreeable to leaving London. By the time Maisie had arrived back at Chelstone, it seemed that Maurice had already devised a skeleton plan, with the help of Frankie Dobbs. Billy would come to Chelstone, stay at the Groom’s Cottage with Frankie, and meet with Maurice each day to “talk.”

Maisie knew well the healing power of Maurice’s skills as a listener, when he would encourage confession with perhaps just one word, question, or comment. One word that could unlock memories and shine a bright light on a person’s soul. Maisie had learned much from Maurice, but she knew that she was too close to Billy for such conversation. In addition to his time with Maurice, Billy would become a “patient” of Gideon Brown, who would instruct Billy in new methods of moving his wounded limbs so that he might free himself of the pain that dragged at his spirit. There was only one obstacle to overcome: Billy had to agree to the plan carefully laid out without his foreknowledge. Billy had to want to end his reliance on narcotics.

“Getting Billy to Chelstone is the hardest job, Maisie. And it falls to you,” said Maurice as he tapped ash from his pipe into the fireplace.

Maisie repeated his words out loud as she drove through Brenchley and Horsmonden. As she drove on, the sun came from behind a cloud and shone across morning-bright green fields where newborn lambs ran on still-unsteady legs, and she knew that, whatever it took, she would get Billy on the road to Chelstone and recovery.

Clumps of primroses lined the hedgerows as she made her way slowly through Cranbrook and on toward Tenterden, winding through country lanes to the picture-postcard village of Appledore with its medieval cottages, thatched roofs, and climbing roses on trellises and doors. The promise of a perfect Sunday diminished as the hills flattened out and the soft undulating Weald of Kent gave way to land reclaimed from the sea, a jigsaw puzzle of fields for arable farming divided by hedges and stone walls. Maisie followed the Royal Military Canal while under a dark thunderous cloud that threatened to do its worst. She had a panoramic view across marshland where trees had grown leaning away from the wind, and small cottages and churches were dotted forlornly in an unforgiving landscape.

Maisie did not stop to pull up the roof of the MG but instead carefully wound a red woolen scarf around her neck and pulled on her black leather gloves. Frankie had insisted on filling a flask with hot tea “just in case.” It seemed to Maisie that the Romney Marshes were living up to the description penned by William Lambarde in the sixteenth century: “Evil in winter, grievous in summer, and never good.” But Maisie knew there was something to be found in this forlorn wasteland. She was close to Camden Abbey.

Long before she reached the end of the gravel road leading to the mansion that was now the home of twenty-four Benedictine nuns, Maisie saw the abbey in the distance. The abbey was E-shaped, with a long, two-storey north-south spine and three wings extending out. The center wing held the main entrance. The end of each wing had an unusual bell-shaped face and roofline, inspired by the houses of Holland, where the first owner had grown up. In her letter Dame Constance had written that the nuns had lost their home in Cambridgeshire when it was requisitioned by the War Office for officer accommodation. Sir Edward Welch, owner of Camden House, which was fortunately ill-situated for military use, bequeathed his property to the order upon hearing of their distressing circumstances. He died shortly thereafter, and Camden House became Camden Abbey.

Maisie parked the MG, ensured that its roof was properly secured in case of rain while she was inside, and proceeded through the main door to what had once been a substantial entrance hall. To her left an iron grille at face height covered a small door. Maisie took the brass handle of the bell-pull next to the grille, drew it back and immediately heard the deep resonant clang of a large bell. She shivered in the cold, dark hall and waited.

The small door opened, and a nun nodded at her. Maisie smiled automatically, and as she did so she noticed the corners of the nun’s mouth twitch before she looked down piously.

“I am here to see Dame Constance. My name is Maisie Dobbs.”

The nun nodded and closed the door. Maisie shivered again, waiting alone. She heard another door open and footsteps grow louder as someone came to meet her. It was the same woman. She wore the habit of a postulant, and as she had not yet taken orders, she could meet Maisie without a barrier between them.

“Please follow me, Miss Dobbs.” The postulant seemed to swirl around as if practicing for the day when she would wear a full-length habit instead of a calf-length dress, and a cowl would replace the white collar buttoned tightly at her neck. The end of her veil flapped as she walked, reminding Maisie of the wings of a seagull slowing down for a landing on water. She opened an oak door with pointed iron hinges that stretched out into the center of the wood, and allowed Maisie to enter. The nun left her alone in the room, closing the door behind her with an echoing thud.

It was a small room, with a fireplace at one end and a window to the gardens at the other. Coal and wood crackled and sputtered in the grate, and the red carpet on the floor and heavy red curtains at the window made the room warm and welcoming. The plain wall bore no ornamentation but a crucifix. A comfortable wing chair had been placed in front of the grille that covered a small door situated next to the crucifix. A side table held a tray, and Maisie could see steam rising from the spout of a teapot covered with a plain white cozy. Upon closer inspection she found a plate of homemade oatmeal biscuits next to a milk jug, sugar, and a cup upturned on its saucer. The crockery was plain.

Each week for one term, when she had been at Girton, Maisie had walked to the order’s former abbey after lunch on a Wednesday, along with her fellow students. At half past one exactly, the small door leading to Dame Constance’s room would open, and she would greet them from behind the grille, ready to fire questions, question assumptions, and prod for opinions. Dame Constance had blended compassion with pragmatism. With the hindsight of the worldly experience she had since acquired, it was clear to Maisie that Dame Constance had suffered fools if not gladly, then with gracious ease.

The door clattered back, and the warm smile she had known so well beamed at her from beyond the iron grille once more.

“Maisie Dobbs! How lovely to see you. No, mind you keep well back, I’m still getting over this wretched cold you know, so do keep your distance from my bars.” Her demeanor did not give away her age. The timbre of her voice seemed that of a much younger woman. In fact, it had occurred to Maisie that she didn’t know how old Dame Constance actually was.

“Do not let me see a biscuit left on that plate at the end of our talk, Maisie. You young women of today do not know how to eat. Why, in my day, that plate would have been nothing but a few crumbs by now, and I’d be licking my fingers and dabbing at them so as not to miss a thing!”

From her seat next to the grille, Maisie leaned toward the iron bars, the warning of germs notwithstanding. “I can assure you, Dame Constance, I eat very well.”

Dame Constance was silent for a few seconds before continuing. “Tell me, dear girl, why have you come to me today? What can an old nun can do for a young sleuth? It must be serious for you to come on a Sunday.”

“I know of the guiding mission of the Benedictine order, and your solemn oaths of confidence. However, I believe that a young woman I am searching for may be within the walls of Camden Abbey.” She stopped. Dame Constance held Maisie’s eyes with her own and did not speak. Maisie continued. “Charlotte Waite is missing from home, and her father is concerned for her safety. I believe she has sought refuge here at the abbey. Can you confirm my suspicions?”

Dame Constance responded with a simple, “I see.” Maisie waited.

“You know, Maisie, that in his Rule, Saint Benedict bade his disciples to show special care and compassion toward those seeking refuge, the poor and pilgrims, and he did so because ‘in them is Christ more truly welcomed.’ There are those who knock at the door daily for food and drink, yet sometimes a hunger is deeper, a yearning for sustenance that cannot be named, but one that is always fed at our table.”

Maisie nodded.

“One of our pledges, when souls come to us seeking supersubstantial bread to assuage the poverty of the spirit, is the confidence of the cloister.”

Dame Constance paused, as if expecting Maisie to counter her words.

“I seek not to . . . interrupt the sacred path of one making her way to the abbey’s table for sustenance. I only seek confirmation that Charlotte Waite is here. That she is safe.”

“Ah, only. An interesting word, don’t you think? Only.” This was the Dame Constance Maisie had expected.

“Yes, and we use it too easily, I’m sure.”

Dame Constance nodded. “Only. Only. In the sharing of such information— and please do not take this as a confirmation or denial—I would be breaking a trust, a sacred trust. Where is the ‘only’ in that, Maisie? Come now, what say you?”

It was Maisie’s turn to smile. The Abbess had put on the gloves and was ready to spar.

“In this context the only is a request for truth. I am here simply to gain information to put the mind of her father to rest.”

“Simply and only, simply and only. Everything and nothing are simple, as you know.”

Dame Constance reached for a cup of water, sipped, replaced the earthenware vessel, and thought for a moment in silence, her hands tucked together inside the copious sleeves of her habit. She looked up and nodded. “Do you know one of the most common questions I am asked? ‘Why is an enclosed nun kept behind bars?’ My response is always the same: ‘The bars are there to keep you out, not us in!’” There was silence again, and Maisie waited for a final decision. “Your request must be considered by the order, and to do that, Maisie, I must have the whole story. Yes, I know—with this comment I have given you the answer you require. However, we both know that your only goes further, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it does. Let me tell you what has happened.”

Maisie was served an early lunch alone in the sitting room. She excused herself to use the lavatory and washbasin facilities provided for visitors. Upon her return, her shoes clattering on the flagstone floors, a fresh tray awaited her, bearing a hearty bowl of pearl barley-and-vegetable soup, a flask of cider with an upturned glass on top, and three slices of still-warm, crusty brown bread. She was just scooping up the final spoonful of soup when the small door was drawn back and Dame Constance smiled at her through the grille.

“No, do finish. You can carry on eating.”

“It’s all right. I’m all but finished.” Maisie poured a glass of cider, took one sip, and quickly put down the glass. The beverage was clearly homemade and a strong brew.

“The order has decided that, on this occasion, we can confirm that Miss Waite is within the walls of Camden Abbey. She is tired and needs to rest and recuperate. I cannot allow her to be assailed with questions. Give her time.”

“But—”

“There may be another life taken? The order has considered, and we have concluded that we must continue to offer refuge to Miss Waite.” Dame Constance looked at Maisie intently. “We will pray, Maisie. We will petition God for His strength and His hand in this matter.”

Thank heavens Stratton isn’t here, thought Maisie. If he thought the order was offering succor to a murderer, he’d have something to say. Then Dame Constance surprised her.

“If you can return to Camden Abbey next week, you might be able to meet with Miss Waite then. I will have had several conversations with her in the interim, so expect my letter.”

“Thank you, Dame Constance.”

“And perhaps you can stay longer next time. I sometimes miss the debate my students challenged me with when they stopped being scared of me, and before they were mature enough to realize that those who are older may know something after all.” Dame Constance paused. “And perhaps you can tell me something, then, that I am curious about.”

Maisie inclined her head to demonstrate her own curiosity.

“I’d like to know, Maisie, where do you find refuge? And who offers you close counsel and companionship?”

Maisie nodded. “I’ll see you next week.”

“Very well. Until then, dear child, until then.” The small grille door closed with a click.

Maisie pulled up the collar of her jacket against the large raindrops that were beginning their assault on Romney Marsh. She opened the door of the MG and looked once again at the imposing building. Yes, it looked safe. Very safe. Charlotte Waite had found herself a fortress and an army of knights to protect her. The knights were women, and the arms they bore were prayers. But whom were they protecting? A murderer or another potential victim?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Lady Rowan chose to wait at Chelstone until after the new foal was born. Lord Julian had decided to travel to Lancashire to visit the site of a bankrupt factory he was considering for purchase. The economic slump could not last forever, and he wanted to be well-placed to boost the manufacturing arm of his investment interests when the time was right. Upon her return to London, Maisie would be alone in Belgravia for several more weeks with only the servants for company.

Once again the drive back into London gave Maisie time to consider her next steps in light of the past few days’ revelations. The task she had been retained to perform in the Waite case was almost complete. She knew where Charlotte Waite had taken refuge, though it remained for her to persuade the woman to return to her father’s home. In the normal course of events Maisie would not consider the case completely closed until personal conversations with Charlotte and Joseph Waite had taken place individually and jointly, with commitments from each to fashion a new relationship with the other. But could the completion of her assignment conclude this case, when there were the deaths of three other women to be considered? Maisie detoured. Instead of driving directly into London, she made her way west into the county of Surrey, then north to Richmond. It was time for her to make her monthly pilgrimage to visit Simon, the former love who had sustained such serious injuries during the Great War that he was now in a convalescent hospital where he could be cared for along with other men who had suffered profound injury to the mind. Though he would not know that Maisie sat opposite him, taking his hands in hers as she spoke, Maisie would feel the warmth in his fingers, sense the blood coursing through his veins, and she would continue to tell him of her days. She would describe the gardens that lay beyond the windows, the leaves turning to brown, red and gold before falling, then, later, she would tell of snow on branches and Jack Frost leaving icicles where leaves would sprout in spring. Today she would describe the new leaves unfolding, the fresh green shoots of daffodils and crocuses, the sun higher in the sky, and the springtime nip in the air. Above all, as Simon’s head nodded along with his breathing, his eyes focusing on a place in the distance only he could see, Maisie would share with him her deepest thoughts and secrets.

She parked the MG and, as was her habit, walked to the lower perimeter of the gardens before approaching the main entrance. Maisie watched the Thames snaking through Richmond, and consciously took four deep breaths placing the fingers of her right hand against the cloth of her aubergine jacket at the point she knew to be the center of her body. She closed her eyes and took one more deep breath. She was ready.

“Good morning, Miss Dobbs, very nice to see you again, but then it is your time, isn’t it? First week of the month, right on the nail.”

“And good morning to you, Mrs. Holt. Do you know if Captain Lynch is in the Winter Garden, as usual?”

“Yes, I believe he is, but drop in to see Staff Nurse on the way, won’t you.”

“Oh yes, of course. I’ll see you on my way out, Mrs. Holt.”

“Right you are, Miss Dobbs, right you are.”

Maisie turned left and made her way down the corridor that led from the reception desk to the office where the Staff Nurse would be completing medication reports. Though she had only been visiting Simon regularly for six months, Maisie was known to the nurses.

Staff Nurse welcomed her with a broad smile, and Maisie smiled in turn as an almost identical dialogue to that with Mrs. Holt followed. The Staff Nurse commented that Maisie could probably find her own way to the ‘Winter Garden’ conservatory, by now.

“He’s in there, all wrapped up and looking out at the gardens,” said Staff Nurse, as she pulled a heavy chain from her apron pocket, selected a key and locked the medicine cabinet. “Never can be too careful.” Ensuring the cabinet was secure, she turned to Maisie, “I’ll have one of the nurses pop along in a while, to check on the captain.”

Maisie found Simon seated in a wheelchair by a window in the conservatory, shaded by tall tropical trees that would surely die if planted outside in England’s ever-changing climate. He was dressed in deep-blue-striped pajamas and a thick blue tartan dressing gown. Matching blue slippers covered his feet, and a blanket had been placed across his knees. Doubtless his mother still shopped for him, ensuring a certain dignity in the clothing carefully chosen for an invalid who would never again consciously distinguish shade, hue, light, or dark. Maisie wondered how Simon’s parents must feel, in their twilight years, knowing that their son would likely outlive them, and that the only farewell for them to remember was the one that took place in 1917, when he said good-bye after his last leave.

“Hello, Simon,” said Maisie. Pulling up a chair, she sat beside him and took his hands in hers. “It’s been an interesting month, Simon. Let me tell you about it.”

In speaking aloud to one who could not comprehend, Maisie was aware that she was using this time to reexamine details of the Waite case and that of the murdered women.

The door that led in from the corridor swung open, and a young nurse entered, nodded, and smiled. She quickly checked to ensure that her patient was showing no distress in the presence of his visitor, and then left silently.

And as the nurse departed, Maisie wondered what she was thinking as she observed a woman in her early thirties with the broken man who had once been her true love. Did she see futility—she who would later place food in the man’s mouth and watch as muscles moved in physical response to the stimulus, without any obvious recognition of taste or texture? Or did the young nurse, probably a girl at the close of the Great War, see Maisie as one unwilling to open her heart to another, while her beloved was still there in body, if not in mind?

Maisie looked out at the gardens. How to remain loyal, but still open her heart anew? It was as if she was required to be in two places at once, one part of her in the past, one in the future. She sighed deeply and allowed her gaze to wander. She watched as two nurses walked along a path, each pushing a veteran of war in a wheelchair. In the distance, an older woman supported a man who walked in an ungainly fashion, his head lolling to one side. As they came closer, Maisie saw that the man was gazing into space, his mouth open, his tongue rolling back and forth between his lips. They moved toward the patio in front of the glass-paned conservatory.

The woman was as plainly dressed as she had been at their first meeting, when she opened the door to greet Maisie and Billy at Joseph Waite’s home in Dulwich. In fact she had been so plainly dressed and pedestrian in manner that Maisie had not thought twice about her. Yet here she was again, with this man whose mind was clearly as lost in the wilderness of his past as Simon’s. Who was he? A son? A nephew?

As she steered her charge toward a door to the side of the conservatory, a nurse came to her aid, taking the young man’s weight on his other side while Mrs. Willis kept her arm around his waist, her hand clutching his.

Maisie remained for a while longer, then bade Simon a solitary farewell. She stopped at the reception desk on the way out.

“Lovely day to visit, eh, Miss Dobbs?”

“Yes, it has been nice, especially to see the tulips coming up.”

“See you in about a month, then?”

“Yes, of course, but I wonder, may I ask you a question about another visitor today?”

The receptionist frowned slightly, and pressed her lips together. “Another visitor? Well, let’s see who was in today.” She consulted the visitors’ book on the desk in front of her and tapped a red finger along the names. “Whom were you interested in?”

“I thought I saw an acquaintance of mine, a Mrs. Willis. Could she have been visiting a family member, perhaps?”

“Oh, Mrs. Willis. Very nice woman. Quiet, doesn’t say much, but very nice indeed. She’s here to see Will, her son. Will, short for Wilfred, Wilfred Willis.”

“Her son? Does she come once a month?”

“Oh my goodness, no! Once or twice a week. Never fails, always on a Sunday and, more likely than not, on a Wednesday or Thursday as well. She comes as often as she can.”

“And she’s been coming since the war, since he was admitted?”

The receptionist looked at Maisie and frowned again before speaking. “Well, yes, she has. But then, it’s not surprising. She’s his mother.”

“Of course, of course. I’d better be off.”

“We’ll see you in a month then, Miss Dobbs?”

“Yes. A month. See you then.” Maisie turned to leave, but the receptionist spoke again.

“Oh, Miss Dobbs, you might see Mrs. Willis waiting down at the bus stop. I don’t know if Dulwich is on your way, but I thought you’d like to know. It’s a long journey for her by bus.”

“Of course, Mrs. Holt. If she’s still there, I’ll give her a lift home.”

“Blast!” said Maisie, as she exited the main gates of the hospital. Mrs. Willis was not at the bus stop, nor was there a queue waiting.

It was still only two o’clock in the afternoon, so Maisie decided to back-track. She was well aware that her curiosity regarding the murders of two women, and the suspected murder of another, had surpassed her interest in the Charlotte Waite “missing person” case. In truth, she was excited that she had discovered a link and that she had reason to investigate further. Maisie had a sense of who Lydia Fisher was, and how she lived, but she wondered about Philippa Sedgewick, the woman murdered in Coulsden. Detective Inspector Stratton had pronounced Lydia Fisher’s murder “identical” to Sedgewick’s. Were they unlucky victims of coincidence? Evidence suggested that her killer had been known to Lydia Fisher. Had Philippa Sedgewick known her killer? And if her death was murder rather than suicide, then Rosamund Thorpe had taken tea with her murderer as well. Yet in her case, there had been no vicious post-mortem knife attack. While steering with one hand, Maisie nibbled at the nail on the little finger of the other. Charlotte was the key.

In the meantime, while Maisie waited for an audience with Charlotte at Camden Abbey, she would see what she could find out about Philippa Sedgewick. Nothing could take the place of collecting information and impressions personally.

Maisie drove toward Kingston-upon-Thames, following a route that took her through Ewell as she made her way to Coulsden. A stop on her way from Kent to Richmond would have been a more judicious use of time and petrol but she hadn’t planned to visit Coulsden when she set out this morning. Now she felt more anxiety than she had since the death of Lydia Fisher. The killer might strike again soon. If the deaths were random, with the killer soft-talking his way into victims’ homes, then no woman on her own was safe. But if the killer was known to his victims, there might be more links in the chain that connected them.

As she entered Coulsden, Maisie pulled over to the side of the road and reached into her document case. She quickly turned to the second page of last week’s Times until she found what she was looking for. COULSDEN WOMAN MURDER INVESTIGATION, followed by a subheading POLICE SEARCH FOR KILLER. Her eyes scanned the columns, the work of reporters feeding the story. As the words “merciless,” “plunged,” and finally “butcher” leapt out at her, Maisie finally found what she was looking for: “The dead woman, Mrs. Philippa Sedgewick of 14 Bluebell Avenue. . . .”

Maisie parked the car in the road opposite Number 14 and shut off the engine. The houses were not old, built perhaps in 1925 for the new commuter class, the men who traveled into the City each day on the train, and the women who waved them goodbye in the morning and greeted them with dinner on the table when they returned. Children would be in pajamas, bathed, and ready for bed as soon as father had placed his hat and coat on the stand by the door, kissed each girl on the head, and squeezed each boy on the arm along with the words, “Good man.”

Young sycamores grew on each side of the street, planted with the intention of creating an opulent canopy to shade the family homes. Each house was identical, with a broad bow window at the front, an asymmetrical roof with a cat’s-slide sweep on one side, and a small turreted bedroom under the eaves of the other. The front door had a stained-glass window, and the same glass had been used in a border that ran along the upper edge of every other window at the front of the house. But this house was special. This was the house where Philippa Sedgewick had spent her days waiting for her husband to return from his job in the City. This was the house where a woman of thirty-two had been murdered. Maisie took out a small pack of index cards from her document case. She did not alight from the car, but simply described the house on a card, and penciled questions to herself: Why have I assumed husband worked in the City? Find out about husband. Job for Billy?

The curtains were closed, as was the mourning custom. The house seemed dark and cold, shadowy against the low sun of a spring afternoon. Yes, thought Maisie, death has passed over this house and will linger until the woman’s spirit is at rest. She sighed, allowed her gaze to settle on the house again and slipped into a deliberately relaxed observation of the property. It appeared a very sad house, set in a street of homes for families with children. Already she could imagine them walking home from school, girls with satchels banging against hips, boys holding their caps in one hand, with arms out to balance as they returned a football or ran to tease the girls, pulling hair so that screams drew a mother into the street to admonish every one of them. According to the newspaper, there had been no children in the Sedgewick marriage, though perhaps children were hoped for, otherwise why live in such a place? Yes, a sad house.

The curtain moved almost imperceptibly. At first it was just a sensation at the corner of her eye. Maisie focused on the curved window of the turreted small bedroom to the left. The curtain moved again. She was being watched. Maisie stepped out of the MG and set off briskly across the road, unlatched the waist-high gate, and continued along the path to the front door. Taking up the brass door knocker, she rapped loudly, ensuring that anyone inside the house would hear her summons. She waited. No answer. Rat-tat-tat again. She waited, listening.

The door opened.

“Can’t you people leave me alone?! Haven’t you got enough stories? You’re vultures, all of you. Vultures!”

A man of medium height stood before Maisie. His brown hair was in need of a comb, his face sported a rough salt-and-pepper shadow of beard, and he was dressed in baggy tweed trousers, a gray flannel shirt topped with a knitted sleeveless pullover in a pale gray with flecks of green and purple woven into the yarn. He wore neither shoes, socks, nor tie, and looked, thought Maisie, as if he could do with a good meal.

“I do beg your pardon, Mr. Sedgewick—”

“Don’t ‘pardon, Mr. Sedgewick’ me, you nasty little piece of—”

“Mr. Sedgewick, I am not a member of the press!” Maisie stood to her full height, and looked him in the eyes.

The man shuffled his feet, looked down, rubbed his chin, then looked again at Maisie. His shoulders, which had been drawn up tensely, almost touching his earlobes, now drooped, making him look as broken in body as he was in spirit. He was exhausted. “I am sorry. Please forgive me, but I just want to be left alone.” He began to close the door.

“But please . . . I need to speak to you.” Maisie reminded herself that Philippa Sedgewick’s husband might also be her killer. While she doubted that this man was a murderer, she had to proceed with caution.

“Be quick, and tell me what you want, though I doubt I can help anyone. I can’t even help myself!” said Sedgewick.

“My name is Maisie Dobbs.” Maisie opened the flap of her case and pulled a card from an inner compartment, not breaking eye contact with Sedgewick. “I’m a private investigator, and I think there is a connection between a case I am working on and your wife’s murder.”

For a few seconds, silent incredulity was visible on the man’s face: His lips seemed frozen open, his eyes did not even blink. Then Sedgewick began to laugh almost hysterically. He laughed and laughed and laughed, bending over, his hands on his knees before raising his head as he attempted to speak. The thin line between emotions was being breached. This man, who had so recently lost his wife, was indeed in crisis. Maisie was aware that a neighbor was standing on her front doorstep looking across at the house. Then, as she turned again to Sedgewick, she realized he was crying. She quickly helped him inside his home and closed the door behind her.

Maisie illuminated the hallway with electric light and, still holding Sedgewick’s arm, directed him to the back of the house, to the kitchen. Maisie connected a kitchen with warmth, but as she turned on another light, she felt her heart sink at the sight that confronted her. Helping Sedgewick to a chair, Maisie opened the curtains, unlocked and opened the back door to the garden, and looked back at the cups and saucers piled on the draining board, along with dirty saucepans and one or two plates. The dregs of stale brandy and half-smoked cigarettes swirled against one another in crystal glasses, perhaps originally given to celebrate the marriage of the young couple years earlier.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you must think me—”

“I don’t think anything, Mr. Sedgewick. You’ve been through a horrible time.”

“Tell me again who you are and why you are here.”

Maisie identified herself again and explained the purpose of her visit to the house of—as far as the authorities knew—the first victim of the “Heartless, Bloodless Killer,” named for his use of poison before the knife.

“I can’t see how I can help. I’ve spent hours, literally hours, with the police. I have spent every second of every day since my wife was murdered asking myself why and who. And, as you can imagine, for some time the police thought that I was the ‘who.’ They probably still do.”

“They have to explore all avenues, Mr. Sedgewick.”

“Oh yes, the police line, I know it.” Sedgewick rubbed his neck and as he did so, Maisie heard bones crack in his shoulder and back.

“Will you help me?” she asked.

Sedgewick sighed. “Yes, yes. If helping you ends up helping me, I’ll do what I can to answer your questions.”

Maisie smiled and, feeling once more like the nurse she had been so long ago, she reached out and squeezed Sedgewick’s hand. “I appreciate it, Mr. Sedgewick.”

The man seemed to falter, then continued. “Miss Dobbs, would you mind using my Christian name? I know it’s rather a cheek to ask . . . and I perfectly understand if you decline my request, but . . . I have been nothing but Sedgewick or Mr. Sedgewick for weeks now. My neighbors are avoiding me, and I have been given leave from my work until the killer”—he seemed about to double over again—“until the case is closed. My name is John. And I am a man who has lost his wife.”

They moved into the drawing room. Maisie watched John Sedgewick as he eased himself into an armchair beside the fireplace. She opened the curtains just enough to allow some natural illumination to enter. Sudden light might startle Sedgewick, who would feel a needle of sunray to be piercing and painful. The room was untidy, with unread newspapers in a pile, cigarette ends mounting in ashtrays, and dust layered on the mantelpiece, the small writing desk, and the side tables. Spent coals in the cold grate made the room even less inviting. As if pressed inward by his discomfort, Sedgewick sat forward on the edge of the chair, hunching his shoulders and gripping his elbows. Maisie shivered, remembering Maurice in the early days of her apprenticeship:“ Watch the body, Maisie; see how the posture reflects the state of mind.” John Sedgewick was clutching his body as if to save himself from falling apart.

Maisie allowed a silence to envelop them, a time in which she composed her body, cleared her thoughts and saw in her mind’s eye a connection forming between herself and the man opposite her. She imagined a stream of light emanating from the center of her forehead just above her nose, a bright thread that flowed toward her subject and bathed him with a luminous glow. Slowly the man who wanted to be addressed informally as John relaxed his shoulders and released his arms. He leaned back.

Maisie knew better than to breach his trust by commencing with a fusillade of questions that must have already been put to him by the police.

“John, would you like to tell me about your wife?” she asked softly.

Sedgewick exhaled and gave a sharp, ironic half laugh. “You know, Miss Dobbs, you are the first person to ask me that question in that manner. The police are more direct.”

Maisie inclined her head but did not speak, inviting him to continue.

“She was lovely, Miss Dobbs. A lovely girl. Funny, I always think of her as a girl. She wasn’t tall, not like you. No, Pippin—that’s what I called her, Pippin.” Sedgewick closed his eyes again and wrinkled his face against tears that welled up behind his eyelids. Recovering, he continued, “She was slight, not a big girl. And I know she wasn’t a girl anymore, but she was a girl to me. We married in 1920. I met her at my parents’ house, would you believe? She was visiting with her widowed mother, who knew my mother through the Women’s Institute, or the church Flowers Committee, something of that order.”

Sedgewick looked toward the garden, as if imagining that his dead wife would walk along the front path at any moment. Maisie knew that he held a vision of Philippa before him. An image began to form in her mind of a young woman in a plain, pale sea-green summer dress. She was wearing green cotton gloves to protect her fine hands while cutting roses in a myriad of colors, placing the blooms into a basket at her feet before looking up when she heard her husband’s footfall as he opened the gate and came toward her.

“I think our meeting was arranged by the mothers, actually.” Sedgewick smiled, a narrow smile of remembrance. “And we got on famously. She was shy at first—apparently she had been somewhat dark of mood since the war—but soon became quite buoyant. People said it was having a sweetheart that did it.”

Maisie made a mental note to delve a little deeper into the source of Philippa Sedgewick’s disquiet, but for now she wanted Sedgewick to be at ease with her as his confidante. She did not interrupt.

“We lived with her mother for a while after the wedding. It was a small affair in the village, nothing grand. Then we rented a flat for a couple of years, and when these houses were built in 1923, we snapped one up straightaway. Philippa had a small legacy from her father and I had my savings and some funds in a trust, so it wasn’t a stretch.” Sedgewick became silent and breathed deeply before continuing. “Of course, you buy a house like this for a family, but we were not to be blessed with children.” He stopped to address Maisie directly. “Heavens above, this must be far from what you want to hear, Miss Dobbs! I’m sorry.”

“Please continue Mr. . . . John. Please tell me about your wife.”

“Well, she was barren. Not her fault, of course. And the doctors weren’t much help, said there was nothing they could do. The first one, a gray-haired doddery old duffer, said that it was nothing that a couple of glasses of sherry each wouldn’t cure. The blithering idiot!”

“I am so sorry, John.”

“Anyway, we just sort of accepted that we were to remain a family of two. In fact, just before . . . just before the end. . . .” Sedgewick closed his eyes against images that now rushed forth, images that Maisie knew to be of his dead wife. Again he breathed deeply to combat his emotions. “Just before the end, we had planned to buy a puppy. Thought it would be company for her while I was at work. Mind you, she kept busy—reading to children at the local school one afternoon a week, that sort of thing—and she loved her garden. Trouble was, she blamed herself.”

“Blamed herself?” Maisie watched him closely.

“Yes. For being barren. Said that you reap what you sow.”

“Did she ever say what she meant?”

“Never. I just thought that she had dredged up every bad thing she’d ever done and heaped it on herself.” Sedgewick shrugged. “She was a good girl, my Pippin.”

Maisie leaned toward Sedgewick, just close enough for him to feel warmer and, subconsciously, more at ease.

“Can you tell me if your wife was troubled about anything else? Had there been any discord between her and any other person?”

“Pippin was not one to gush all over other people, or rush over to natter with the neighbors. But she was kind and thoughtful, knew if someone needed help and always passed the time of day if she saw someone she knew on the street. But . . . did you say ‘ever,’ Miss Dobbs?”

“I know that might be a tall assignment, John.”

“You know, I think she only ever walked out with one man before we met. She was shy with men. It was during the war, and she was quite young really, only seventeen or so, if that. If I remember correctly, she’d met him when she was in Switzerland. He was one of several young men paying attention to Pippin and her group, in fact, he courted all of them at some point. He ended up marrying one of her friends, who, I think, had nothing but trouble with him. Bit of a ladies’ man, he was.” Suddenly Sedgewick frowned, “You know, funny that should come to mind, because he was back in touch with her, I don’t know, must have been toward the end of last year. I’d all but forgotten about it.”

“Who was the man, and why had he made contact again? Do you know?”

“I have a terrible memory for names, but his was quite unusual. Not like your average ‘John,’ you know!” Sedgewick smiled faintly. “Apparently his wife, who, as I said, was an old friend of Pippin’s, was drinking heavily. He tracked down Pippin and telephoned to see if she could help at all, speak to the wife, try to get her on the straight and narrow. But they hadn’t been in touch for years and I don’t think Pippin wanted anything to do with it. She said no, and that was that. At least as far as I know. She told me that her friend probably drank to forget. Didn’t think much about it at the time. She said, ‘Everyone’s got something to help them forget things, haven’t they? She’s got the bottle, I’ve got my garden.’ Sounds a bit harsh, but I wouldn’t have wanted her to get involved with a woman like that.”

Maisie did not want to influence Sedgewick with her suspicions. “And you are sure you can’t recall his name? What letter did it begin with?”

“Oh dear, Miss Dobbs . . . it was, um . . .” Sedgewick rubbed his brow. “Um . . . I think it was M—yes, that’s it. Muh, mih, mah . . . mah . . . yes, mah . . . mag . . . Magnus! Yes, Magnus Fisher. Now I remember.”

“And his wife’s name was Lydia?”

“Yes, yes! Miss Dobbs, I do believe you knew all the time!”

“John, have you read the newspapers recently?”

“No, I can’t stand it! They always point the finger, and while Pippin is still somewhere on the front page, the finger is pointed at me.”

Maisie delved further. “The police haven’t returned since last week?”

“No. Of course they come to the house to check that I’m still here, and I’m not supposed to leave the area, pending the closure of inquiries, or whatever the official line is.”

Maisie was surprised that Stratton had not revisited Sedgewick since Lydia Fisher’s body was discovered. “John, Lydia Fisher was found dead—murdered—last week. A subsequent post-mortem examination suggested that there were similarities between your wife’s murder and Mrs. Fisher’s. I suspect the police have not spoken to you yet, pending further investigation. The press was rather too forthcoming with details of your wife’s murder and as there are those who will copy infamy, the police might not want to draw attention to similarities at this very early stage. I have no doubt, though, that the police—and the press—will be on your doorstep again soon.”

Sedgewick clutched his shoulders, rocking himself back and forth, then stood up, and began to pace. “They’ll think it was me, they’ll think it was me. . . .”

“Calm down, John, calm down. They will not think it’s you. I suspect that their conclusions will be quite the opposite.”

“Oh, that poor woman, that poor woman . . . and my poor Pippin.” John Sedgewick began to weep as he sat heavily in the armchair, and Maisie knelt so that he could lean upon her shoulder. All formalities of polite interaction between a woman and a man she did not know fell away as Maisie allowed her strength of spirit to seep into Sedgewick. Once again he fought for composure.

“I don’t understand; what does this mean?”

“I don’t know yet, but I intend to find out. Can you face more questions, John?”

John Sedgewick took an already soiled handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes and nose. “Yes.Yes, I’ll try, Miss Dobbs. And I am so sorry. . . .”

Maisie took her seat and raised her hand. “Don’t apologize. Grief should be aired, not buried. Do you know if your wife was also acquainted with a woman called Charlotte Waite?”

Sedgewick looked up at Maisie. “The Waite girl? Why, yes she was. Again, it was a long time ago, long before we met. I say, what is all this about, Miss Dobbs?”

“I’m not sure, John, I am simply picking up loose threads.”

“Charlotte and Lydia were part of the same—coterie, I think you’d call them. You know, a group of young girls who spend time together on Saturdays, have tea together, and then spend their allowances on trifles, that sort of thing.”

Maisie nodded, though as a young girl there had been no coterie for her, no trifles, only more errands to run and her chores below stairs to perform as efficiently and quickly as possible, leaving her more time to study.

“But they grew apart, you know, as people do. Charlotte was very wealthy, as was Lydia. Pippin was part of a certain social circle that, frankly, she did not choose to belong to as they matured. I think they all had a falling out, but as I said, this was long before Pippin and I began courting.”

“Was a woman called Rosamund part of the group?”

Sedgewick sighed, and pressed his hands to his eyes. “The name rings a bell. I might have heard the name ‘Rosie’—I don’t think I heard ‘Rosamund’; . . . no . . . not ‘Rosamund.’”

Maisie prepared to ask her next question, when he spoke first. “You know, I have just remembered something odd. Mind you, I don’t know if it’s of any use to you.”

“Go on.”

“Well, it’s about the Waite girl; her father, really. It must have been before we were married.” Sedgewick scratched his head, “I’m as bad with time as I am with names. Yes, it was before we were married, because I remember being in Pippin’s mother’s parlor. Now it’s coming back to me. I arrived at the house on my bicycle just as a rather large motor car was leaving. Too fast if you ask me, I remember the gravel spitting up and hitting me in the face. Anyway, the housekeeper let me in, said that Pippin was in the parlor. As I walked in she was there, drying her eyes: She’d been crying. I pleaded with her to tell me what was the matter, but she would only say that she had had some sort of crossed words with Mr. Waite, Charlotte’s father. I threatened to go after him, but she wouldn’t allow it and said that if I did, then she would never see me again. That it would never happen again, or something like that.”

“And she never revealed the cause of the discord?”

“Never. I suspected it might have to do with Charlotte. I thought perhaps that Pippin had told a lie on her behalf—you know, saying that Charlotte was with her, when she was really somewhere else. Apparently Charlotte was quite rebellious as a young girl. See, my memory’s warming up now!”

“Did your wife ever see Joseph Waite again? Or hear from him?”

“No, I don’t think she did. She never mentioned it. After we were married, we settled into a very ordinary life, especially here on Bluebell Avenue.”

Sedgewick looked drawn, almost overcome with fatigue.

“I will leave you in peace soon, John. But first, I understand that your housekeeper found Mrs. Sedgewick?”

“Yes, Mrs. Noakes. She comes in daily to clean and dust, prepare supper, that sort of thing. She had gone out for a couple of hours, to the shops, and when she came home, she found Pippin in the dining room. It appears she’d had someone to tea, which was unusual, because she hadn’t said that she was expecting a visitor or mentioned it to Mrs. Noakes.”

“And you were at work?”

“Yes, in the City. I’m a civil engineer, Miss Dobbs, so I was out at a site all afternoon. Plenty of people saw me, but of course, I was also traveling between places, which interests the police enormously. They sit there with their maps and train timetables trying to work out if I could have come home, murdered my wife, and been back on a building site in time for my next alibi.”

“I see. Would you show me the dining room?”

In contrast to the untidy kitchen and drawing room, the dining room was immaculate, though evidence of police presence was everywhere throughout the house. It was clear that a thorough investigation had taken place in the room where Philippa Sedgewick had met her death.

“There wasn’t any blood to speak of.” The tendons in Sedgewicks throat became taut as he spoke of his wife’s murder. “Apparently the murderer drugged her with something first, before . . . before using the knife.”

“Yes.” Maisie walked around the room, observing but not touching. All surfaces were clean, with only a thin layer of dust. She walked to the window and opened the curtains to allow natural light to augment the grainy electric illumination. Fingerprinting was used widely now and Maisie could see residues of powder where police had tested for dabs left by the murderer. Yes, Stratton’s men had done a thorough job.

As if reading her mind, Sedgewick spoke. “Inspector Stratton isn’t such a bad chap. No, not too bad. It’s that sergeant of his that makes my skin crawl, Caldwell. He was a nasty piece of work. Have you met him?”

Maisie was preoccupied with scanning the nooks and crannies of the dining room, but an image of the small, brisk man with a pointed nose and a cold stare came to mind. “Only once or twice.”

“Just as well. He all but accused me when they took me in for questioning. Stratton was kinder. Mind you, I’ve heard that they do that, you know, play nice and nasty so that the suspect either gets unsettled or too relaxed before the other goes for the jugular.”

Maisie looked on each surface and under each piece of furniture. Sedgewick, who was now very much at ease in her company, seemed to ramble in conversation. Maisie touched a place on the floor, then brought her fingers close to her nose.

“I heard two of the constables speaking. Apparently Stratton lost his wife in childbirth five years ago. Got a little boy at home and is bringing him up alone. It would make him more understanding, I suppose.”

Maisie had been kneeling. She stood so quickly that her head spun.

“I didn’t mean to startle you, Miss Dobbs. Yes, he’s a widower. Just like me.”

Maisie quickly completed her investigation, taking care not to let her desire to be alone, to gather her thoughts, distract her from the job at hand. She might not have another opportunity. But there seemed to be nothing that spoke to her here except John Sedgewick’s grief.

“It’s time for me to go, John. Will you be all right?”

“Yes, I will. Speaking about Pippin seems to have fortified me. I should do something, I suppose. Tidy the house, that sort of thing. Mrs. Noakes has been too upset to come back, though she did write to say that she believes me innocent. Which is heartwarming, considering that my own sister and mother are keeping well away, and Pippin’s mother is too full of grief to visit.”

“Perhaps if you open the curtains, you’ll feel even better. Let the light in, John.”

Sedgewick smiled. “I could probably do with getting out into the garden. It was always Pippin’s domain, you know, the garden. Since she was a child she loved to grow things.”

“Enjoy the garden. After all, she planted it for both of you.”

As Maisie turned to leave, she felt a pressure in the middle of her back, as if she was being restrained. She gasped at the sensation, and realized that she had missed something, something she should not have overlooked.

“John, is there someplace here, a part of the garden, perhaps, that your wife particularly liked? Did she have a potting shed or greenhouse, that sort of thing?”

“Yes, at the side of the house here. In fact, Mrs. Noakes said that Pippin was in there when she left to go shopping. She loved the greenhouse. I designed it for her. You’ll see, it has three parts: a traditional glass section for bringing on seedlings; a shed with windows so that she would have a shaded area for potting; then the third part is a sort of conservatory, where she had her exotics, and where she would sit in her armchair with a gardening book. I don’t think I ever saw her with another type of book. Let me show you.”

Sedgewick led the way to the side of the house, where a willow tree obscured Philippa Sedgewick’s horticultural sanctuary from street view. Maisie entered, and immediately felt the humid warmth of a well-tended greenhouse, along with the pungent salty aroma of young geraniums growing in terra-cotta pots. She walked slowly along an inner path, to a stable door of wood and glass. Opening top and bottom, Maisie entered the musky potting shed, then walked through to the small conservatory-cum-sitting-room on the other side: the dead woman’s own special domain.

It reminded her of the winter garden where Simon sat with his blanket and his secrets. A wicker chair with green and rose cushions was still indented, as if the owner had only just risen. It seemed so warm that a cat would have immediately claimed the place. Once again Maisie paced, and was immediately drawn to a gardening book set on a table beside the chair. She opened the front cover and leafed through until the book seemed to fall open at the point where Philippa Sedgewick had set her bookmark, perhaps when the killer had come to call. She imagined Philippa hearing the sharp rap of the door knocker in the distance, quickly marking her place and jumping up to answer the door. Or had the killer come to look for her when his knock was not answered? If he was an acquaintance, she would have marked her place and offered tea.

Geranium. Pelargonium. Maisie ran her finger down the spine of the book, and as she did so, she felt a faint prickle. Looking more closely, she reached in and carefully took out the spiny yet smooth source of the sensation. Yes, yes, yes.

Maisie placed her find within a handkerchief while John Sedgewick was looking at a rather large waxy green plant in the corner. “Of course, I couldn’t tell one from the other, though Pippin could name every one, and in Latin. I think that’s the only reason she studied Latin in school, to learn more about plants.”

“I learned Latin once myself, simply to better understand another subject. I’d better be going, John. Thank you so much for your help, you have been most kind.”

Sedgewick held out his hand to Maisie. “Well, it was a dodgy start, wasn’t it? But I think you have helped me more than I’ve assisted you.”

“Oh, you have helped, John. Enormously. I am sure that you’ll be seeing Detective Inspector Stratton soon, and I’d appreciate it if no mention is made of my visit here today.”

“Not a word, Miss Dobbs, not a word. But, before you go, what case are you working on, if I may ask?”

“It has to do with a missing person.” She left at once, to avoid further questions. She needed to think. Starting the MG as quickly as she could, Maisie pushed the motor car into gear. She turned to look at Number Fourteen Bluebell Avenue one last time before speeding off, and saw John Sedgewick walk slowly toward his wife’s roses, then reach down to pull some weeds. Later, as she moved into traffic to return to London, Maisie thought not of Sedgewick but of Richard Stratton. A man who had lost his wife, too. And she thought of the chance discovery she had made, which she would now take back to her rooms and place with the twin that she had carefully wrapped in another linen handkerchief while standing in Lydia Fisher’s drawing room.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The gas fire was turned off, so the room was cold by the time Maisie arrived back at the office on Sunday evening. On the desk in front of her she saw a single sheet of paper filled with Billy’s large, primary school handwriting, along with several unopened envelopes placed separately on the desk so that Maisie could view each one individually before slicing it open. Billy had had a productive Saturday morning.

“Brrr. Let’s see: Cantwell bill sent out, good. Lady Rowan telephoned, no message. Andrew Dene . . . Andrew Dene? Hmmm.” Maisie raised her eyebrows and continued. “Returned folders to solicitors—” The telephone rang.

“Fitzroy five six double O.”

“Miss Dobbs?”

“Yes.”

“It’s John Sedgewick here. Glad I caught you.”

“Do you have some news, Mr. Sedgewick?” Maisie deliberately reverted to a more formal address.

“Yes I do. I thought you’d like to know that Detective Inspector Stratton and the obnoxious Caldwell came to the house after you left. They were asking about that Magnus Fisher.”

“Really? What did they want to know?”

“Well, more about his contact with Pippin. I told them what I told you. There wasn’t more to tell. Don’t worry, I did not breathe a word about your being here. But Stratton gave me something to think about.”

“And that is?”

“It turns out that Pippin did see Fisher. He’d returned from one of his expeditions about two months ago, and it was during that time that they met. He went off again for a couple of weeks, then came back again. Apparently the dates of his return trips almost mirror the dates of Pippin and Mrs. Fisher’s murders, so the police are interested in him.”

“Did they say anything about motive?”

“No. Stratton gave me the ‘all avenues’ line again, and asked if I knew Lydia Fisher. They also asked me—again, I might add—the most intimate details about my marital happiness.”

“All in the line of duty, Mr. Sedgewick. No doubt they asked you to speculate as to why Mrs. Sedgewick met with Fisher.”

“Yes, and I said that I thought she might have been trying to help in some way, given Mrs. Fisher’s problems. I thought they were suggesting that there was something, you know, ‘going on’ between Pippin and Fisher, especially as they had walked out together in earlier years. It really is most distressing, Miss Dobbs.”

“Of course it is, and I sympathize, Mr. Sedgewick. However, the police really are just trying to do their job. They want to find the killer before he strikes again.”

“It’s very difficult for me, yet I know you’re right.”

“Thank you, Mr. Sedgewick. You were most kind to telephone. Are you feeling better now?”

“Yes. Yes, I am. And you know, this evening one of my neighbors came to the house with some shepherd’s pie, said she hadn’t wanted to come around while the curtains were closed, and that they were so very sorry about Pippin. Mind you, she did bring her husband with her; she wasn’t that sure about me.”

“It’s a start, though. Goodnight, Mr. Sedgewick.”

“Yes, goodnight, Miss Dobbs.”

Magnus Fisher. Possible, thought Maisie, always possible. He had pursued Philippa and each of her friends. And he’d married Lydia. Had there been other, deeper relationships between Fisher and Rosamund and Charlotte? Had an earlier interest in these women lingered and faded, only to reignite and flare out of control later? She looked down and read on through Billy’s notes.

“Lady Rowan again . . . definitely not returning to Ebury Place for another fortnight at least.”

Maisie smiled at the next note, which was from Billy.Dear Miss,It’s nice to have you back here in London. I will be in sharp, nice and early tomorrow morning. Hope you had a nice time in Kent.Yours sincerely,

Billy Beale

Maisie could almost see Billy Beale as a boy, his wheaten hair disheveled and matted, freckles speckling his nose, his tongue clamped tightly between his teeth as he concentrated on sweeping his dipping pen up and down, up and down, as he constructed a letter. No doubt his teacher had emphasized use of the word nice.

Maisie perused each sealed envelope in turn until she came to a hand she knew so well, an unmistakable fine copperplate in blue-black ink. She turned the envelope over, to reveal the Camden Abbey wax seal. Underneath the address were the words “By Hand,” so the letter had obviously been delivered by later visitor to the abbey who had returned immediately to London, arriving before Maisie. Taking her Victorinox knife, Maisie slit the envelope open to reveal a folded sheet of crisp cream linen paper, so heavy it was almost card, upon which Dame Constance had written her letter:Dear Maisie,How lovely it was to see you at Camden Abbey. A visit from one of my most memorable students is always an event of great joy, but I confess I would like to see a little more weight on your bones!I will not fill my communiqué with more pleasantries, dear Maisie, but instead will come straight to the point as I must take advantage of delivery of this letter by a visitor from London who will be leaving shortly. I have counseled Miss Waite to see you, and she has agreed. Her confidence is due to the safety and refuge offered her by the community, so I must request that you honor my trust in you to proceed with integrity. Dame Judith has said that Miss Waite should rest for two or three days as she has caught that terrible cold we’ve all had. I suggest you come on Thursday morning.Yours sincerely,

Dame Constance Charteris

“Good.” Maisie sat at her desk, leaned back and smiled. She had no doubt that Dame Constance’s powers of persuasion had been brought to bear on Charlotte, though she wished they had resulted in a more timely interview. She would have to choose her words carefully when meeting with Joseph Waite on Tuesday.

When she left the office a heavy smog seemed, once again, to be spiraling around the trees on the square, and she could barely see the streetlamps. In the distance, she could hear both the clip-clop of hooves, and the pop and chug of motor cars ferrying people—better-off people—home from a Sunday excursion, or out to supper. Sound was distorted not only by the darkness but by the smog. She wished she were in Kent, to see the stars at night and silent fields illuminated by a full moon.

Had she already met the killer? Had they passed in the street outside Lydia Fisher’s home? Was Charlotte Waite involved, or was her flight from her father’s house simply the action of a woman who could no longer be treated as a girl? Could she be the killer? Or was she afraid of becoming the next victim? What of Magnus Fisher? What motive could he have for killing his wife and two of her acquaintances? Had something happened in Switzerland years ago? Something the women knew about that was so serious that he would kill to ensure their silence? What could Charlotte tell her about Fisher? And what of her tiny shreds of evidence, carefully preserved? Or were they nothing at all, just household detritus?

Once again her thoughts centered on the Waite household, and she examined her feelings toward both Charlotte and her father. She admitted some confusion where Joseph Waite was concerned: She found his arrogance distasteful, his controlling attitude toward his grown daughter appalling. Yet at the same time she respected his accomplishments and recognized his generosity. He was a man of extremes. A man who worked hard, who indulged himself, yet who gave help freely, with kindness, if he approved of the recipient.

Could he be the killer? She remembered the dexterity with which he wielded his array of butcher’s knives. Did he have a motive? If he did, then did it explain Charlotte’s flight?

What did she really know of Charlotte, except that she was not at peace? Her father’s view of her was biased. If only she could meet with Charlotte Waite sooner. She needed to form her own opinion of the woman’s character. In the meantime, could she interview Fisher?

Maisie started the MG. It was time to return to her rooms at Ebury Place. She had much to consider, to plan. Tomorrow would be a long day, a day that had to begin with a difficult encounter. She must confront Billy regarding his behavior.

The front door of the Belgravia mansion was opened even before she reached the bottom step.

“We heard your motor car turn in to the mews, M’um.”

“Oh, lovely. It’s a cold evening isn’t it, Sandra, and a foggy one.”

“It is, M’um, and that old green stuff out there going down into your lungs doesn’t help, either. Never mind, soon be summer.”

Sandra closed the door behind Maisie, and took her coat, hat, and gloves.

“Will you have supper in the dining room tonight, M’um, or on a tray upstairs?”

Maisie stopped for a moment, then turned to Sandra. “I think I’d like a nice bowl of vegetable soup on a tray. Not too soon—about half past eight.”

“Right you are, M’um. Teresa went upstairs the minute she heard your car and she’s running you a good hot bath, what with you driving up from Chelstone today.”

Maisie went immediately to her rooms, placed her now-full document case on the writing table, and undressed, quickly replacing her day clothes with a dressing gown and slippers. Was it only on Friday night that she had left for Chelstone? She had departed again early this morning, indeed, she had arisen as soon as she heard her father’s footfall on the stairs at four o’clock; washed, dressed and quickly joined him for a strong mug of tea before he went to attend to the mare.

“I’ve added some lavender salts to the bath for you, M’um. Helps you relax before bedtime, does lavender.” Teresa had set two large fluffy white towels on the rail by the bathtub, now full of steaming aromatic water.

“Thank you, Teresa.”

“Right you are M’um. Will you be needing anything else, M’um?”

“No, thank you.”

Teresa bobbed a curtsey and left the bathroom.

Maisie steeped her body, reaching forward with her foot to twist the hot tap whenever it seemed that the water was cooling. How strange to be living in the upstairs part of the Ebury Place mansion, to be addressed as ‘M’um’ by girls doing the same job that had brought her to this house, and this life. She leaned back to allow the scented steam to rise up into her hair, and remembered the once-a-week bath that was all she had been allowed when she herself had been a tweeny maid. Enid would bang on the door as soon as she thought that Maisie had been in too long. Maisie could hear her now. Come on, Mais. Let us in. It’s brassy out here on the landing.

And she remembered France, the cold mud that seeped into her bones, a cold that she could feel to this day. “You’re a chilly mortal, my girl.” Maisie smiled as she saw Mrs. Crawford in her mind’s eye, and almost felt the old woman’s arms around her, comforting her, as she enveloped Maisie with her warmth when she returned, injured, from France. “Let’s be having you, my girl. There, there, you’re home now, you’re home.” And she had held Maisie to her with one hand, and rubbed her back with the other, just as a mother would soothe a baby.

There was a knock on the bathroom door.

“Goodness!” Maisie gasped when she realized how long she had soaked in the bath. “Coming! I’ll be in right away!”

She quickly stepped out of the bath, toweled off, and pulled the dressing gown around her. She set her hair free, shook her head, and rushed into her sitting room. A supper tray had been placed on a small table set in front of her chair by the fire, which was glowing as flames curled around fresh coals being heaped on by Sandra.

“Better stoke it up a bit for you, M’um. We don’t want you catching cold, do we?”

“Thank you, Sandra. A cold is the last thing I want!”

Sandra replaced the tongs into a brass coal scuttle, stood up, and smiled at Maisie. “Looks like Mr. Carter will be returning next week, to get everything in its place for Her Ladyship coming back.”

“Ah, then we’ll know all about it, eh, Sandra?” Maisie smiled at the maid, taking her table napkin and setting it on her lap. “Mmm, this soup smells delicious!”

Sandra bobbed and nodded her head. “Thank you M’um .” But instead of leaving, she seemed to waver. “Not as many staff as there used to be, are there?”

“Certainly not as many as before the war, Sandra.” Instead of taking up her soup spoon, Maisie leaned back in the chair and looked into the fire. “No, definitely not. And if you asked Mrs. Crawford, she’d tell you that there were even more before His Lordship bought the motor cars, when there were horses in the mews, and grooms.”

Sandra pursed her lips and looked at her feet. “S’all changing, isn’t it, M’um? I mean, you know, we wonder why they keep this place up, now that they spend more time down at Chelstone.”

Maisie thought for a while and replied. “Oh, I think they’ll keep Ebury Place for a few years yet, at least until Master James comes back to England. After all, it is part of his inheritance. Are you worried about your job, Sandra?”

“Well, we all are, M’um. I mean, I hope you don’t mind me saying this, and all, but things are changing. Not so many girls are going into service these days. But, you know, it’s funny, like, when you can see change right before your eyes.”

“Yes. Yes, you’re right. We’ve seen a lot of changes since the war.”

“I think people are trying to forget the war, don’t you, Miss? I mean, who wants to be reminded? My cousin—not the one what died over there, but the one who came home wounded from Loos—he said that it was one thing to be remembered, and quite another to be reminded every day. He didn’t mind people remembering what he’d done, you know, over there. But he didn’t want to be reminded of it. He said that it was hard, because something happened to remind him every day.”

Maisie thought of her bath, and how the sheer pleasure of it was a reminder of the past. Even if the reminder was of the opposite sensation, that of cold, of discomfort.

“Well, I’d better be getting along, M’um, let you eat your supper. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Sandra. And Sandra, don’t worry about things changing. It usually turns out for the best.”

Maisie finished her soup and leaned into the chair again to watch the hot coals turn to embers. She would make up the fire just a little before going into her bedroom, knowing that as she drifted into slumber, the tray would silently be taken from her rooms in the same way that a breakfast tray would silently appear as she was pinning up her hair in the morning. The conversation with Sandra had sparked her thoughts in another direction. Perhaps she was ready for change. Not outwardly, though she knew that exterior transformation was a signal of inner change, but in what she envisioned for her future. Yes, perhaps that was a subject worthy of consideration.

As Maisie settled back into the pillows, she thought of the fine line between remembrance and reminder, and how a constant reminder could drive a person to the edge of sanity. Could drive a person to drugs or drink, to anything that took away the past’s sharp edges. But what if the reminder was another human being? Then what might happen?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Maisie rose early. She washed quickly and dressed in her blue suit, with the collar and cuffs of a white linen blouse just visible underneath. Anticipating a chilly morning, Maisie remembered her navy blue coat, along with her old cloche and black gloves. She grabbed the black document case and left the room quickly.

She was about to open the disguised landing door that led to the back stairs and down to kitchen, when she thought better of it. The girls downstairs might be embarrassed. She would use the main staircase. Then she could knock at the door in fair warning. Straddling the line of her position in the household required some thought.

Maisie knocked, waited a second or two, then poked her head around the kitchen door without waiting for a reply. “Good morning everyone!”

There was a collective gasp from Sandra, Teresa and Valerie. “Oh, Miss, you gave us a fright!” said Sandra. “I was just about to start your breakfast.”

“Sorry to scare you. I thought I’d have breakfast in the kitchen, if that’s all right.”

“Of course it is, Miss. Of course. At least your hair’s nice and dry this morning!”

“Your usual, Miss? Porridge, Hovis and marmalade? You’ll need to stoke up the fires this morning, it’s cold out there. They reckon we could be in for a wintry Easter this year.”

Maisie smiled, noting the change of address again, from “M’um” to “Miss.” Maisie felt like a citizen of two countries, neither here nor there, but always somewhere in the middle.

“Easter’s still a fortnight away and I need to be quick today. I’ll have just a slice of Hovis toasted and a nice cup of tea, thank you.”

“Right you are, Miss. Cup of tea coming up, and toast to follow. Are you sure you don’t want a nice boiled egg?”

Maisie shook her head. “Tea and toast will be plenty for me this morning, Teresa.”

Maisie took some letters from her document case and began to read. She was aware that the girls had exchanged glances, and were mouthing messages to each other. Sandra cleared her throat and came over to the table.

“Miss?”

“Yes, Sandra?”

“Well, we was thinking, you know, and wondered if, you know, you’d like to come to the pictures with us, next Saturday evening. We don’t usually go out together, the three of us girls—we like to make sure that one of us is always in the kitchen, even if there’s no one upstairs—but it’s not as if we’re leaving the house unattended, what with the other staff being here.”

“What’s the picture?”

“It’s a talkie, and a bit scary, I’ve heard. It’s got Donald Calthrop in it. Called Blackmail. It’s about this girl, and she’s courting a fella in the police, a detective, and he—”

“I don’t think so, Sandra.”

“Hmmm, I s’pose anything to do with the police would be like going on a busman’s holiday for you, wouldn’t it, Miss?”

“It’s lovely of you to ask, Sandra. Thank you very much for thinking of me. The funny thing is, I don’t really like the scary ones, they keep me awake.”

Sandra laughed. “Now that, Miss, is funny.”

Having barely touched her breakfast, Maisie left the Ebury Place mansion via the stone stairs that led from the back door into the street, then made her way to the mews to collect the motor car. George, the Compton’s chauffeur, was in Kent, but a young footman had been assigned to keep the garage spick and span, ready for the return of the Compton’s Rolls Royce. The old Lanchester was kept in London, and though now used only occasionally, was cleaned, polished and tended to regularly. Maisie’s MG gave the footman a more substantial daily job.

“I could’ve brought ’er round to the front for you, Miss. Anyway, there she is, all cleaned and polished ready for London. Got ’er in plenty of mud down there, didn’t you?”

“The weather has no respect for the motor car, Eric, any more than it has for the horse. Thank you for shining her up again. Did you check my oil?”

“All done, Miss. Everything given the once over. She’d take you from John O’Groats to Land’s End if you felt like the drive, and that’s a fact. Lovely little runner, lovely.”

“Thank you, Eric.”

Maisie parked once again in Fitzroy Street, in exactly the same spot as the evening before. Few people had motor vehicles, so Maisie was regarded as a subject of some interest as she climbed from the gleaming crimson vehicle.

She walked slowly toward the office, knowing that this morning would be a difficult one. Her feet were heavy on the stairs and she knew that to have the energy for the next part of her day, she must bring her body into alignment with her intentions, that her sagging shoulders would not support her spirit for the task ahead.

Unlocking the door to the first-floor office, Maisie was surprised to note that Billy had not arrived yet. She looked at her watch. Half-past eight. Despite his message, Billy was late. She walked to the window, rubbing the back of her neck where her scar had begun to throb.

Placing her hands on her chest, with her right hand over the left, Maisie breathed deeply. As her tension eased, she began to envisage the conversation with Billy, concentrating on the closing words of a dialogue that had yet to happen. Pressing her hands even more firmly against her body, Maisie deliberately slowed her breathing to settle her pounding heart, and felt the nagging ache of her scar abate. That’s a reminder, she thought, every single day, just as Billy’s wounded leg is a reminder. And as she stilled her heart and mind, it occurred to Maisie to question herself: If Lydia Fisher chose alcohol, and Billy narcotics to beat back the tide of daily reminder, then what did she do to dull the pain? And as she considered her question, the terrible thought came to her that perhaps she worked hard at her own isolation, along with the demands of her business. Perhaps she worked so hard that she was not only able to ignore physical discomfort, but had rendered herself an island adrift from deeper human connection. She shivered.

“ ’Mornin’, Miss, and what a nice mornin’ it is, too. Thought I’d need me overcoat this mornin’, I did, but ’ad to run from the bus stop and ended up carryin’ the thing.”

Maisie looked at her silver watch, pinned to the lapel of her jacket.

“Sorry I’m a bit late today, Miss, but there was a bit of an ’oldup on the road. I caught the bus this mornin’, and ’alfway along the Mile End Road, I wished I ’adn’t bothered. Would’ve been quicker to walk—and me with this leg and all. Big mess, it was. Motor car—and you don’t see many of ’em down there—’ad gone right into the back of a dray. Thank Gawd ’e weren’t goin’ too quick. Mind you, you should’ve ’eard them drivers goin’ at ’im.Thought they’d whop ’im one with the whip, I did. One of ’em was shoutin’, ‘Put the traces on ’im, and give the bleedin’ ’orses a rest, the lunatic!’ Oops, sorry, Miss, I was just sayin’ what I ’eard them say. It’s a poor old state of affairs, when motor cars—” Billy fussed as he spoke, avoiding eye contact, taking time to shake out his coat and cap, placing them on the coat stand, then riffling through the newspaper as if looking for something in particular.

“Now then, saw something ’ere this mornin’ I thought you’d—”

“Billy.”

“Got to do with that—”

“Billy!” Maisie raised her voice, then spoke more quietly. “There’s a matter I would like to discuss with you. Let’s sit together by the gas fire here. Pull up a chair.”

His face flushed, Billy put the newspaper on his desk, dragged his chair out, and set it next to Maisie’s.

“Am I getting the sack, Miss?”

“No, Billy, you are not getting the sack. However, I’d like to see a bit more in the way of timekeeping on your part.”

“Yes, Miss. I’m sorry, Miss. Won’t ’appen again.”

“Billy . . .”

“Yes, Miss?”

“I’ll get straight to the point,” said Maisie, realizing this was a prevarication, that she was far from getting to the point. She took another deep breath, and began to speak. “I have been concerned for some time about your—let’s say moods and—”

“I can exp—”

“Let me finish, Billy. I have been concerned about your moods and, of course, about the obvious pain you have been suffering with your war wounds. I have been worried about you.”

Billy rubbed his knees back and forth, back and forth, his eyes on the flickering, hissing flame of the gas fire.

“You know only too well that I was a nurse and that I have some knowledge of the substances administered to the wounded during the war. I saw doctors working in terrible conditions, barely able to practice their profession. When it came to administering morphine and other drugs, they didn’t always know what they were giving, in the way of strength of medication.” Maisie watched Billy, choosing her words carefully as if she were navigating a minefield, trying to keep his attention yet not ignite a rush to defense or the explosive outburst that she feared. Billy’s jaw worked back and forth as he listened and continued to gaze into the fire.

“Billy, I believe you were overdosed on morphine, though you probably didn’t know it at the time. Even when we had wounded men being brought into the casualty clearing station by the hundreds, sometimes people stood out and, as you know, I remembered you. You were one of those it was almost impossible to medicate. You were immediately released to the general hospital, where you were given more medication, then to convalescent care, where more morphine was prescribed to assist you with the pain.”

Billy nodded, but still he did not speak.

“And when the prescriptions ended, like so many, you found that access to a substance with similar qualities was easy, especially in London. Cocaine, wasn’t it? You probably gave it up for years, didn’t you? But when the leg started nagging at you again, you had a bit more money coming in and a local source.” Maisie paused.

Finally Billy nodded, then spoke, his eyes never leaving the hot gas jets that warmed their feet, but did nothing to dent the cold around their shoulders and heads.

“You amaze me sometimes, Miss.” Billy’s upper body seemed to give way as he resigned himself to the truth. “Of course you’re spot-on right, as usual. No use me sayin’ otherwise.” His voice was uncharacteristically low, his speech slow. “When I was first out of convalescence, after I’d come back to London and before I went back down there and married Doreen and brought ’er ’ome, it was easy to get ’old of it. The Canadians on leave were the ones to see, called it ‘snow,’ they did. Good blokes, them Canadians. Lost a lot of their own. Anyway, just like you said, I stopped it. Then, oh, must’ve been four months ago, round Christmas when it was really nippy, me leg started on at me again, this time badly. There were days I thought I’d never get down the old stairs. And it just wore me out, just wore on me . . .”

Maisie allowed Billy to speak. He stared as if mesmerized, into the fire.

“Then this fella, who I’d known over there, saw me in the Prince of Wales. Just ’aving a swift ’alf one night before going ’ome, I was, when up ’e comes. ‘Eh, is that you, Billy-boy?’ ’e says, full of it. Next thing you know, ’e was tellin’ me where ’e could get some.” Billy put his hands over his eyes as if trying to erase the image from his mind, then lowered them once more to his knees and began rubbing his thighs. “And so I said awright. Just a bit would take the edge off. And, Miss, it was like before the war, with all the pain taken away. I felt like a boy again, and let me tell you, I’d been feelin’ like an old man.”

Billy paused. Maisie reached out to the knob at the side of the fire and turned up the flame. Still she was silent, allowing Billy to tell his story in his own time.

“And to tell you the truth, I wish I’d never seen ’im or ’is stash. But I wish I could feel like that all the time. I just wish . . .”

Billy slumped forward and began to sob. Maisie leaned toward him; then she remembered Mrs. Crawford and simply rubbed his back, calming Billy as if he were a small boy. Eventually, Billy’s tears subsided and he sat back. He blew his nose.

“Sound like a bleedin’ elephant, don’t I, Miss?” Billy folded the handkerchief and blew again. “Look, Miss. I’ll go. I’ve no business workin’ for you, and that’s a fact. I can look for another job.”

“Billy, before you do that, think about the lines of men looking for work. Anyway, business is good and I need you. But I also need you healthy and free of this burden, and I have a plan.”

Billy looked up at Maisie, dabbing his nose, which had begun to bleed. He held the handkerchief tightly to his face to stem the flow and leaned back slightly.

“Sorry, Miss.”

“I’ve seen worse, Billy. Now then, here’s my plan. It will help you, but it will need an enormous effort on your part.”

Maisie began to outline the plan of action that she had designed with Maurice.

“Oh, Doctor Andrew Dene, the fella what called ’ere for you,” said Billy. “There’s me thinking that ’e might be someone you’d met down there.”

“Well, he was someone I met down there,” replied Maisie.

“No, Miss, I meant met, as in, you know, met.”

“Billy, I met him to see if he could give me some advice. I wanted to see what could be arranged for you.”

“Well, it’s good of you to take the trouble and all, but I don’t think I want to leave London.” Billy dabbed at his nose, checked to see that the bleeding had stopped, then replaced the soiled handkerchief in his pocket. “I’d miss me nippers and Doreen. And I can’t see me sitting around on me duff all day with nothing to do but wait to do some special moving of me legs, and to see a doctor.”

Maisie sighed. She had been warned by Maurice that Billy would probably object initially, either mildly or more firmly. At this stage she should be grateful that he had not shown anger when she revealed knowledge of his dependence upon cocaine. Perhaps another means of helping Billy could be found, one that would keep him closer to London. In the meantime she needed a commitment from him. “Billy, I want you to promise that you will not procure any more of this substance.”

“I never did let myself get too much of a likin’ for it, Miss, not like some. I tried to take it only when I was in that much pain. Frightened me, to tell you the truth, to know that somethin’ you took, y’know, could change you that much. Scared the bloomin’ life out of me. But then when I felt bad again, ’avin’ a bit didn’t seem such an ’orrible thing t’do.”

“All right. Let’s not talk about it anymore today. But I do insist that you speak to Doreen.” She was careful to honor the confidence shared with Billy’s wife. “If I have noticed changes in you, then I am sure she has. I urge you to speak to her and see what she says about what I’ve suggested.”

“Aw, blimey, Miss, you don’t know my Doreen. She’s one of the best, but she can be as tough as old boots.”

“Tough with a heart of gold, I suspect, Billy. Speak to her, please.”

“Awright, I will, Miss.”

Maisie felt a weight lifted from her shoulders. Her first challenge of the day was over.

Remembering Maurice’s advice, she knew that Billy should be allowed time to regain his balance, now that his burden of secrecy had been lifted.

Now she had to concentrate on the Waite case. “I’ve quite a lot to tell you about my visit to Kent,” said Maisie. “We’ll need to get cracking with the pencils today. Charlotte is at Camden Abbey. At least I have performed the most important part of the Waite assigment. She has been located and she is safe.”

Maisie wondered if she should show Billy what she had collected from the homes of Lydia Fisher and Philippa Sedgewick. Though she would never have asked him, she was sure that when she was an apprentice, Maurice had kept certain things to himself, as if in sharing a find before he felt that the time for revelation had come, he diminished its power. Maisie did not want to share what she had found until she could be sure of its significance.

“I want to speak to Magnus Fisher,” said Maisie. “The police are sniffing around, looking into his past, who he’s been seen with, and when. I believe he’s a suspect in the murder of his wife, Lydia, so if I am to see him, then it must be soon.”

“Won’t D. I. Stratton wonder what you’re up to? I mean, ’e’s bound to find out that you’ve spoken to Fisher.”

“That’s true, but he also knows that I have been working on a missing-person case, and that Lydia Fisher may have had relevant information.” Maisie was thoughtful. “Yes, I’ll telephone Fisher now. Billy, what’s the number at the Cheyne Mews house?”

Billy passed his notebook to Maisie, who placed the call.

The maid answered the telephone. “The Fisher residence.”

Maisie smiled upon identifying the young maid’s voice. “Oh good morning. It’s Miss Dobbs here. How are you now?”

The maid warmed. “Oh, M’um. Thank you very much for asking, I’m sure. I’m getting over it all, though there’ve been a lot of people coming and going.”

“I’m sure there have. Now then, may I speak with Mr. Magnus Fisher, please?”

“I’m afraid he is not in residence, M’um. I could take a message.”

“Do you know where he is? I haven’t had a chance to convey my condolences yet.”

“Oh, yes, of course, M’um. Mr. Fisher is at the Savoy.”

“The Savoy? Thank you.”

“My, My, that was a little too easy,” Maisie remarked to Billy as she replaced the receiver. “He’s at the The Savoy Hotel, if you please.”

“Well, ’e’s not wastin’ any time, is ’e?”

“It’s a strange choice if he wants a measure of privacy, but on the other hand, the staff at the Savoy can keep the press at bay, which they’ll need to do if the maid keeps giving out his whereabouts.”

Maisie picked up the receiver again and placed a call to the hotel. She was surprised when she was connected.

“Magnus Fisher.”

“Oh, Mr. Fisher, I am surprised you were located so promptly.”

“I was at the desk. Who is this?”

“My name is Maisie Dobbs. First of all, please accept my condolences for your loss.”

“What’s this about?”

“Mr. Fisher, I am an investigator. I can say little until we meet in person. However, I am currently working on a case that may involve your late wife. I wonder if you might be able to meet with me this morning?”

“Are you working with the police?”

“No.”

“Well, you’ve piqued my curiosity. However, the police are keeping me very much in their sights. I’m currently unable to travel outside London. Where and when do you want to meet?”

“Let’s say”—Maisie consulted her watch—“in about an hour. Meet me on the Embankment, by Cleopatra’s Needle. I’ll be wearing a navy blue coat and a blue hat. Oh, and I wear spectacles, Mr. Fisher.”

“See you in an hour, Miss Dobbs.”

“Thank you, Mr. Fisher.”

“Putting on the fake specs again, Miss?”

Maisie reached into the top drawer of her desk and brought out a pewter case, which she opened, and then placed a pair of tortoiseshell spectacles on her nose.

“Yes, Billy. I’ve always found this one small change in appearance to be a useful tool. If a policeman follows Fisher and then makes a note of my description, he will most definitely remember the spectacles. And Stratton knows I do not require help with vision.”

“You sure Fisher is safe? I mean, look ’ow the weather’s turned again, and if it’s miserable, there won’t be many people walking along by the water. That man could push you in, and no one would be any the wiser. After all, ’e could be—”

“The killer? Don’t worry, Billy. You just continue working on the case map. Here are my index cards from this past two days.” Maisie reached for her coat. “I’ll take the underground—should be back by twelve.”

“Right you are, Miss.”

Maisie walked toward Warren Street station, thinking that the time alone in the office, and the task of adding more depth of information to the case map, would allow Billy to compose himself, now that his secret was out in the open. Though he might feel apprehensive, he was also free from the burden of guilt that had dragged at his spirit.

Maisie waved briefly to Jack Barker, the newspaper vendor, before going down to the trains. She traveled on the Northern Line to Charing Cross Embankment. The air was damp and cold as she exited the station and walked down toward the Thames. A drizzle that was not quite rain, yet more than a mist, dulled the day, forcing some passers-by to use umbrellas. Maisie pulled up her collar, quickly rubbed a handkerchief across the spectacles and turned left to walk along the Embankment toward Cleopatra’s Needle. The flagstones beneath her feet were wet and slippery and the Thames was a dirty gray. The river air smelled of smoke and rotting tidal debris.

She reached the meeting place and consulted her watch. It was ten o’clock, exactly forty-five minutes since she had ended her telephone conversation with Fisher.

“Miss Dobbs?”

Maisie swung around. The man before her was about five feet eleven inches tall, broad shouldered and heavyset, though he did not appear to carry excess weight. He wore black trousers, a tan mackintosh and a brown hat with a beige band. She could see that under the mackintosh he wore a shirt and woolen pullover, but no tie. His face was partially obscured by an umbrella.

“Yes. Mr. Fisher?”

Magnus Fisher moved the umbrella slightly to one side. He nodded.

“So where do you suggest we talk? Hardly a day for sitting on a bench on the Embankment and watching a dirty old river go by, is it?”

“Let’s walk toward the Temple underground station, Mr. Fisher. We can speak as we go. Were you followed?”

Magnus Fisher looked around. They were quite alone.

“No. I slipped out of the staff entrance and then came down Villiers Street. The police know where I am and that I always come back. It’s been like a game of cat and mouse, only we tip hats to each other.” He turned to Maisie. “What’s this all about?”

Maisie set a pace that was businesslike and deliberate. “I am investigating the case of a missing woman on behalf of her family. I believe she was a friend of your wife.”

“And how can I help you? I spend most of my time out of the country, so I am not well acquainted with my wife’s associates.”

“May I assume we can speak in confidence, Mr. Fisher?”

The man shrugged. “Of course. At least this chat of ours will take my mind off whatever the police are cooking up for me.”

“Were you acquainted with Charlotte Waite?”

Fisher began to laugh. “Oh, the Waite woman. Yes, I knew Charlotte years ago, and yes, she and Lydia kept in touch.”

“Where and when did you meet?”

“Just before the war broke out I was in Switzerland, mountaineering with some chums. Lydia and Charlotte, being the daughters of poor boys made good, were at a second-tier finishing school there. We met at one of those yodel-odel-odel matinee social events.”

“So you knew Lydia, Charlotte, and their other friends as well?”

“Yes. There were four of them in their little group. Lydia, Charlotte, Philippa, and wispy little Rosamund. I expect you know that Philippa is also dead. That’s why they think it’s me. Because I met with Philippa on a couple of occasions when I was back in the country.”

“I see.” Maisie would return to Philippa Sedgewick later. First she wanted to learn how well Fisher had known each woman. “Did you see the girls in this group often in those days, Mr. Fisher?”

Fisher held the umbrella between them, but put out his hand to feel the air.

“Might as well put this away.” He collapsed the umbrella, and continued. “All right, I confess, my friends and I wooed all of them.” Fisher sighed. “Look, Miss Dobbs, we were three young men in Europe, unchaperoned, meeting four young women who, it seemed, managed to lose their chaperone at every opportunity. What do you think? I courted every one of them. Charlotte was a bit too spoiled for me, frankly. Too many airs and graces. Rosie—not my type, I’m afraid. She was the one who always feared they’d be caught.” Fisher laughed again in a manner that Maisie found distasteful. “Philippa fell in love with me, but she got on my nerves. I was twenty-two with the world at my feet—literally—so the last thing I wanted was a weeping willow at my door. I’m afraid I broke her heart.”

Maisie remembered the weeping willow at the side of the Sedgewick house, and Philippa’s almost secret haven behind the fronds of yellow leaves.

“And Lydia?”

“Lydia was the most fun. A good time was always had by all when Lydia was around, in those days anyway.”

“When did you marry?”

“We met again after the war.”

“Had you been in France?”

Fisher laughed. “Oh God, no. I joined an expedition to South America in May 1914. I’d tried to join Shackleton’s little joy ride to Antarctica. Just as well I didn’t, isn’t it? They went through hell in the ice, then when they got back no one wanted to know about them. While they were trying to keep warm, I was poking around in ruined temples and swatting at flies. I returned in 1919 with no money, but I did have some good stories that didn’t include trenches.”

Maisie checked herself. Though the conversation was necessary, and Fisher was clearly enjoying her attention, she detested his attitude.

“I engineered contact with Lydia again; by that time she had come into her inheritance. We were married within the year.” Fisher was silent and suddenly thoughtful. “Look, Miss Dobbs, I’ll be honest with you: Having a wife with money was attractive to me. I knew that if we were married, I could travel and enjoy a certain freedom that would be impossible otherwise. But I also thought it would be more fun than it turned out to be.”

“What do you mean?”

Fisher kicked at a pebble on the pavement. “By the time I returned, it was clear that Lydia enjoyed a drink. I couldn’t remember her touching any more than a half glass of Glühwein in Switzerland, but in the interim she had obviously taken to wine by the bottle. I didn’t realize how serious it was at first, but later it was a relief when a new expedition came along. Off I went at a dash. As time went on she acquired a taste for those fashionable new cocktails. Now, I like a drink myself, but this was beyond the pale. I tried to get in contact with her old friends for advice and help, but they’d lost touch. Lydia never said anything definite, but I think they had argued before the end of the war. Probably about Lydia’s drinking. I did meet Philippa a couple of times in the weeks before she was murdered, as I said, but, frankly, she wasn’t very helpful. I wanted her to speak to Lydia, try to get her to dry out.”

“And did they meet?”

“No. Philippa said she would, then bagged out. I have to admit, I all but lost my temper. I mean, to let a silly little row get in the way. Women!” He shook his head. “Anyway, my pleas were met with a very cowardly ‘You don’t understand.’ By that time, of course, our marriage had fallen apart completely. If you must know, I clung to the money, and Lydia clung to the nearest bottle. Apparently, she even invited some Cockney tyke up to the house for a drink on the evening she was killed. I’ve heard he’s off the hook, though. Probably the man I saw when I went in to get my luggage. By the way—I’m not telling you anything I haven’t already told the police.”

Maisie nodded and continued. “You were at the house on the day your wife died?”

“For about five minutes. Lydia was in her cups, so I left again pretty sharpish, taking my belongings with me. The marriage was over.”

“I see.” Maisie gave nothing away about Billy’s visit, and paused before her next question to Fisher. “And you are sure you never saw Charlotte Waite after Switzerland?”

“No. The others didn’t even come to our wedding. Mind you, I don’t actually know if they were invited. I just smiled and said ‘Thank you’ throughout the whole thing.”

“And did your wife ever say anything about Charlotte?”

“Oh, I think she might have come to the house, and Lydia mentioned that she was kept on a close rein by her father. Absurd situation, if ever there was one. I cannot wait until they find the murderer and I can get back to Africa—or anywhere else as far away from this freezing miserable place as possible!”

They crossed the road to Temple underground station. “And you’re sure there’s nothing more you can tell me about Charlotte Waite, Mr. Fisher?”

Magnus Fisher shook his head. “No. Nothing. With Stratton and his bulldog, the slobbering Caldwell, at my heels, my concern is self-preservation at the moment, Miss Dobbs.”

“Thank you, Mr. Fisher.”

“Mind you, there is one thing.”

“Yes, Mr. Fisher?”

“Won’t you have supper with me, as soon as the police are off my back?”

Maisie’s eyes opened wide, so that even behind her spectacles her indignation was obvious. “Thank you for the invitation, but I think not, Mr. Fisher. In fact, some time spent in mourning might not do you any harm at all.”

And though he had just given Maisie a considerable amount of information to contemplate, she inclined her head curtly and left Magnus Fisher standing outside Temple underground station.

To cool her temper Maisie walked briskly toward The Strand, where she turned left, making her way to Southam Street and Covent Garden.

“The cheek of it!” she muttered under her breath. “And his wife’s body isn’t yet cold!” But though she found him to be quite detestable, Fisher had not emanated an air of menace. She doubted if he cared enough about anything, even money, to kill for it.

Walking through the market, which was less frenetic now that the morning’s business was done, soothed Maisie. It reminded her of her father, who would sometimes bring her to the market with him early in the morning when she was a child. She would laugh at porters moving to and fro with six, seven, eight, or ten round baskets of fruit and vegetables perched on their heads, and the air was always sweetly salty with the smell of sweating horses pulling heavy carts.

She descended into the depths of Covent Garden underground, taking the Piccadilly Line to Leicester Square, then the Northern Line to Warren Street, where she emerged.

“Morning, Miss Dobbs. In a rush today?” Jack Barker doffed his cap as Maisie walked quickly past him.

“Always busy, Mr. Barker.”

Maisie slammed the door behind her, causing Billy to jump.

“Blimey, Miss! Gawd, you scared the daylights out of me.”

“I’m sorry, Billy. I just met with Magnus Fisher. Not the most savory person in the world, though he was useful.” Maisie removed her coat and walked over to the table where Billy was working. She placed several more index cards on the table.

“I jotted these down while I was on the train.”

Billy began to read. “Oh, so—”

A sudden thud on the window made Maisie and Billy start. Maisie gasped and held her hand to her chest.

“What the—”

“Stupid bloomin’ pigeon!”

“Pigeon?”

Billy walked over to the window. “Not to worry. ’e didn’t top ’im-self. Probably flyin’ around with a bit of a bump on ’is ’ead though. Stupid bird.”

“Was it a pigeon, then, Billy?”

“Certainly was, Miss. They do that sometimes, fly into windows.”

“Well, I hope that doesn’t happen too often.”

“My old Mum would’ve been goin’ to pieces if she’d been ’ere. Always said that a bird in the ’ouse, or tryin’ to get inside, came with a message from the dead.”

“Oh, just what I wanted to hear!”

“Nah, Miss, nothing to worry about. Old wives’ tale, it is. Me, well, I can’t stand birds. Hate the bloomin’ things, ever since the war.”

The telephone began to ring, and Billy walked over to Maisie’s desk. “Billy—why since the—” Maisie stopped speaking as Billy picked up the receiver.

“Fitzroy f—” Billy was interrupted while trying to give the telephone number. “Yes, sir. Oh, that is good news, sir. Yes, I’ll put her on.” Billy cupped his hand over the receiver.

“Who is it, Billy?”

“It’s that Detective Inspector Stratton. All pleased with ’imself. They’ve just arrested the fella who murdered them women.”

Maisie took the receiver, greeted Stratton, and listened carefully, punctuating his news with “Really?” and “I see” along with “Very good!” and “But—” before endeavoring to deliver her final comment.

“Well, Inspector, I must offer congratulations, however, I do feel—”

There was an interruption, during which Maisie ran her fingers through tendrils of black hair that had once again escaped the pins securing her tresses in an otherwise neat chignon. Billy leaned over the case map while listening to Maisie’s half of the conversation.

“That would be lovely, Inspector. Tomorrow? Yes. All right. Schmidt’s at noon. Of course. Yes. I look forward to it.”

Maisie replaced the receiver and returned to the table near the window. She took up a pencil, which she tapped on the paper.

“So, good news, eh, Miss?”

“I suppose you could call it that.”

“Is there anything wrong?”

Maisie turned to Billy. “Nothing wrong, really.”

“Phew. I bet a few women will answer their doors a little easier for that news, don’t you?”

“Perhaps, Billy.”

“Well, who is it? Anyone we know?”

“They have just arrested Magnus Fisher at his hotel. I only left him just over an hour ago. Stratton could not disclose details of the evidence. And by the way, Billy, keep quiet about this, as news hasn’t reached the press yet. Stratton said that there was a witness to Fisher entering the Cheyne Mews house on the evening of his wife’s death, and that he’d been having an affair with Philippa Sedgewick.” Maisie clasped her hands and rested her lips against her knuckles.

“Whew, would you believe it?” Billy noticed Maisie’s furrowed brow. “It sounded like you ’ad a few crossed words with ol’ Stratton.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘crossed,’ Billy, but I did try to caution him.”

“Caution ’im? Why?”

Maisie looked at Billy, her midnight blue eyes piercing through his puzzlement.

“Because, Billy, in my opinion Detective Inspector Stratton has arrested a man who is innocent of the crime of murder.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Maisie made her way along Charlotte Street toward Schmidt’s.

The day was once again changeable and brisk, so she wore her mackintosh over the new black dress. She had changed three times before leaving the house this morning, considering not only lunch with Detective Inspector Stratton but the meeting that afternoon with Joseph Waite. As she dressed she was aware of feeling in her stomach and legs that she attributed to anxiety. Though she looked forward to seeing Stratton, she was disappointed at the peremptory way in which he had brought the case of the murdered women to a close. She felt that a grave error had been made. Was this the source of the physical sensations that seemed to render her temporarily dizzy on two occasions before she left the house?

Now, as she walked along the gray flagstones, heat seemed to rise up through her body. She felt faint. She quickly turned into a side street and leaned against a brick wall for support. As she breathed deeply, her eyes closed, Maisie hoped that no one attempted to inquire after her health, or to assist her. I feel as if my foundations have been rocked, thought Maisie. She opened her eyes and gasped, for it seemed that her surroundings had changed, although they remained the same. As she tried to focus her gaze, it was as if she were looking at a picture that had been hung incorrectly, a picture that she could not quite set straight. Up a bit . . . no, down a bit . . . to the left . . . too much, just a hair right . . . And as she continued to look, the picture changed, and now she saw the Groom’s Cottage at Chelstone. Then it vanished.

Regaining her composure, Maisie stood away from the wall, keeping one hand outstretched, touching the bricks. As confidence in her stability returned, she walked slowly into Charlotte Street. Maisie brushed off the interlude, telling herself that it served her right for skipping breakfast. Frankie Dobbs would have had something to say about that! “Breakfast, my girl, is the most important meal of the day. You know what they say, Maisie: ‘Breakfast like a king, lunch like a lord, and dinner like a pauper.’ Key to bein’ as fit as a fiddle, is that.” But as she saw Stratton in the distance, waiting for her outside Schmidt’s, Maisie decided to telephone Chelstone after luncheon. Perhaps the foal had been born by now. Perhaps. . . .

Maisie poked a fork into the rich German sausage, which was served with cabbage and potatoes.

“Miss Dobbs, I’m glad to be away from the Yard this afternoon, if only for an hour,” said Stratton. “Since news of the arrest was published in the newspapers, we’ve been deluged. Of course, I give Caldwell credit for inserting the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle.”

Maisie continued to clutch her knife and fork, but she could not eat. “Inspector Stratton, I think you—and Sergeant Caldwell—are mistaken.”

Stratton leaned back in his chair. “Miss Dobbs, I know that you have certain skills in this field.”

“Thank you, Inspector. It’s just that”—Maisie set down her cutlery onto her plate—“I think there has been a rush to judgment.”

Stratton straightened his tie. “Look, if you’ve evidence that I am not aware of . . . ?”

Maisie considered the white linen handkerchief and asked herself whether the delicate items held within could be termed “evidence.” But evidence of what? She had made an assessment of Fisher’s character based on a single interview, of Philippa Sedgewick’s on the word of her husband. The police case against Fisher was based on concrete fact.

“No, Inspector. I have nothing tangible.”

Stratton sighed. “I respect your work, Miss. Dobbs. But we are all wrong at times, and this time the evidence points to Fisher. Even if he were not having an affair with the Sedgewick woman, and his communication with her was regarding his wife as he claims, he had been seen with her on several occasions. We believe that the Sedgewick woman knew he was after his wife’s money so she represented a risk to him. And we know, Miss Dobbs, that the mind of the killer may not be rooted in reality. They think they can get away with it. In Fisher’s case he knew what he wanted—ultimately the money— and he thought he could take it once his wife was dead, and then leave the country.”

“But the method—”

Stratton raised his right hand before taking up his knife again.

“Fisher has no shortage of tools, in view of his work, which seems to be something between archaeologist, raconteur and inveterate gambler. He was always in debt to someone somewhere, and Mrs. Fisher was an heiress. He stood to inherit the lot at her death.”

“Has Spilsbury positively identified the weapon?”

Stratton cut into the thick sausage on his plate and speared a piece on his fork, along with some red cabbage.

“Yes. The bayonet from a short-barrel Lee Enfield rifle. Standard issue in the war. And—surprise, surprise—something that Fisher kept among the tools I just mentioned. Bit of a cheek, considering he was nowhere near the battlefield. Of course his story is that he has several items that are not usually employed by archaeologists, but he uses them for the ooh-ahh effect from the audience of fearless travelers that accompany him. According to Fisher, poking around a pile of old bones in the sand with the tip of a bayonet keeps the intrepid followers happy and gives them something to talk about at the dinner table when they get back to Britain. The evidence against him is strong. I’m sure we will have a confession soon.”

Maisie, who had barely touched her food, could not face another bite. “Inspector, I have the impression that you are more than usually intent on securing a conviction.”

Stratton tried not to reveal his exasperation.

“The man killed his wife, Miss Dobbs. And he killed another man’s wife. He is a murderer, and he should hang for it!”

Maisie wondered if he was allowing his personal history to affect the outcome of this case. After all, Stratton, like John Sedgewick, was a man who had lost his wife.

Stratton settled the bill.

“Thank you for lunch, Inspector Stratton.”

“You are most welcome, Miss Dobbs. Indeed, I hope you are successful, though I do wish you would try to avoid becoming involved in investigations that should have been referred to the police.”

“That is my client’s choice. It seems to me that such involvement would have represented a waste of police time.”

Stratton ran his fingers around the brim of his hat before placing it on his head. “Perhaps we could meet again for lunch, or supper?”

“When we have both completed work on our respective cases, Inspector, certainly.”

Stratton tipped his hat. “Until then, Miss Dobbs.”

Maise smiled and inclined her head. “Until then, Inspector.” She made one last effort. “Inspector, I urge you to go back over the evidence that has led to Fisher’s arrest. You know better than to be pressured by the public’s wish to see a suspect behind bars. More time is needed, Inspector.”

“We must agree to disagree, Miss Dobbs. Good-bye.”

As she made her way back to Fitzroy Square, Maisie admonished herself for alienating Stratton. Then, reconsidering, she drew back her shoulders, and set forth at a brisk clip. No, she thought. He’s wrong. They’ve got the wrong man. And I’ll prove it!

As Maisie lifted her head, she saw a flash of gold in the distance, over the heads that bobbed to and fro past her. It was Billy’s familiar shock of hair. He was walking—no, running— in her direction.

“Billy,” she yelled, “Walk! Don’t run! Walk!”

Still he came toward her in an ungainly stumbling lope that was more than a walk but not quite a run, as if one side of his body were intent on speed that the other simply could not match. Maisie in turn ran to him so that those observing the scene might have thought them lovers who had been separated by distance and time.

“Billy, Billy, what is it? Take a deep breath, calm down, calm down.”

Billy gasped for breath. “In ’ere, Miss. Let’s get off the street.” Billy jerked his head to the right, toward a side street.

“Right. A deep breath, Billy, a deep breath.”

Billy fought for air, his gas-damaged lungs heaving against his ribcage so that Maisie could see the steep rise and fall of his chest. He brought his chin down as if to retain more of the life-giving air that his body craved. “Miss . . . I thought I’d never find you . . . that you might’ve gone off with Stratton.”

“What’s happened, Billy? What’s happened?” As she clutched at the cloth of Billy’s overcoat, knowledge flooded Maisie. “It’s my father, isn’t it, Billy? It’s Dad?”

“Yes, Miss. Got to get you to Chelstone. ’e’s awright, comfortable, apparently.”

“What’s happened?”

“Miss, stop. It’s awright, awright. Listen to me. It was an accident, with the ’orse this mornin’. Word just came from Mr. Carter. The mare was ’avin’ trouble, so Mr. Dobbs ’ad set up the ropes, you know.”

“I know what they do, Billy.” Maisie was thinking clearly now, and began to walk into Charlotte Street, Billy limping behind her.

“Well, anyway, something ’appened and ’e slipped, then something else ’appened and he got knocked out cold. Rushed to the ’ospital in Pembury, ’e was, for X-rays. Bad old do at ’is age.”

“I want you to telephone the Waite residence. Cancel our appointment.”

“Miss, you ain’t thinkin’ of goin’ on yer own, are ya? Not drivin’ all that way, bein’ as you’re not—”

“Not what, Billy?” Maisie stopped, her eyes flashing at Billy. Yet as she looked at him, rivulets of perspiration oozing from his forehead and running across his cheekbones, tears sprang into the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry. Thank you.”

“ ’e’ll be awright, you’ll see. Strong as ’ouses, your dad is, Miss. But I reckon I’d better come with you, Miss.”

“No, I haven’t the time to wait while you go to Whitechapel, and you can’t leave without letting your wife know.”

“She’ll be awright, Miss. I can get on the dog’n’bone to the shop up the street. They just ’ad one put in. They’ll run along to ’er wiv a message.”

Maisie shook her head. “I’m going alone. I need you here. There’s business to take care of. Have a rest, a cup of tea, and look after my business for me, Billy.”

“Yes, Miss.”

Maisie started the motor car as he closed the door for her.

“Oh, and Billy, your nose is bleeding again. And I’ll tell you now, Billy Beale, that if I ever learn that you are at that stuff again, I will box your ears for you!”

Billy watched Maisie screech into Warren Street on her way to Kent, knowing that she would push the MG to maximum speed whether on a London road or along a country lane.Faster than fairies, faster than witches,

Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;

And charging along like troops in a battle . . .

It had been Maisie’s favorite poem as a child, when her mother would set the small, dark-haired girl on her knee, then rhythmically recite the verse, tapping her foot so that Maisie felt propelled forward by the momentum of movement, imagining that she really was in a railway carriage.All of the sights of the hill and the plain

Fly as thick as the driving rain . . .

Pressing the MG as fast as it would go, Maisie sped toward Pembury. Rain was now coming down in thick icicle-like slants across the windscreen. As she moved closer to see the road, wiping condensation from the glass with the back of her hand, her heart was beating furiously against her chest. And still the poem echoed in her mind.Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,

All by himself and gathering brambles . . .

And in her mind’s eye Maisie saw the small kitchen at the terraced house in Lambeth, where she had spent the years before her mother’s passing. She looked again into the kind, sparkling eyes, then over to the stove, where her father leaned against the wall while listening to his wife and his girl laughing together. So long ago; it was so long ago.Here is a cart run away in the road

Lumping along with a man and a load;

And here is a mill and there is a river;

Each a glimpse and gone forever!

Her mother was gone forever, Simon was gone forever. What if her father was lost, too? Maisie cried out as she whirled though Tonbridge and on toward her destination.

Swinging in through the broad driveway, Maisie saw the large brick-built hospital in front of her, the tall chimney at the far side belching smoke. She remembered passing the hospital in an earlier time, when her companion had told her that if the chimney was smoking it meant that amputated limbs were being burned. Maisie had rolled her eyes, sure that she was being teased. But now the chimney loomed over the hospital like an evil genie who would grant no wishes. She parked the motor car quickly and ran toward the main building.

“I’m looking for Mr. Francis Dobbs. He was brought in this morning, injured. Where is he?”

The uniformed porter was clearly used to dealing with the emotions of breathless relatives, but at the same time he would not be rushed.

“Let me see.” He ran his finger down a list of names. But Maisie could not wait, and snatched the clipboard, scanning the names for her father.

“Ward 2B. Where is that? Where can I find him?”

“Easy up, Miss. Visiting time’s over, you know.”The porter reclaimed his clipboard.

“Just tell me where to find him!”

“All right, all right. Keep your hair on! Now then, here you go.”

The porter stepped from his office and directed Maisie with his hand. She thanked him, then ran toward the staircase.

They must have made all these hospitals the same. Maisie recognized the building though she had never set foot within its walls before. The tiled corridors, disinfectant-smelling staircase, long wards and iron-framed beds were all so reminiscent of the London Hospital in Whitechapel, where she had enlisted for VAD service in 1915.

She entered the cloister-like ward, with two lines of beds facing one another, not even one-eighth of an inch out of place. She knew that each day the nurses would go along the ward with a length of string and a yardstick, ensuring that all beds were positioned precisely, so that during her rounds Matron would see a ward that completely adhered to her high standards of order. Not one patient, nurse, bed, or bottle would be anywhere but where Matron expected them to be. Amid this order, as the slowly setting late-afternoon sun glanced off the ward’s cream-painted walls, Maisie searched for her father.

“Follow me, Miss Dobbs,” instructed the Staff Nurse, who checked the watch pinned to her uniform in the same way that Maisie still consulted her own watch every day. “He’s comfortable, though not yet recognizing anyone.”

“You mean he’s in a coma?”

“Doctor expects him to be much better tomorrow. The other gentleman hasn’t left his side. Allowed to stay on doctor’s orders.” The nurse whispered as they moved along the ward, to a bed set apart from the others, with screens pulled around to ensure privacy so that other patients would not see the man who lay unconscious.

“What other gentleman?”

“The older gentleman. The doctor.”

“Ah, I see,” replied Maisie, relieved that Maurice Blanche was here.

The nurse pulled back the screens. Tears welled up in Maisie’s eyes as she quickly went to her father’s bedside and took his hand in hers. She nodded at Maurice, who smiled but did not move toward her.

Leaning over her father’s body, which was covered with a sheet and standard-issue green hospital blanket, Maisie rubbed her father’s veined hands as if the warmth she generated might cause him to wake. She reached across to touch his forehead, then his cheek. A thick white bandage had been bound around his head, and Maisie could see dried blood where a deep wound had been tended. Looking down at his body, she saw a small frame over his legs. Fracture? Remembering the smoking chimney, she hoped so.

“I’m glad you’re here, Maurice. How did you manage to be allowed to stay?”

“I informed the ward sister that I was a doctor, so I was allowed to remain. Apparently, they are a bit short staffed and we both thought it best that your father be attended at all times.”

“You must be tired, but thank you, thank you so much.” Maisie continued to massage her father’s hands.

“Those of us who have reached our more mature years know the value of a nap, Maisie, and we can indulge ourselves without the comfort of pillow or bed.”

“Tell me what happened, Maurice.”

“The mare was experiencing some difficulty. According to your father, she was presenting incorrectly. Your father instructed Lady Rowan to summon the vet. Of course he was out on a farm somewhere. It’s lambing season, as you know. In the meantime your father was following all recognized procedures and had requested a length of rope to maneuver the foal into a better position for the birth. Lady Rowan was there, as were two of the farmworkers. From what I understand, your father lost his footing on hay that had become damp and soiled, and fell awkwardly. His head connected with the stone floor, which is bad enough, but a heavy implement that one of the farmworkers had left standing against the stall fell and struck your father.”

“When did this happen?”

“This morning, about half past nine or so. I came as soon as I was summoned, tended his immediate wounds, then deferred to Dr. Miles from the village, who arrived straightaway, followed by the vet. Your father was brought here immediately.”

Maisie watched the rise and fall of her father’s chest beneath the white and blue stripes of hospital-issue pajamas. She had only ever seen her father in his old corduroy trousers, a collarless shirt, waistcoat, and somewhat flamboyant neckerchief. Though a country groom since the war, on a working day he still looked more like a London costermonger, ready to sell vegetables from his horse and cart. But now he was pale and silent.

“Will he be all right?”

“The doctor thinks that the loss of consciousness is temporary, that he’ll be with us soon enough.”

“Oh God, I hope he’s right.” Maisie looked at her hands, now entwined with her father’s. Silence seeped into the space between Maisie and her former teacher and mentor. She knew that he was watching her, that he was asking questions silently, questions that no doubt he was waiting to put to her in words.

“Maisie?”

“Yes, Maurice? I think you want to ask me something, don’t you?”

“Indeed, yes.” Maurice leaned forward. “Tell me, what is at the heart of the division between yourself and your father? You visit rarely, though when you do you are pleased to see him. And though there is conversation between father and daughter, I see none of the old camaraderie, the old ‘connection’ in your relationship. You were once so very close.”

Maisie nodded. “He’s always been so strong, never ill. I thought nothing could stop him, ever.”

“Not like illness stopped your mother, or injury stopped Simon?”

“Yes.” Maisie brought her attention back to her father’s hands. “I don’t know how it started, but it’s not all my fault, you know!”

Blanche looked up intently. “Since our very early days together, when you were barely out of childhood, I can safely say that I do not think I have ever heard you sound like a child until now. You sound quite petulant, my dear.”

Maisie sighed. “It’s Dad, too. He seems to be drawing back from me. I don’t know what came first, my work keeping me in London, even at weekends, or my father always finding jobs to do. He’s preoccupied with other things when I visit. Of course he loves me, and there’s always a warm welcome, but then there’s . . . nothing. It’s as if seeing me is troublesome to him. As if I’m not part of him anymore.”

Maurice said nothing for a while, then asked, “Have you given it much thought?”

“Of course I’ve thought about it, but then I just put it out of my mind. I suppose I keep hoping that I’m imagining it, that he’s just immersed in Lady Rowan’s ambition to raise a Derby winner, or that I’m too caught up in a case.”

“But if you had to guess, if you brought your intuition into play, what would you say—truly—is causing the change?”

“I . . . I don’t really know.”

“Oh, Maisie, I think you do know. Come on, my dear, we have worked together for too long, you and I. I have seen you grow, seen you strive, seen you wounded, seen you in love, and I have seen you grieve. I know when you are evading the truth. Tell me what you think.”

Kneading her father’s hands, she spoke quietly. “I think it has to do with my mother. I remind him of her, you see. I have her eyes, her hair—even these.” She pulled at a tendril of hair, then pushed it back into the chignon. “In just a few years I’ll be the same age as she was when she first became ill, and I look just like her. He adored her, Maurice. I think he only kept going because of me. The fact is that he can’t see me without seeing her, though I’m not her. I’m different.”

Maurice nodded. “The pain of being reminded is a sharp sword. But there’s more, isn’t there?”

“Yes. Yes, I suppose there is.” Maisie swallowed deeply. “He sent me away, didn’t he? To Ebury Place. And I know, I know, it all worked out for the best, and I wouldn’t be where I am today if he hadn’t, but—”

“But you can’t forget.”

“No.”

“And what of forgiveness?”

“I love my father, Maurice.”

“No one is questioning your love. I ask again: What of forgiveness?”

“I suppose . . . yes, I suppose some resentment still lingers. When I think about it, even though we made up and he would do anything for me. I . . . I suppose I am still upset, in a deep part of me, right in here.” Maisie placed her hand against her ribs.

Silence filtered into the air around them once again, drowning out the echoes of Maisie’s whispered confession until Maurice spoke again. “May I make a suggestion, Maisie?.”

She nodded and replied quietly, “Yes.”

“You must speak with your father. Not to him, but with him. You must create a new path. You do not need me to tell you that, strong as he is, your father is not getting any younger. This accident will have weakened him, though I expect he will enjoy a full recovery. I observed you enter this ward dragging your guilt, regret, and—yes—fear with you, fear that you might have lost your chance. But you haven’t lost it at all. Use your training, Maisie, your heart, your intuition and your love for your father to forge a new, even stronger, bond.”

Maisie watched Maurice as he spoke.

“I feel so . . . weak, Maurice. I should have known better than to allow the situation to continue.”

“Should have? Should, Maisie? Fortunately you are a human being, and it is recognizing our own fallibility that enables us to do our work.” Blanche stood up from his chair and rubbed his back and neck. “Now then, it’s getting late.”

“Oh I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kept you.”

Blanche held up his hand to silence her. “No, I wanted to remain here until you arrived. But now, I must report back to Lady Rowan. I suspect that our patient will improve with your presence.”

“Thank you, Maurice.”

Blanche inclined his head, and took up his coat and hat, which had been placed on the back of the chair.

“Maurice, I wonder if I might speak with you tomorrow about a case.”

“Waite?”

“It’s gone a bit further than that, really. I’m now convinced that the Coulsden and Cheyne Mews murders, and perhaps one more, are connected with the Waite case.”

“You will need to return to Chelstone later, perhaps after doctor’s rounds tomorrow morning, or before if Matron learns that you are here. Come to the Dower House when you are ready.”

“Thank you.” Maisie looked at her father again, then turned back to Maurice. “You know, it’s strange, but I believe the murders have to do with being reminded, and remembering . . . and, now that I think about it, with forgiveness, too.”

Blanche smiled and drew back the screen to leave. “I am not at all surprised. As I have said many times, my dear, each case has a way of shining a light on something we need to know about ourselves. Until tomorrow.”

Maisie took Maurice’s seat at her father’s bedside, ready to continue the vigil until he regained consciousness. In the distance she heard a receding footfall as her mentor left the ward. She was alone with her thoughts, and though she held on to her father’s hands firmly, and made a commitment to better times together in the future, she was wondering about the murdered women, and about Charlotte.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Maisie opened her eyes as dawn was just visible through the tops of rectangular paned windows beyond the screens. How long had she slept? She moved her head to look at her father and sat up carefully so that she would not disturb him.

“Dad! Dad—you’re awake!”

Frankie Dobbs forced a smile. “Been awake for a while, love. Just didn’t want to unsettle you.”

“Oh, Dad, I’m so glad.” Maisie leaned across the bed to embrace her father, then sat back.

“And I’m glad you came, love.”

“Straightaway, as soon as I heard.”

Frankie squeezed his daughter’s hand in his own broad palm. “To tell you the truth, for a moment I thought you were your mother. Fair took my breath away, it did, seeing you there. Thought I’d been taken, I did, and was with ’er again.”

Maisie checked her father’s pulse and touched his forehead with her slender fingers.

“Always checking something, my girl. Always making sure, eh?”

Father and daughter were silent for a while. Maisie knew she must use the door that Maurice had opened, in speaking of her mother.

“We don’t seem to talk of Mum any more do we, Dad?”

Frankie tried to move toward Maisie, and grimaced. “No, love, we don’t. Kept my memories to myself, and I s’pose you did, too.”

“Oh, Dad—”

“And I was thinking, as I was watching you ’ave a kip, that we’ve let a few things get between us, ’aven’t we?”

“I know—”

With a low screech the metal feet of the screen were pulled across the floor, and the nighttime Staff Nurse interrupted their conversation.

“I thought I heard voices. Good to see you awake, Mr. Dobbs. Had us all worried there. Doctor will be along to see you soon, and Matron will have a fit if she finds you here, Miss Dobbs. I’ll be going off duty directly doctor has finished, but you’d better be off, Miss.”

“Yes, I’d better. Dad, I’ll be back later today, during visiting hours.” Maisie reached down to kiss her father, then left the enclosure to step out into the ward. Morning sunlight was filtering in, warming patients and nurses alike.

Walking toward the exit, Maisie turned to the nurse.

“What’s the prognosis?”

“Well, Miss—”

“I was a nurse myself, so I have some understanding of the situation.”

“I’m not supposed to say, but I can tell you this—of course, we’ll know more after Doctor sees him this morning—but he sustained a serious concussion, plus he’s cracked both tibia. Not complete fractures, but something to watch all the same. I suspect he will need at least two or three months of rest, considering his age, and they will probably advise convalescence where he can receive adequate care.”

“I see.”

“But we’ll be able to say more when you come back this afternoon. Go home, have a nice cup of tea and a good sleep. Your father needs you in tip-top health!”

As Maisie drove, she thanked any unseen entity or power that might have had a hand in the events of the past hours, for openings that seemed to have materialized in several directions. It occurred to her that helping out with the horses in her father’s absence would be a real job for Billy. He would be close enough to be guided by Maurice, to receive instruction from Gideon Brown, and to be monitored by Andrew Dene. Her father wouldn’t rest until he knew the horses were being cared for by someone he knew, and who better than another London man? If her father needed to enter a convalescent home for a month or so, perhaps All Saints’ would be a good choice. Dr. Andrew Dene would understand a man who spoke his own language.

Her brain was in top gear as she sped along the country lanes to Chelstone, a list of things to do growing in her mind.Faster than fairies, faster than witches,

Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;

And charging along like troops in a battle . . .

But before she did anything, before she bathed, took nourishment, or slept, she must go to Maurice. Maisie leaned sideways toward the passenger seat and, keeping her eyes on the road, reached inside the document case to feel the linen handkerchief into which she had carefully placed the tiny items she had taken from the homes of Lydia Fisher and Philippa Sedgewick. She wanted to share her delicate clues with Maurice. She wanted his counsel.

Maisie slowed as she drove along the gravel carriage sweep leading to Chelstone Manor. As grit began to spit and crackle under the tires, she rubbed her eyes against the onslaught of spring sunshine rising at a low angle into a clearing sky. It would be a bright but cold day. Frost-dusted daffodil heads bobbed in columns along the driveway, inter- spersed with bluebells and primroses. Yes, it would be a good day. Frankie Dobbs was out of the woods.

The upstairs curtains at the Dower House were still closed; Maurice was not yet up and about. Maisie felt a tinge of frustration, but she checked herself. Perhaps it was fortunate that she would have more time alone to marshal her thoughts and to anticipate questions. She missed working with Maurice, though awareness of the chasm left by his retirement was fading as she grew in skill and confidence. She maneuvered the car into the courtyard behind the manor house, the domain of George, the Comptons’ chauffeur.

“Mornin’, Miss.” George wiped his hands on a clean white cloth and walked across the flagstones toward Maisie. “Blimey O’Reilly, what’ve you been doin’ with that little motor of yours? Racin’ ’er at Brooklands? I’d better get the full kit out this mornin’.You’ll need oil, a good cleaning under the bonnet, to say nothing of ’er paintwork. And look at them tires!”

“You’re the man for the job, George!”

“Actually, Miss, it’ll be nice to ’ave something to get me teeth into.” George lifted the bonnet, then turned to Maisie again. “How’s Mr. Dobbs this mornin’? Better?”

“Much better, thank you. He’s awake, though it might be a while before he’s up on his feet.”

“Fair gave us all a shock, did that. Everyone’s waitin’ for news.”

“I’ll see that the household is kept posted. Can I leave Lily with you then? I’ll need her by three this afternoon—to be at Pembury by visiting time.”

“Lily? You give a car like this the name ‘Lily’?”

Maisie smiled, then laughed. “By three, thank you, George.”

“Right you are, Miss. By the way, I saw ’er Ladyship walking over to the stables a little while ago.”

“Oh, good. I’d better give her the latest news.”

Lady Rowan was leaning on a fence surrounding the paddock adjacent to the stable where Frankie Dobbs had fallen. She seemed thoughtful as Maisie approached. The older woman’s three canine companions, investigating bushes alongside, lifted their heads and greeted her with tails wagging.

“My dear girl, how is your father? I have been beside myself with worry.”

“He is better, Lady Rowan, much better, though I will know more this afternoon when I see his doctor.”

“Your father, Maisie, may well surprise us all. I think he’ll live until he’s one hundred years old!” Lady Rowan looked at Maisie with more gravity as she, too, leaned on the fence to watch mare and foal together. “You will not have to worry about convalescence, Maisie. Your father’s recovery is in my interests, and the costs of any necessary procedures or care—”

“Thank you, Lady Rowan.”

“Good.” Lady Rowan turned to the paddock. “So what do you think of him?”

Maisie watched the foal standing under the protective custody of his mother’s head and neck. His chestnut coat shone with newborn softness, the tufted promise of a rich, thick mane standing up like a shoe-brush on his long and delicate neck. The foal’s legs were surprisingly straight, and as the two women watched him, Maisie could swear she detected a certain defiance in his manner.

“He’s quite . . . quite the little man, isn’t he?”

“Oh yes, he certainly is, and only a day old, mind you.” Lady Rowan continued to regard her new project closely. “Thought I’d call him ‘Francis Dobbs’ Dilemma. But no, he’ll be named Chelstone Dream. Apt, don’t you think? I’ll call him ‘Dreamer’ for short.”

The foal stared at them intently in return.

“You see that look, Maisie? The way he’s standing?”

Maisie nodded. “Yes.”

“They call that ‘the look of champions,’ Maisie. He’s the one; he’ll do it for me. In four or five years he’ll bring home The Derby for me— I know it! Can’t you just see Gordon Richards atop Chelstone Dream, flying past the post at Epsom?” Lady Rowan became pensive again. “But in the meantime, what will I do without your father?”

“Ah,” said Maisie. “Don’t worry. I have a plan.”

Lady Rowan laughed, her voice cutting through the morning quiet in such a way that the mare started, and moved her foal to the back of the paddock. “I would have put money on your having a plan, Maisie. What is it?”

“I’ll tell you this evening, Lady Rowan, when I’ve sorted out a few details.” She looked at her watch. “But I have to telephone my assistant, then I must see Maurice. May I use the telephone at the manor?”

“Of course. I shall expect to see you for supper this evening, when you can give me news of your father’s progress. And I cannot wait to hear your plan!”

Maisie looked back at the foal as she made her way toward the manor house. And she could have sworn that Dreamer, the foal with the look of champions, had watched her every move.

“Billy, I’m glad I’ve caught you!”

“ ’Oldin’ the fort, Miss. ’Oldin’ the fort. How’s Mr. Dobbs?”

“Much better, thank you. Out of the woods. What happened when you canceled our appointment with Waite?”

“Well, at the beginnin’, I ’ad to give a message to ’is secretary, who then ’ad to speak to ’im. Poor woman, you’d ’ve thought I’d asked ’er to tell ’im that ’is shops’d all burned down. Scared of ’im, she is, scared silly.”

“Billy—”

“Anyway, she went off; then Waite ’imself comes on the blower, boomin’ down the pipe ’e was, boomin’ about how ’e was Joseph Waite and that no one does this to ’im.”

“Oh dear.”

“Then I told ’im what the reason for you not bein’ available was, and I must say, ’e wound ’is neck in a bit sharpish. Funny that, innit? Says somethin’ about family comin’ first, and that it was nice to know that a daughter ’onored ’er father, and all that.”

“Can he see me soon?”