As the black Invicta made its way toward Chelstone’s main gate, Maisie watched the rear lights become smaller and smaller.
“Come on, love, let’s sit by the fire now, eh?” Frankie was solicitous in his tone, setting his hand on Maisie’s shoulder with a gentle touch, as if to apply greater pressure would hurt her.
“It’s all right, Dad. Don’t worry—I’m all right.”
But Frankie remembered the early days of Maisie’s recovery, after she came home from France in 1917. And still fresh in his mind was her breakdown during a return journey to France just fifteen months earlier. Even though she seemed more at peace now than at other times in recent years, he often found it best to move with care around his daughter, as a person might negotiate an unknown path in the dark.
EIGHTEEN
January 3rd, 1932
As sometimes happened following a visit to Kent, the city had a chill to it that went beyond a sense of the air outside. Though Maisie loved her flat in Pimlico, there was a warmth to her father’s cottage, to being at Chelstone, that made her feel cocooned and safe. And she felt wanted. The flat was hers to do with as she wished, and to do exactly as she pleased within those walls, but sometimes she felt it still held within it the stark just-moved-in feeling that signaled the difference between a house and a home. Of course, it still was not fully furnished, and there were no ornaments displayed—a vase, perhaps, that a visitor might comment upon and the hostess would say, “Oh, that was a gift, let me tell you about it . . . ” There were no stories attached to the flat—but how could there be, when she was always alone in her home. There were no family photographs, no small framed portraits on the mantelpiece over the fire in the sitting room as there were at her father’s house. She thought the flat would be all the better for some photographs, not only to serve as reminders of those who were loved, or reflections of happy times spent in company, but to act as mirrors, where she might see the affection with which she was held by those dear to her. A mirror in which she could see her connections.
Maisie went to the kitchen to put the kettle on. She rarely kept much in the way of food in the flat, for fear that it might spoil during the long days of her work. The pot of soup made on a Sunday night would set her up for a few suppers at least, and sometimes she would bring home fish and chips, which she would eat from the newspaper, not seeing the point in setting the table just for one. And except for the times she joined Priscilla and her family for the evening meal, she was alone. Most of the time, though, she was not lonely, just on her own, an unmarried woman of independent means, even when the extent of the means—or lack thereof—sometimes gave her cause to remain awake at night. She knew the worries that came to the fore at night were the ones you had to pay attention to, for they blurred reasoned thought, sucked clarity from any consideration of one’s situation, and could lead a mind around in circles, leaving one drained and ill-tempered. And if there was no one close with whom to discuss those concerns, they grew in importance in the imagination, whether they were rooted in good sense or not.
Having taken her cup of tea while sitting on the floor in front of the fire with a copy of The Times spread out in front of her, Maisie recognized that she was restless. Yet again, the case concerning the man who was not Stephen Oliver began invading her thoughts. To a point, she had accepted that he might never be identified. In fact, as it stood, chance favored such an incomplete conclusion. But she wasn’t so sure, and could not draw back from a curiosity about the man’s state of mind, and how he might have felt in the months leading up to the attack on the dogs. And more than anything, she wondered if one could take leave of one’s senses, even if one had no previous occasions of mental incapacity, simply by being isolated from others. Is that what pushed the man over the edge of all measured thought? Were his thoughts so distilled, without the calibrating effect of a normal life led among others, that he ceased to recognize the distinction between right and wrong, between good and evil, or between having a voice and losing it? And if that were so, might an ordinary woman living alone with her memories, with her work, with the walls of her flat drawing in upon her, be at some risk of not seeing the world as it is?
She shook her head and stood up, pacing in front of the fireplace. Then, with barely a moment’s thought, Maisie ran to the hallway, took her coat and hat from the stand, picked up her keys, and left the flat to walk to the telephone kiosk close to her home. She stepped inside, lifted the receiver, slipped coins into the slot, and dialed a number. As she waited for the connection, she wiped condensation from the panes of glass with the back of her begloved hand. She did not care to be in such a small space without being able to see outside, even if she could see only darkness.
“The Partridge Residence.”
“May I speak with Mrs. Partridge?”
“One moment, please. May I say who’s calling?”
Maisie gave her name, suspecting the housekeeper had almost added, “At this time of night.”
“Maisie, darling, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Priscilla, I’ve just arrived back at the flat and was thinking about your party, and how little we’ve seen each other lately—and we didn’t get that much time for a good talk at the party, did we? I wonder, are you at home tomorrow? Perhaps I could drop in for elevenses—will you be there?”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, yes, fine . . . no, nothing wrong with me. Elevenses, then?”
Maisie thought she could hear Priscilla smiling. Priscilla was given to dramatic pauses in conversation, pauses that extended to her use of the telephone. Maisie had always maintained that a caller could hear the expression on her friend’s face.
“Of course, that’s splendid news—do come. I feel as if I’ve caught some of the crumbs falling off the table when you come to visit. You won’t change your mind, will you?”
“Am I really that bad?”
“Well, you do get a bit carried away with that work of yours. But I’m glad you’ll come—we might even pop out to the shops. January sales. Time for that?”
“Yes, I think I might have time. See you tomorrow, Priscilla.”
Maisie set the receiver back on its cradle, pulled up her collar, and set off into the night again, this time with a warmth in her heart as she thought about seeing Priscilla the next day.
January 4th, 1932
“All right, Billy, so as I said, you should leave by eleven to go to the Clifton—didn’t they say Doreen would be arriving there at twelve?”
“That’s what they thought, yes.” Billy paused, a frown creasing his forehead. “Look, Miss, are you sure? I mean, I’ve had a lot of time off lately, so I expect to see it docked from my wage packet.”
Maisie shook her head. “We’ve had a good month, and the Scotland Yard bill will set us in good stead. It was a nice start to the year—financially, that is. And Doreen being at the Clifton will make it easy for evening visiting, won’t it, though I am sure Dr. Masters has some advice about not overtaxing Doreen.”
“I’m going to be talking to her about that today, Miss.”
“Good, now—”
Maisie was interrupted by the telephone ringing.
“Fitzroy—”
“Miss Dobbs.”
“Detective Chief Superintendent MacFarlane.”
“We’re having a bit of a tête-à-tête here today, what you might call a postmortem on the investigation in which your assistance proved to be invaluable. Would you care to join us at, oh, eleven o’clock?”
“I’m sorry, Chief Superintendent, but I have a previous engagement. Would two o’clock do?”
Billy looked across at his employer.
“We’ll do it this afternoon, then. See you at two.”
“Right you are, see you then.”
Maisie rolled her eyes as she replaced the receiver. “That man was definitely being sarcastic. ‘In which your assistance proved to be invaluable.’” She recounted the conversation to Billy.
“S
ounds like you put him in his place, Miss.”
Maisie shrugged. “I’ve an important engagement this morning, and did not want to cancel it for MacFarlane or any other client. Not this time.”
MAISIE SAT AT one end of the sofa in Priscilla’s sitting room. Her friend had taken the other, so they resembled bookends, both with shoes kicked off and their legs folded to the side.
“ . . . and before you arrived, the funny bit was when Tinker Osborne—do you know him? Bit of a lark, I must say, though if you read him in Punch, you would wonder why the government hasn’t had him done away with—anyway, as I was saying, the funny thing was when he thought he could balance a bottle of champers on his nose. Normally that sort of thing just bores me rigid, but you should have seen him, tottering all over the place, especially as he came with that crashing bore Judith Burton, you know, the daughter of, oh, what is his name—yes, the architect, Otto Burton.”
Maisie smiled, though she could not imagine finding Tinker Osborne in the slightest bit amusing.
“It was a good New Year, Priscilla.”
“All in all, not a bad one. Of course, predictably, I glanced up at the staircase as the hour approached, only to see my three toads—in pajamas, mind—sitting on the stairs and watching everything through the banister. I nudged Douglas and he waved them down, so they joined us for the celebrations and even had a little tipple each—won’t hurt them, a little drop of champers. No wonder they were asleep by the time you arrived.”
Maisie nodded, watching Priscilla as she sipped the last of her coffee and set her cup and saucer on the side-table before glancing over toward the drinks cabinet.
“How are you feeling now? I’ve been worried about you since you came to my office.”
“It comes and goes,” said Priscilla, “but mostly it comes. I am not happy here, not as I was in Biarritz, and it’s troubling, especially as I’m the only one in the family not to have settled, in one way or another.”
“You were very busy in Biarritz, though, weren’t you? You took the boys to the beach, you drove down into the town, saw friends, and even when you went to Paris a few times a year, you were among people you knew, and who knew you. You’d all, for the most part, gone down to Biarritz after the war to lick your wounds.”
Priscilla was silent for a moment, running her hand up and down the arm of the sofa, as if she were stroking the back of a frightened animal. “Well, I’m a bit of a slug here, I must say. It’s so . . . so . . . restricting. Or do I mean constricting? Perhaps a bit of both. And it’s a bloody depressing place, if you ask me.”
“I had a thought. Remember you had that grand plan of opening up the family house, where you grew up? Why don’t you do it? Why don’t you put your mind to setting up your home there, get out into the country and start enjoying yourselves and perhaps claim some of that freedom you had in Biarritz.”
“But, Maisie, the boys are at school here and they love London, and Douglas . . .”
“It’s not that far—what, an hour or two’s drive out of London? You could go down on a Friday as soon as the boys are home from school, then come back on either a Sunday night or Monday morning. They can bring their friends and you can have the best of both worlds. And I bet you’ll have all sorts of guests coming to see you.” Maisie reached over and placed her hand on Priscilla’s arm. “Do you remember what you said to me, when I was in France? Face your dragons. That house holds your memories, but think of the new memories you can build there.”
Priscilla bit her lip and walked to the drinks cabinet. “I think you’re right. I had all sorts of plans for the place when we first came back to England.” She turned around and faced Maisie, changing the subject. “By the way, did I ever show you the photographs I took while you were with us last year? I found them the other day, as I was unpacking some boxes”—she picked up an envelope—“and I put them out to show you.”
Priscilla passed each photo in turn to Maisie, reminding her of what had happened and when. “And this is you with Tarquin—look at that smile. Just like my brother, you know. He’s definitely an Evernden through and through, no doubt about it.”
“May I have this one?”
“Well, yes, of course. Would you like this photograph too? It’s you and I in the garden, and here’s one of you with all three toads. Tante Maisie is quite a hit with the boys!”
Maisie left Priscilla’s Holland Park house after lunch, knowing that she had sown a seed of possibility in the mind of her dearest friend. And as she settled in the driver’s seat of the MG, she sat for a while before setting off for Scotland Yard. She wanted to look through those photographs once again, photographs for which she would buy frames as soon as she could.
“RIGHT, GENTLEMEN—and lady.” MacFarlane shuffled papers in a folder on his desk and took out the document he was searching for. Darby, Stratton and Maisie sat on the opposite side of the desk. He looked up at Maisie and smiled as he said lady. “Time for our little postmortem here.” He cleared his throat. “You all know that our man has not been identified. Anthony Lawrence didn’t know him, and—thanks to you, Miss Dobbs—we brought in Catherine the chemist. The poor lass began listing to starboard as soon as she saw the body, and though she wasn’t sure at first, she said it wasn’t him because the man who came to their meeting did not have a scar on his face.”
Maisie shook her head.
“Anything to say, Miss Dobbs?”
“No, not really. It’s a strange thing, though. Had I not spoken to Catherine, and had the word foundling not come up, I might not have found the killer.”
“Oh, but you would have.” MacFarlane tapped a pencil on the file in front of him. “You found our man because you were suspicious about Edwin Croucher. There was something about his manner that made you think twice, so you followed him. And that’s good police work—listening to the gut while wearing out a bit of shoe leather.”
“But I might not have been at the hospital had I not wanted to speak to Anthony Lawrence before he went home—and he’d gone already.”
“Then it was luck. And I know your Dr. Maurice Blanche has a lot of time for a little bit of luck.”
“Anything new from the pathologist?” asked Stratton.
MacFarlane flicked through more pages in front of him. “Interesting thing. Our man was lame, carried one hip higher than the other, and one shoulder similarly out of symmetry, giving the impression that he had suffered some serious wounds to the spine. Yes, there was scarring and shrapnel fragments still embedded in his legs, but the pathologist says that there was no physical reason why this man could not have walked upright, with perhaps the slightest limp.”
“Shell-shock,” said Maisie.
“Shell-shock?” Stratton turned to Maisie.
“Yes. Shell-shock. What you’re describing is another sign of a deep wounding to the psyche, the outer manifestation of the scars in the mind.” She paused, sighing before she continued. “When I was at the Clifton, I observed similarly afflicted men who, under the influence of hypnosis, shed their crippling disability and walked tall as if they were ready for the parade ground, only to shrivel again when taken out of the trance.” She looked at each of the men in turn. “And before you say or think otherwise, these were men who were good soldiers, who had exemplary military records, men who had been repatriated after demonstrating some level of neurosis or hysteria that led to an inability to function as a soldier. They were not shirkers, but broken men.”
MacFarlane, Stratton and Darby were silent for a moment, then Darby spoke. “What happens now, gov? Do we go on trying to identify him? What’s going to happen to the body?”
“We’re pretty sure he was working alone, so there’s no urgency now to identify the body, however . . . ” He looked at Maisie, then back at Darby and Stratton. “I’ve been thinking about what Miss Dobbs has said about this sort of person, and it’s clear he may not be the last. So we will be doing a wee bit of what Miss Dobbs does very well—building a template of a type. In th
e meantime, the body will be released to Dr. Anthony Lawrence as soon as we’ve tied up our loose ends.”
“Dr. Lawrence?” Maisie leaned forward.
“He made a special request, said the cadaver could be used for research purposes in the fields of”—he looked at a sheet of paper, then back at Maisie—“neurosurgery and psychiatry. They want to see what’s in his brain. I would have thought you’d’ve understood that, Miss Dobbs. I’m sure you’ve cut up the odd cadaver yourself.”
“Yes, of course, but—” Maisie did not continue, realizing that, of course, there was no family to receive the body. But she was still unsettled by the news.
“Anything else, Miss Dobbs?”
“What about Croucher?”
“Ah, yes, Croucher.” MacFarlane shuffled the notes once again. “Another one living alone and with nothing in his rooms to indicate who our killer might have been, though he did not live as much a Spartan life as his two friends. There were other papers, other items that would identify him.”
“But might there have been anything else there that would connect him to our man in some way? Something to indicate that he has known him for some time, perhaps?” asked Maisie.
“The only thing amiss with Edwin Croucher—aside from the fact that he was associating with a man bent on killing half of London on the steps of St. Paul’s—was that he had a memory problem. Turns out he wrote down such things as when he had to be here or there, lists of what he needed for this or that. At work he tended to check, double-check, and then go back again for another look to make sure that something had been done. But there’s nothing to be found in the rooms with either Ian Jennings’ name, or our Mister No-name.”
“That’s strange.”