A Lesson in Secrets (14 page)

“When did you know she’d gone?”

“This morning. I asked Mrs. Hawkins to go in with some tea and toast—didn’t want to push food down her if she didn’t want it. They’d tried that while she was in custody. When she wouldn’t eat—and I am sure it was from nerves, rather than being bloody-minded—they sent in a woman to literally shove the food down her throat, which of course she just brought up again.” Priscilla paused, and shook her head. “I thought I would have the devil’s own job in getting her out of there, you know. When I arrived at the police station, Douglas was going back and forth with the policeman in charge, when another policeman came out and said that she could be released. His exact words were, ‘Voices from on high have spoken,’ as if a pointed finger had plunged through the ceiling and a deep voice had said, ‘Thou shalt let Sandra go!’ So, we didn’t ask questions; just bundled her into the motor car and whisked her home—with strict instruction to the effect that she must remain in either our custody or yours. So this is a fine state of affairs.”

“It’s not your fault, Priscilla—who would have believed that you might need to chain her to the bed?”

“Let’s have a cup of coffee and talk about what we’ll do next.”

“We’ll have the coffee, but finding Sandra is my job—I’m not entirely sure it’s completely safe for anyone else.”

Priscilla led Maisie to the kitchen, where the cook seemed surprised when the two women walked in and Priscilla went straight to a coffeepot set on the stove. “I’m making coffee, Mrs. Hawkins, not tea. And I need it very French and very, very strong.”

The cook shook her head and turned away to continue preparing vegetables.

Priscilla winked at Maisie and said aloud, “Mrs. Hawkins is convinced that I will take the lining off my stomach with the way I make coffee—aren’t you, Mrs. Hawkins?”

“Not my business to say, Mrs. Partridge.”

Priscilla made two large cups of strong coffee with frothy hot milk, and they went through to the drawing room.

“There, put your feet up while we talk.”

“I really must get going, Priscilla, but I needed this—I haven’t stopped all morning.”

“And you could do without this little spanner in the works.”

“I’m not sure it’s little.” She sipped her coffee, shook her head, and sighed. “Sandra was never like this. When she was at Ebury Place, she was such a diligent girl, very sympathetic to the needs of others. She did things in the way they should be done—you would never imagine her breaking into a building, even in the most pressing circumstances.”

“But the circumstances are probably beyond pressing. She’s like a good many women, Maisie; they toe the line very well until someone they love—a child, a spouse—is threatened or harmed, and then you see a completely different side to them. Had that not been so, then this country would never have come through the war. Wars are fought by men, Maisie—but the winning is down to women who are prepared to break windows for their own.” She paused. “You’ve got that distant look in your eyes—you’re miles away, aren’t you?”

“Just wondering where she might have gone. I doubt she would go to family—no, she wouldn’t want them to see her in such a state. Do you know if she had any money?”

Priscilla flushed. “Well, Douglas paid her just before she got herself into this situation, and I confess that when she came out, I tucked a few pounds into her pocket, just in case.”

“Then she could stay at a hotel, a boarding house; she would be safe for quite a while, because I also paid her last time I was in London, and, knowing Sandra, she has savings; as I said, she’s a diligent girl.”

“Would she have gone to her in-laws?”

“That’s a thought. I’ll get Billy onto it. And I’ll go back to the flat, to see if she has left her belongings in her room.”

“What if the police want to know where she is?”

“I doubt they’ll be contacting you. She’s free with no strings—except the ones attaching her to you and me. But having said that, I may contact them—I know someone who I think might help out without the balloon going up.”

They sat in silence for a moment. “They don’t want Sandra’s actions to get in the way of your work, do they?”

“I really can’t talk about it, Pris. You know that.”

“And the thing is, I have no idea who ‘they’ are, but you are working on something hush-hush, aren’t you?”

Maisie smiled. It was the second time in one day she’d heard the term. “I’m always working on something I have to keep quiet about; it’s the nature of my work. My clients come to me for that very reason—they have a secret and they don’t want anyone to know. So if I go chatting about it, the game’s up—you know rumors spread like wildfire on a hot and windy day.”

“Since I discovered how Peter died, I’ve always equated working in intelligence as being a bit of a risky business.”

Maisie smiled and touched Priscilla on the arm at the mention of her brother. She sipped the last of her coffee. “I’d better get going, Pris. I have to see Billy as soon as possible. If Sandra had gone to the trouble to break into the premises of her husband’s employer, and then summon the courage to do the same at the office of a man she didn’t know, you can be assured she acted with good reason.”

“Take care, Maisie, with this Cambridge business.”

“It’s perfectly all right, I promise you would not believe how very safe I am. It’s a college; it’s slow, quiet, and deliberate.”

“And a man was murdered there—I saw it in the newspaper, about the College of St. Francis. That’s where you are, isn’t it?”

“Oh dear—I promise you, I am safe. The college is not half as exciting as the press might have you believe. If you were there, you would be snoozing in the corner within minutes.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Maisie and Priscilla held each other for two or three seconds; then Maisie left, calling out to her friend as she walked down the front steps. “Keep me informed—let me know if she turns up, or if you happen to have an idea of where she might have gone.”

M
aisie parked the MG in Fitzroy Street, turned off the engine, and sighed. Thoughts of Sandra extinguished all other concerns from her mind.
Where is she? Is she safe?
She closed her eyes. Not for the first time, the plight of the wounded animal came to mind. She knew that instinct would always take the wounded creature to its lair. But where was Sandra’s lair? As far as she knew, Sandra had left home at the age of twelve, when she was sent to work in service. Her father and mother both worked on the land, and with four daughters and no sons, there was little more they could do for the girls beyond school age, so they were sent to work in service. Like many young girls before her, Sandra had come to London alone, to knock on doors until someone offered her a job. Fortunately, she had not wandered far when she turned up at the door of 15 Ebury Place. She hardly knew her parents now, and had traveled down to Dorset only once or twice a year to visit them. Sandra had done well; considering it important to “better herself,” she had gone to the lending library once a week to collect three or four books that she would read when the day’s work was done, and before the light was turned out for the night. She had grown from a quiet but diligent girl into a young woman who, through hard work, intended to make life better for herself—and Maisie knew that for Sandra, life took on a sunnier hue when she became attached to Eric, who also worked for the Compton family before leaving their employ to become a full-time mechanic. How could anyone have known it was a job that was to kill him, and leave Sandra a widow at twenty-four?
Where has she gone?

Billy looked up from his work when Maisie walked into the office.

“Afternoon, Miss.”

“Billy, how are you?”

“Not so bad. Had a nice drive down?”

“The road was fairly clear, and it’s a fine day, so I made good time.” Maisie set her briefcase on her desk and looped the handle of her shoulder bag over the back of her chair. She looked at the stack of papers on Sandra’s desk awaiting her attention.

Billy nodded towards the desk. “I don’t know where she’s got to, I’m sure. I don’t know if I should tell you this, but she’s missed a morning or two this week.”

“I know.”

Billy blushed.

Maisie drew up a chair to sit in front of his desk.

Billy shifted in his chair and nodded. “Miss, I’ve got to admit, I’ve been a bit worried, you know, in case you didn’t need me here, what with Sandra having done those commercial courses.”

“I didn’t take you on to type letters, Billy.”

He shrugged. “But I was thinking that since I’ve been working for you, you’ve had to get me out of trouble a few times, and look at Sandra, she’s no trouble at all.”

“She’s in dreadful trouble, Billy. She’s become a case, and I want you to take it on, for now. Let me explain.”

Maisie recounted the events of the past week, from Priscilla’s telephone call to Sandra’s release, and her subsequent flight from the home of Douglas and Priscilla Partridge, into whose care she had been entrusted.

“She broke into the garage, then into this other bloke’s offices in the City?”

Maisie nodded.

“I had a feeling she was on to something. I don’t know what she might’ve found in our files over there, but she was looking for something that had nothing to do with her work, and that’s a fact.”

“We’re in possession of a very comprehensive history of many of the most notorious crimes in London and the Home Counties, and we’ve records that name some very powerful people in Westminster, in the City, and—as it happens—what could be termed, the ‘underworld.’ Even if they haven’t been directly implicated in a case, you can bet that anyone of importance is in those files somewhere, even if it’s only a name on a card.”

“Blimey.” Billy shook his head. “She’s got some nerve, that Sandra, I’ll say that for her.”

“The stronger the emotions, the more they will lead people to carry a burden well beyond their weight—you know that. She’s as grief-stricken as anyone I have ever seen, and she’s been rolling a rock up a hill.”

“I feel bad, Miss.” Billy picked at the rough skin along the edge of his thumb. “I thought her being suspicious was all to do with her feelings, that it would pass with time.”

“I know. But it’s no good looking back—there’s work to be done, Billy. First of all, see if you can find out where her in-laws live. Visit the house, keep an eye on it, see who comes and goes—you know the drill. I don’t want you to question them, because I don’t want them worried—I daresay they are still burdened by the death of their son. I believe they live near Whitstable. Here’s Eric’s full name—shouldn’t be too difficult to find them. You could even go over to the garage, find out if Reg Martin knows where they live. And while you’re there, just talk to the man, see what he has to say about what happened. I don’t want you to scare him—in fact, you can tell him you’re there on my behalf, that I want to visit Eric’s parents to pay my respects. Don’t let him know that Sandra has been released, or that we have no idea where she is.”

Billy nodded, scribbled in his notebook, and reached for his jacket. “I’ll go over there now. Anything else, Miss?”

“Yes, find out all you can about a man called William Walling.”

Billy frowned. “That rings a bell.” He draped his jacket across the desk and went to the card file, where he pulled out a drawer. “Too bloody tidy, that’s the trouble . . . oh, here it is.” He brought the card to Maisie. “I knew where to find it because I came in one day and Sandra was going through the cards. She left the card sticking up so she knew where to go back to, then went to put the kettle on, so I had a quick look at what she was doing.”

Maisie took the card. “This is an old card. Maurice’s handwriting . . . always a challenge to the eye—oh dear.”

“Uh-oh, I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Of course. This goes back over twenty years now. It’s just a record of the fact that, when Maurice opened his first clinic in the east end, Walling sent an employee to ask if the premises needed looking after—protection, if you will. Maurice declined, but thereafter ensured that the clinic became a useful tea-stop for the policeman on the beat, so it went around that there was a ‘presence’ there, even at night, with the clinic open around the clock.” She tapped the card against her hand. “This could be another of our more devious brethren, Billy, so find out all you can about him. I should add that he’s now a respected businessman.”

“Aren’t they all when they want to be? Seems that the big boys like Walling, and that Alfie Mantle—you remember, who was put away a few months ago—all dress like lords and mix in the right places, so you’ve got your city gents and your politicians hobnobbing with these men who’re right villains.” Billy looked at Maisie. “What will we do if we can’t find her? I mean, she’s out there, a woman alone, and with that dark cloud over her—she could do anything.”

Maisie looked at Billy, and saw in his eyes an empathy for Sandra—his own losses were still so close to the surface.

“I’ll call the police.”

“But won’t that make things worse for her?”

“I think Detective Inspector Caldwell owes me a favor or two, don’t you?”

“You reckon he’ll agree to look for her, then?”

“He will when I tell him that there’s a chance Eric was murdered.” She pushed back her chair, and walked back to her desk. “Sandra has been in the abyss, but she’s no fool. Find out what happened, Billy. Uncover enough for me to go to Caldwell with. This is your case. Make sure you do right by Sandra.”

Chapter Twelve

W
ith Billy gone, the office was silent, the square quiet on a Friday afternoon. At once, Maisie felt a fatigue set into her bones, as if there were no marrow, no fuel for what had to be done next. True enough, she had been intent upon her work, trying to be a good teacher to her students. She had been balancing the demands of her assignment for Huntley and MacFarlane with deep concerns about Sandra; and in the back of her mind there was still a certain worry regarding her father’s well-being, and on top of that, a nagging thought—it had begun as if it were a scratch on the skin, a minor irritation, but was now a deep discomfort—a sense that James Compton might not be true to her. It was a question she tried to banish, but at the same time, it was as if a few threads had loosened in the fabric of her heart and now a tear was creeping across, in the way that a crack might appear at the edge of a crystal glass, and spread until at once the glass shatters in a thousand pieces. Might she become as bereft as Sandra again—a woman who had rebuilt her heart, only to see it broken once more?

Tears welled up in her eyes, tears she brushed aside with the back of her hand while picking at a needle of splintered wood along the edge of the desk with the fingers of the other. She imagined Sandra, hurt and alone, channeling anger at losing Eric into discovering the true circumstances of his death. Oh, how she wished she could wave her hand and dispel the dark stone of doubt, of unknowing, that had enveloped Sandra.
She had nothing to lose,
thought Maisie. And she knew that, though Sandra had shed tears, though she had come to Maisie for help, and though she had established a soothing routine to her days and seemed to be recovering, in her deepest soul the widow had a sense that there was no more to lose, so any risk was worth her quest for truth. Sandra was in a sort of limbo, where a past with meaning and promise was gone, and the future as yet held nothing she truly wanted. It was a feeling that demanded to be controlled; otherwise it would wreak havoc in the soul, a sense of angry pointlessness. Hadn’t that been why Maisie herself leaned on her work to bring a meaning that would ground her days? Her relationship with James, the intimacy of connection, was a spark that caught fire—could it all be gone, now that she doubted him? Priscilla was right—and wrong. Yes, she controlled her feelings, keeping the dragon at bay with a carefully self-chaperoned life, a protected heart. But Priscilla made letting go sound like a simple task, as easy as a yacht slipping away from the harbor with the wind in its sails. Yet there was always a rock upon which to run aground, and Maisie knew it was her habit to keep a keen eye out for the rocks. And what was the smudged London postmark if not a rock scraping her bow?

Maisie pushed the folders she had intended to work on back into her briefcase, put on her linen jacket once more, along with her light felt hat of pale ivory with a matching band, and left the office, locking the door on her way out. She remembered Eric replacing the lock for her after her office had been broken into, remembered the way in which Sandra had brought her then fiancé to the office, knowing he could help, knowing that no job would be beyond him. They had made a good and happy match, Eric and Sandra, already walking together as if they were meant to grow old entwined in each other’s thoughts, knowing all there was to be known about each other.
Where are you, Sandra? If we do not find you soon, I will have to call the police.
And as she started the MG and pulled away from Warren Street on her way back to the flat in Pimlico, Maisie asked another question, aloud, as she drove.
“And where are you, James Compton?”

Her flat was quiet, with the windows closed against a stale air that sometimes wafted up from the river on a warm day. Usually Maisie might not have noticed—it was, after all, something she had grown up with, and though not pleasant, did not disturb her unduly, though she did not want to invite it into her home. She set down her bags, placing the post she had collected onto the hall table before going to the kitchen to put the kettle on. She walked back to the box room—Sandra’s room. It was empty. The bed was made. Clothing and personal effects had been removed, but an envelope with her name had been left upon the counterpane.

Dear Miss Dobbs,

By the time you find this letter you will have discovered that I am not as reliable as you thought. I have left Mr. and Mrs. Partridge because I didn’t think it was right. They have three young boys and it is not fair on them to have a criminal under their roof.

I am sorry for embarrassing you and sorry for letting you down, especially with you being so kind to me. But I am not sorry for what I did. I had no choice. I won’t say any more, but I thought it best to leave your flat. I don’t want to be bringing shame upon you, Miss Dobbs. You’ve been so generous already, it wouldn’t be right at all.

Don’t worry about me. I will be all right. I am quite determined to know what happened to Eric, and why he was killed. I am his wife, and I vowed to be his helpmeet in sickness and in health. I know I must look out for him in death, too. It was not an accident, Miss Dobbs. I’m sure of it.

Yours sincerely,

Sandra

Mrs. Sandra Tapley

Maisie turned over the page, then turned it back again. It had been typed with care; not one error, not one misplaced letter typed over. She had signed her name with a flourish—her handwriting seemed larger, stronger, as if she had a purpose from which she would not draw back. There was something about the typeface that seemed familiar to Maisie, but it wasn’t from the new typewriter at the office in Fitzroy Square. She walked back into the hallway, where she picked up the post from the small table and took it into the kitchen. With a cup of tea in hand, she sat down to go through her letters. Michael Klein, her solicitor, confirmed that he was progressing with conveyancing in connection with the purchase of a semidetached house in Eltham and would have contracts for her to sign within another week. As he had advised her, a mortgage might not be in her best interests at the present time, so he had taken the liberty of arranging for funds to be placed in an account pending contract exchange, so that the house could be purchased in its entirety. She nodded to herself; in matters of finance, Maisie had learned in a short time to trust Klein’s advice. In a letter Maurice had written:
“I am not a person who has ever had a talent for economics, and though I am not one to make terrible errors either, I have found it best to leave matters of finance to Michael. He will rarely make a move without consulting you, and he will listen if your desires run counter to his advice, but at the same time, Maisie, he knows more than you or I—and I have a feeling that you do not have a kinship with the finer points of mathematics and finance any more than I.”
Maisie had laughed when she first read those words—she was more than happy to leave management of the estate to Michael Klein, though she was learning more each time they met
.

There was a letter from the building company, confirming conversations with Klein’s office, and informing her that the house would be ready for her to take possession in one month.
I hope the baby can wait,
thought Maisie. The next was a letter from James. Usually, she would have torn open the envelope, anxious to read his news, but this time she looked carefully at the postmark, again smudged across the Canadian stamp. Was it London? It was barely legible. She went to her bedroom and gathered other letters from Canada that she kept in a cabinet alongside her bed; she laid them out on the dining room table along with the newest letter and inspected the postmarks. She could not be sure; if James were duping her,
if James were duping her
—she could barely think it without the tear across her heart growing—there would definitely be something amiss in the letters. She took up the new letter, tore open the envelope, and unfurled the pages. James wrote in a deliberate hand, the pen pressed so deeply onto the page you could detect where the two halves of the nib had separated by a hair’s width. The ink was indigo black, and the fountain pen had required refilling halfway through.

He spoke of missing her, of completing his work, and of how much he looked forward to being home in England.
“I never thought I would say that, Maisie. Canada has always been the place that lifted me. I felt free of so much weight whenever I came back here and dreaded returning to London, even Chelstone. But now I ache to be home, ache to hold you in my arms again, darling Maisie.”
She caught her breath. Tears filled her eyes again. How she despised herself, how she wished she did not doubt him so; it was her fault, she knew. In truth, what had he done to cause her to have such feelings? She looked at the postmark again, then went back to the letter.
“I think some letters might have gone astray, so in case you have not received one or two along the way, I have also sent a letter for you in the bag that is sent to our office—it was shipped last week. There’s something else for you there, though you will have to collect it from our office. You can telephone Miss Robinson, my secretary. She’ll have it for you when you come in, though she must know when to expect you.”

Something was amiss. No, no, she would not let imagination run wild. Surely she was dealing with enough subterfuge at the moment.

S
he woke with a start at six o’clock, her head sore from resting on the table in front of her, her hand, cramped, still holding James’ most recent letter. She wiped moisture from her mouth and rubbed her eyes. The meeting. She would be late. Scrambling to her feet, she gathered the letters, and returned them to the cabinet alongside her bed. In her bathroom, she splashed water on her face, brushed her hair, patted some powered rouge on her cheeks and ran lipstick across her top lip before pressing her lips together and checking her appearance in the looking glass above the sink. She opened the window, felt the air outside, and pulled a heavier black linen jacket from the wardrobe, then removed her cream shoes in favor of a black leather pair. The cream skirt and blouse would do. Whenever Maisie dressed, it was hard not to hear Priscilla’s voice in her head. Her friend could have been a couturier’s mannequin; she spent a good deal on her stylish clothes, and always had an opinion on whatever Maisie was wearing.
“Ivory and black, Maisie? Tell me, do you really have that much of an aversion to color? For heaven’s sake—you’re not a nurse anymore! And what happened to that red dress?”
She grabbed a red silk scarf from a drawer and tied it around her neck.
Oh dear, I look like a bus conductress
, thought Maisie. But she would be late, so she banished the voice of her fashion-plate friend from her head and left the flat. All being well, she would be at the address in Cleveland Terrace in time to observe the comings and goings of members of the Ortsgruppe.

She drove past the address and parked along the street. The Georgian terrace comprised flats with shops below, with the entrance to the flats a doorway between two of the shop fronts. There were some pedestrians on the street, but Maisie did not want to be conspicuous; she moved the motor car closer to the building, so she could remain in the MG to observe the comings and goings of Ortsgruppe members. Men and women began to arrive, though the latter were far outnumbered by the former. A taxi-cab pulled up outside the address and Robson Headley alighted from the vehicle. He held out a hand to Delphine Lang as she stepped out. Headley paid the driver, and they turned towards the doorway. Lang looked around her, as did Headley, and at once Maisie hoped they did not spot her distinctive MG, though given the care she’d taken to avoid using it in Cambridge, they might not recognize it as hers in any case. As they walked forward, Lang dropped a book she was carrying and Headley bent down to retrieve it for her. Maisie watched as he handed her the book, the way he smiled, placed an arm around her shoulder, and escorted her into the building. They must have been among the last to arrive; Maisie cast her glance along and across the street. It was then that she noticed a man on the other side of the road. He was slender and wore a suit that despite being well tailored seemed to hang just a little. A broad-brimmed hat was pulled down in such a way as to obscure the face. The man waited for a while, then took out a packet of cigarettes, lit one with a match, and looked up to the first-floor window, where silhouettes of those gathered could be seen in the diminishing light. Maisie continued to watch as the man then turned and began to walk along the street. There was something in that walk, something that intrigued her—the way the man moved, how he continued to draw on the cigarette. She felt sure she had seen him before, and as she slipped the MG into gear and moved away from the curb, it occurred to her that she knew exactly who it was, though the thought would seem quite absurd if she chose to share it with Huntley or MacFarlane.

M
aisie rose as early as she could to drive down to Chelstone. She thought it might be time to press her father again regarding a move up to The Dower House, and at the same time there were several boxes of Maurice’s notes that she wanted to read through.

Maurice might be gone now, his counsel not immediately available, but he had left boxes of papers and journals for her, all clearly marked, all cataloged. It was as if his voice were still with her, guiding her, leaving something of his knowledge, his wisdom, in every word, on every page. How she had drawn upon those words in the early days following his death. It was as if she couldn’t quite let go, even though she had held his hand as he passed and had mourned his loss in a way that she had not mourned since her mother died. Admittedly, the fledgling relationship with James Compton had done much to gentle her heart, though sometimes she felt as if there would never be an end to the sorrow of losing Maurice.

As always, driving seemed to clear her mind. There was something in the rhythm of changing gear, slowing for corners, accelerating on the straight, that seemed to help her sort through the many concerns that vied for attention when she was working on a case, especially when personal matters also claimed her attention. It was as if her mind comprised a flight of birds swooping and wheeling across the sky—an observation here, an aha there, a question, an answer, a clue, a surprise; they never collided, but wove a web all the same—but driving gathered her thoughts into formation, and set a course. And as she continued on her way, turning onto the Chelstone road just before Tonbridge, the smell of freshly picked hops in the air, the reek of sulfur from the oasthouses as they dried the county’s most famous crop, Maisie knew that if only certain pieces in the puzzle could be found, a coherent picture would emerge from the images before her. Hopefully there would be a letter from the Ipswich County Records Office next week. There were still Greville Liddicote’s former colleagues at the university to see, if she could gain an interview with any of them. And several more questions had come to mind, questions that would demand time and footwork—MacFarlane would be impressed; he liked footwork. She wondered how MacFarlane and Stratton were getting on. It was as if MacFarlane had put her at arm’s length now, not wanting their paths to cross too much. She made a note to ensure they spoke on Monday.