An Incomplete Revenge (22 page)

“Oh, yes it is. You’re sniffing at this one like a hound following a scent, and I want to be there when you chase down the culprit.”

“Then if you wish me to execute my duties effectively, you must return to Maidstone when we have completed our conversation and leave me to do my work. Rest assured I will keep my promise to you.”

Beattie Drummond looked down at her hands as she clutched the top of her briefcase. “I want to be out of here so much. I want to be taken seriously by a newspaper and not have to go to one more school fete.”

“Yes, I know you do, Beattie, and I give you my word that you will have your scoop.”

Beattie nodded. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

Maisie started the motor car and drove slowly away from the station, stopping at the edge of a field. She reached behind the seat for a blanket and a bag with a flask and two beakers.

“Come on, let’s have a cup of tea.”

They set the blanket at a point overlooking the soft undulating patchwork-quilt fields and ancient woodlands that were a hallmark of Kent’s High Weald. Sitting down, each with a beaker of tea, they discussed Beattie’s findings.

“Here’s a list of seven houses where miscellaneous fires have broken out. There have been at least three more according to my records, but I don’t have the details. As you can see, they take place around the same date each year. You have the family names there, though I have only given the head of household and spouse, not the names of all the children—with one exception.”

“Which is?”

Beattie leaned across, still holding her beaker of steaming tea in one hand. “Phyllis Mansell, now Phyllis Wheeler. She and her husband live with her parents, though they have two children of their own, and a new baby, I think—last time I came to the village for the paper, she was up like a balloon. Anyway, she was supposedly best friends with the girl who died, Anna Martin.”

“How do you know?”

“Snooping. Asking questions to make things easier for any private inquiry agent who happened to come along.”

Maisie raised an eyebrow and smiled, taking the comment in the spirit of a quip, rather than a bitter retort. “Thank you. I appreciate it. Do you know anything else about the Martin family? How long had they been here?”

“They had been here for some years. The parents had been in London, then came to Kent because Anna had trouble with her breathing. They thought that getting her out of those pea-soupers would be just the ticket. You can imagine it: ’Come to the country air, breathe in dust and hay!’” Her mimicry reflected recent government advertising campaigns to get more people out and hiking, for better health and to fight disease. However, Maisie was intrigued when she mimicked an accent, rolling her vowels and using a singsong cadence.

“Why are you speaking like that?”

“Well, they were Dutch, the Martins.”

“Dutch?”

“Yes, only one generation back—something like that.”

“So the original name was probably Maarten.” Maisie looked into the distance, seeing the name written in her mind’s eye. “Hence the names Jacob and Bettin.”

“And Willem.”

“Yes, of course.” Maisie was reflecting upon Carter’s description of the baker in Heronsdene and how Mrs. Crawford always ordered from him, because he was the best. But he hadn’t mentioned that the family were from the Netherlands.

“Did they have discernible accents, do you think?”

“I don’t think so, despite my impersonation, though I understand Dutch was spoken in the home. I once had a Dutch friend who spoke five or six languages. She liked to travel and told me, ’No one speaks my language, so I have to speak everyone else’s if I want to be understood.’”

Maisie was thinking about Priscilla’s boys, hence “I see” was the sum of her reply.

“Anyway, you’ll find Phyllis rather loath to talk about her friend—I know. I tried collaring her for a chat during the pancake races one Shrove Tuesday. Clammed up very tight, she did.”

“I’ll try to find out if she has any thoughts about the fires.”

“I doubt she can tell you much, really. I was just sniffing around, wondering whether to write some sort of In Remembrance piece when the ten-year anniversary of the Zeppelin raid came around. No one wanted to think about it, talk about it, or otherwise bring it back. So that little idea was shot down in flames, as so many before them.” She sighed. “Anyway, here’s the Reverend Staples’s address. He was the village vicar. As you can see, he lives in Hawkhurst now, at Easter Cottage, down the road from the church, St. Laurence’s at The Moor, which is the old part of the village, up on the hill. He’s not the vicar there, but old habits die hard—he can probably only sleep if there’s a church clock on his doorstep clanging away all night. Do you need directions?”

“Please, if you don’t mind.”

“He’s a good sort, really. Rather fond of chamber music. In fact, while he was vicar he started a quartet here in the village.” Beattie noted the directions on the sheet of paper she had already prepared for Maisie and handed it to her.

Maisie folded the paper and placed it in the black document case she’d brought with her from the motor car. “You’ve been very kind and incredibly helpful, Beattie.” She paused, then reached out and placed her hand on the reporter’s shoulder. “You really will get your chance, I promise. As soon as anything concrete surfaces, I’ll be in touch. I give you my word.”

Beattie nodded and glanced at her wristwatch. “Well, this will never get the eggs cooked, will it?” She looked at Maisie. “Where’s that lovely nurse’s watch you were wearing last time we met?”

Maisie shrugged. “I forgot to put it on today. I’ll have to use the sun as a timepiece.”

As the women returned to the MG, Beattie expressed annoyance at having missed the two London boys who had been released by the police. “I thought I would be able to interview them with their people, you know, among the hop-pickers, get some other bits and pieces to give some local color. Heaven knows, they didn’t hang around once they’d been let off.”

“The parents wanted to get them back to London, back to work before news of their arrest filtered northward and they lost their apprenticeships,” said Maisie, easing the MG back onto the road.

Conversation was lighter as they drove toward the station for Beattie to catch the train to Tunbridge and from there to Maidstone. As Beattie alighted from the motor car, Maisie leaned toward the passenger window. “Beattie, I had some good advice from a friend yesterday. She told me that if you want to find silver, you have to think silver. There’s no reason why it wouldn’t work with your business as well. If you want success, you have to hold it“—she tapped the side of her head—“as vividly as you can, up here.”

Beattie frowned, then smiled. “Oh, I see. Imagine myself sitting at the guv’nor’s desk.”

Maisie shook her head. “No. Really see yourself at one of the big newspapers. Think silver, Beattie.”

MAISIE DROVE DIRECTLY
from the station to Hawkhurst, a journey that once again took her through village after village resplendent in the midst of a varied and colorful harvest. She saw apples almost ready for the picking as she passed the orchards, with sweet Cox’s Orange Pippins hanging heavy on branches and hearty bitter Bramleys just waiting to be sliced into a pie. Alongside an orchard of nutty-brown russet apples, she stopped, idling the MG while she slipped through the fence and twisted one from a branch, and then drove off before anyone caught her in the act of scrumping.

Entering Hawkhurst, she drove up toward The Moor, past the grassy common, the village school, and the church, before parking outside Easter Cottage. She pulled on her jacket, smoothed the linen skirt she had selected that day, and on her head placed a soft straw hat with a purple grosgrain band and low broad brim. She put a clutch of index cards into her shoulder bag, not wanting to use the document case, lest it seem intimidating, too formal. Then she locked the MG, walked up the path, and rang the bell.

The Reverend Staples opened the door, calling out to his wife, “It’s alright, Jane, I’ve answered it myself.” He turned to Maisie. “May I help you?”

“Reverend Staples? My name is Maisie Dobbs.” She paused to hand him a calling card. “I am working for the company currently in the process of purchasing a large tract of land, plus the brickworks, from Alfred Sandermere in Heronsdene.”

The vicar, who still wore his white clerical collar, along with a V-necked maroon cardigan that had been darned at the elbows, frowned as he read her card. “I’m sorry, but I don’t see how—”

“I’m completing a report on the village’s recent history, a factor the purchaser always takes into account, as a local business is so much a part of the adjacent community. Given your very close association with the village, I thought it would be a good idea to seek your opinion on a few points.”

He stepped aside, holding out his left hand. “Of course, do come in.” He closed the door behind her. A woman came from the drawing room, through which Maisie could see French doors leading to the garden, where whitewashed cast-iron furniture was set on a lawn. The woman wore her silver-gray hair in a tight permanent wave and looked very much the quintessential vicar’s wife, clad in a simple knitted cardigan with a string of pearls at her neck and a skirt that brushed her calves just above the ankle. “Ah, Jane, this is Miss Maisie Dobbs. She represents the company buying most of Sandermere’s estate. Wants to find out a bit more about the village.”

The woman clasped her hands in front of her waist as she replied. “I’m glad to hear it. That brickworks needs to be properly run, and the interests of the village in the business that employs most of the men should be taken seriously” She paused and smiled. “Might I bring some tea to your study, dear?”

The vicar replied that tea would be very nice indeed, and Maisie suspected that Mrs. Staples had spent much of her married life making tea for those who came to see her husband.

Reverend Staples led Maisie to his study and held out his hand toward a chair as he closed the door behind him. “Please, take a seat.”

Once more, Maisie was seated on the guest’s side of a wooden desk more suited to a room three times the size. With a ream of unused paper to one side of the blotting pad, and a scribbled-upon haphazard collection of notes on the other, it seemed that the vicar was working on a manuscript of some sort.

“You’re a writer, Reverend Staples?”

He waved his hand as if to dismiss the thought, then used an arm to sweep the written-upon papers to one side. “I thought I might be. I’ve been working on an autobiography of sorts, a recollection of my days as a country vicar. I thought I might blend witty anecdotes with a treatise on the pastoral care of a small community. However, I have discovered that I am not a born writer, and that those little scenes of rural humor do not stand the test of time. But the work gives the impression of getting on with something and assuages the guilt that accompanies a stroll across the road to watch the cricket.”

Maisie smiled. She was glad the conversation had mellowed, so much the better for her questioning. “I think I should come to the point. My client has been concerned regarding the instances of petty crime in Heronsdene over the past—say—ten years or so, including a spate of fires. Have you any . . .“ She paused, seeking the right word. “Have you any
insight
that might shed light on the causes of such vandalism? I should add that the fires—which seem to happen on an annual basis—are of particular concern.”

The vicar ran his finger around his collar and rubbed his chin.
Hot around the collar,
thought Maisie, as Maurice’s words echoed in her mind. The door opened, and Jane Staples brought in a tea tray. She made a comment about the garden while pouring, then passed cups of tea, to Maisie first and then her husband, who seemed relieved at the interruption.

As the door clicked behind her, Maisie repeated her question. “Your thoughts on the vandalism, sir?”

“Of course, I’ve heard about
the petty crime
, as you call it. You no doubt know the lion’s share of those incidents were after my time, so I cannot exactly lay claim to having my finger on the village pulse. Certainly, such events do seem to coincide with the hop-picking, and the coincidence cannot be ignored. High jinks by London boys in particular.”

“And the fires?”

His cheeks became pink once more. “Yes, the fires. I’m sure that, to an outsider, the fires might look suspicious—generally the same time of year and so on. However, you people really mustn’t make a mountain out of a molehill. It’s a busy time of year. People are working in the fields all day—if not in the hop-gardens there’s often a second threshing of the hay, then the apples and pears, and that season follows the picking of summer fruit, strawberries, cherries, blackcurrants—so workers are tired, they ache from the day’s labor, and they make mistakes. A chimney’s set on fire because the stove’s been banked up for more hot water, a saucepan alight on the hob because someone’s fallen asleep, or a paraffin lamp’s been left untended—no one in the village has the convenience of electricity, my dear.”

“So you believe ten or more small fires, generally at the same time of year, are the result of household accidents?”

Staples leaned forward and began folding the edge of a sheet of paper, first one fold, then another, until the paper was triangular in shape. He spoke while his hands were busy. “Yes, I do, Miss Dobbs. If you list them it seems hard to believe, but Heronsdene is a rural farming community, with the addition of a factory. The people are not strangers to accidents. They take them in their stride, help one another out. They are very close-knit, as you have no doubt discovered. It is a blessing that no one has been hurt.”

“Some weeks ago a fire almost took the lives of Mr. Sandermere’s hunters.”

“Well, that might be one fire to take a second look at.”

“I have already.”

“I’m sure.”

Maisie smiled, encouraging Staples to soften before presenting another question she knew would challenge him. “Can you tell me about the Martins?”

He scratched his right ear and reached for his hitherto untouched cup of tea. “Of course. Very nice people. Churchgoers.
Musical family—Mrs. Martin played the church organ, Anna was a pianist, and Jacob quite a respectable violinist.”