Maisie Dobbs (3 page)

Maisie rubbed her neck once more, closed the folder on her desk, and stretched her arms above her head. The doorbell's deep clattering ring broke the silence. At first Maisie thought that someone had pulled the bell handle in error. There had been few rings since Billy installed the new device, which sounded in Maisie's office. Despite the fact that Maisie had worked with Maurice Blanche and had taken over his practice when he retired at the age of seventy-six, establishing her name independent of Maurice was proving to be a challenge indeed. The bell rang again.

Maisie pressed her skirt with her hands, patted her head to tame any stray tendrils of hair, and hurried downstairs to the door.

"Good... "The man hesitated, then consulted a watch that he drew from his waistcoat pocket, as if to ascertain the accurate greeting for the time of day. "Good evening. My name is Davenham, Christopher Davenham. I'm here to see Mr. Dobbs. I have no appointment, but was assured that he would see me"

He was tall, about six feet two inches by Maisie's estimate. Fine tweed suit, hat taken off to greet her at just the right moment, but repositioned quickly. Good leather shoes, probably buffed to a shine by his manservant. The Times was rolled up under one arm, but with a sheet or two of writing paper coiled inside and just visible. His own notes, thought Maisie. His jet black hair was swept back and oiled, and his moustache neatly trimmed. Christopher Davenham was about forty-two or forty-three. Only seconds had passed since his introduction, but Maisie had him down. This one had not been a soldier. In a protected profession, she suspected.

"Come this way, Mr. Davenham. There are no appointments set for this evening, so you are in luck."

Maisie led the way up to her office, and invited Christopher Davenham to sit in the new guest chair opposite her own, the chair that had been delivered just last week by Lady Rowan's chauffeur. Another gift to help her business along.

Davenham looked around for a moment, expecting someone else to step out to meet him, but instead the young woman introduced herself.

"Maisie Dobbs. At your service, Mr. Davenham" She waved her hand toward the chair again. "Do please take a seat, Mr. Davenham. Now then, first tell me how you came to have my name"

Christopher Davenham hid his surprise well, taking a linen handkerchief from his inside pocket and coughing lightly into it. The handkerchief was so freshly laundered and ironed that the folds were still knife sharp. Davenham refolded the handkerchief along the exact lines pressed by the iron, and replaced it in his pocket.

"Miss, er, Dobbs. Well, um, well ... you have been highly recommended by my solicitor."

"Who is?"

Maisie leaned her head to one side to accentuate the question, and to move the conversation onto more fertile ground.

"Oh, um, Blackstone and Robinson. Joseph Robinson."

Maisie nodded. Lady Rowan again. Joseph Robinson had been her personal legal adviser for forty-odd years. And he didn't suffer fools gladly unless they were paying him-and paying hint well.

"Been the family solicitor for years. I'll be frank with you, Miss Dobbs. I'm surprised to see you. Thought you were a chap. But Robinson knows his stuff, so let's continue"

"Yes, let's, Mr. Davenham. Perhaps you would tell me why you are here."

"My wife."

Maisie's stomach churned. Oh, Lord, after all her training, her education, her successes with Maurice Blanche, had it come to this? A love triangle? But she sat up to listen carefully, remembering Blanche's advice: "The extraordinary hides behind the camouflage of the ordinary. Assume nothing, Maisie"

"And what about your wife, Mr. Davenham?"

"I believe ... I believe her affections are engaged elsewhere. I have suspected it for some time and now, Miss Dobbs, I must know if what I suspect is true"

Maisie leaned back in her chair and regarded Christopher Davenhani squarely. "Mr. Davenham, first of all, I must tell you that I will have to ask you some questions. They may not be questions that are easy or comfortable for you to answer. I will have questions about your responses, and even questions about your questions. That is my job. I am unique in what I do. I am also unique in what I charge for my service."

"Money is not a problem, Miss Dobbs"

"Good. The questions may be, though"

"Do continue"

"Mr. Davenham, please tell me what personal evidence you have to suspect that your wife is betraying your marriage in any way?"

"Tuesdays and Thursdays, every week, without fail, she leaves the house immediately after I have departed for my office, and returns just in time to welcome me home"

"Mr. Davenham, time away from the house is no reason for you to suspect that you are being deceived"

"The lies are, though"

"Go on" Maisie wrote in her notebook without taking her eyes off Davenham, a skill that unnerved him.

"She has told me that she has been shopping, visiting friends or her mother-and upon investigation I find that if such visits have occurred, they have taken only an hour or so. Clearly they are a smokescreen"

"There are other possibilities, Mr. Davenham. Could your wife, perhaps, be visiting her physician? Is she undertaking a course of study? What other reasons for her absences have you explored in your investigations, Mr. Davenham? Such absences may have a completely innocent explanation."

"Miss Dobbs. Surely that is for you to find out? Follow her, and you will see that I am right"

"Mr. Davenham. To follow a person is an invasion of the right of that individual to privacy. If I take on this case-and I do have a choice in the matter-I am taking on more than the question of who did what and when. I am taking on a responsibility for both you and your wife in a way that you may not have considered. Tell me, what will you do with the information I provide?"

"Well, I ... I'll use it. It will be a matter for my solicitor."

Maisie placed her hands together in front of her face, just touching her nose, as if in prayer. "Let me ask you another question. What value do you place on your marriage?"

"What sort of question is that?"

"A question to be answered, if I am to take on this investigation"

"A high value.Vows are meant to be honored."

"And what value do you place on understanding, compassion, forgiveness?"

Davenham was silent. He crossed his legs, smoothed the tweed trousers, and leaned down to rub away a nonexistent scuff on his polished leather shoes, before responding. "Darin and blast!"

"Mr. Davenham-"

"Miss Dobbs, I am not without compassion, but I have my pride. My wife will not divulge the nature of her business on those days when she is absent. I have come here in order to learn the truth"

"Oh yes. The truth. Mr. Davenham, I will ascertain the truth for you, but I must have an agreement from you-that when you have my report, and you know the truth, then we will discuss the future together."

"What do you mean?"

"The information I gather will be presented in a context. It is in light of that context that we must continue our discussion, in order for you and your wife to build a future"

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean"

Maisie stood up, walked to the window, then turned to face her potential client. The bluff of the stiff upper lip, thought Maisie, who keenly felt the man's discomfort, and was immediately attuned to his emotions. Intuition spoke to her. He talks about pride when it's his heart that's aching.

"My job is rather more complex than you might have imagined, Mr. Davenham. I am responsible for the safety of all parties. And this is so even when I am dealing with society's more criminal elements."

Davenham did not respond immediately. Maisie, too, was silent, allowing him time to gather his resolve. After some minutes the stillness of the room was broken.

"I trust Robinson, so I will go ahead," said Davenham.

Maisie moved back to the desk, and looked down at her notes, then to the rooftops where pigeons were busy returning to newly built nests, before she brought her attention back to the man in the leather chair before her.

"Yes, Mr. Davenham. I will, too" Maisie allowed her acceptance of the case to be underlined by another moment of silence.

"Now then, let's start with your address, shall we?"

CHAPTER THREE

aisie rose early on Tuesday, April 9. She dressed carefully in the blue skirt and jacket, pulled a navy blue wool overcoat across her shoulders, placed a cloche on her head, and left her rented room in a large threestory Victorian terraced house in Lambeth, just south of the Thames. It was cold again. Blimey, would spring ever spring up? she wondered, pulling gloves onto already chilled fingers.

As usual Maisie began her morning with a brisk walk, which allowed her time to consider the day ahead and enjoy what her father always called "the best of the morning" She entered Palace Road from Royal Street, and turned right to walk toward Westminster Bridge. She loved to watch the Thames first thing in the morning. Those Londoners who lived just south of the river always said they were "going over the water" when they crossed the Thames, never referring to the river by name unless they were speaking to a stranger. It had been the lifeblood of the city since the Middle Ages, and no people felt the legacy more keenly than those who lived with it and by it. Her maternal grandfather had been a lighterman on the water, and like all of his kind, knew her tides, her every twist and turn.

Londoners knew she was a moody creature. Human beings possessed no dominion over the Thames, but care, attention, and respect would see any vessel safely along her meandering way. Maisie's grandfather had all but disowned her mother when she had taken up with Maisie's father, for he was of the land, not that Frankie Dobbs would have called the streets of London "the land." Frankie was a costermonger, a man who sold vegetables from a horse-drawn cart that he drove from Lambeth to Covent Garden market every weekday morning. To Frankie Dobbs the water was a means to an end, bringing fruit and vegetables to market, for him to buy in the early hours of the morning, then sell on his rounds and be home by teatime, if he was lucky.

Maisie stopped at the center of the bridge, waved at the crew of a pilot boat, and went on her way. She was off to see Celia Davenham, but Celia Davenham would not see her.

Once across the bridge, Maisie descended into the depths of Westminster underground railway station and took the District Line to Charing Cross station. The station had changed names back and forth so many times, she wondered what it would be called next. First it was Embankment, then Charing Cross Embankment, and now just Charing Cross, depending upon which line you were traveling. At Charing Cross she changed trains, and took the Northern Line to Goodge Street station, where she left the underground, coming back up into the sharp morning air at Tottenham Court Road. She crossed the road, then set off along Chenies Street toward Russell Square. Once across the square, she entered Guilford Street, where she stopped to look at the mess the powers that be had made of Coram's Fields. The old foundling hospital, built by Sir Thomas Coram almost two hundred years before, had been demolished in 1926, and now it was just an empty space with nothing to speak of happening to it. "Shame," whispered Maisie, as she walked another few yards and entered Mecklenburg Square.

Named in honor of Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who became queen consort upon her marriage to George III of England, the gracious Georgian houses of the square were set around a garden protected by a wrought-iron fence secured with a locked gate. Doubtless a key to the lock was on a designated hook downstairs at the Davenham residence, in the butler's safekeeping. In common with many London squares, only residents had access to the garden.

Maisie jotted a few more lines in her notebook, taking care to reflect that she had been to the square once before, accompanying Maurice Blanche during a visit to his colleague, Richard Tawney, the political writer who spoke of social equality in a way that both excited and embarrassed Maisie. At the time it seemed just as well that he and Maurice were deep in lively conversation, so that Maisie's lack of ease could go unnoticed.