A Lesson In Secrets_ A Maisie Dobbs Novel Part 19

"You only need to keep them closed for a little while, then my secret can be revealed."

"All right-but no blindfold. And I promise I won't look." Maisie held her hands to her eyes as they set off again.

A few moments later, the motor car came to a standstill and Maisie breathed in the air around her. There was a faint loamy smell of fallen leaves, and a light rain on flagstones. There were just a few motor cars and not far away she could hear a horse and cart.

"Oh dear. Oh, it can't be. James, I know the smells here, I know, it's-"

"All right, you can look now."

"Ebury Place!" Maisie all but shouted. "Oh goodness, what are we doing here? Why did you-?"

And at that point, he turned her around to face number 15 Ebury Place, the house where she had come to work as a young girl, where she had struggled to study despite her duties as a domestic servant. The house had been mothballed when Lady Rowan announced that she did not want to come to London anymore. Sheets covered the furniture, and the property appeared deserted-the last time Maisie drove past, she thought how lonely the house had looked, when it had once been so full of life. And now the mansion was half-shrouded in scaffolding and heavy canvas sheets, and a builder's van was parked outside. A man wearing white overalls and cleaning his hands on a cloth walked towards them.

"Good morning, sir."

"Mr. Judge, I thought we'd come and have a look at your progress. How's the job going? Did you have any luck with that door frame?"

"Yes, we did-took two men to pull it out, but we've solved the problem, and now we're going great guns."

James turned to Maisie. "Mind where you step now."

The foreman led the way across the entrance hall and Maisie looked up at the sweeping staircase which led to the first floor. Scaffolding had been erected to enable men to reach the high ceilings and windows; it seemed the mansion was receiving complete refurbishment.

"When do you think the job will be finished?" James asked the foreman.

"You should be able to move in by Christmas, all being well."

"Well done. Tell your men there will be a bonus for them if the work is completed by December twenty-third."

"I'll do that, sir, and I hope I'm not jeopardizing that bonus when I tell you the men are pretty determined to get the job done anyway."

Maisie and James exchanged glances, and James smiled. "What do you mean, Mr. Judge? Is everything all right?"

The man shrugged and reddened. "It's not the sort of thing that would bother me, but some of the lads are a bit uneasy, what with the fact that you've got some haunting going on here."

James laughed, yet Maisie moved closer to the foreman. "What makes you think this house is haunted?"

"The noises. Creaking floorboards and all that. And things have gone missing. Ronnie said he could've sworn he had his sandwich box with him when he came in the other morning. He went back out to the van, came back in again, and what do you know-gone!"

James stepped forward. "Oh, I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation. I lived in this house almost all my life, and I a.s.sure you, if a ghost had crossed paths with my mother, I know who would have been given a fright-and it wouldn't have been Lady Rowan Compton!"

"Tell me, Mr. Judge, have you been up to the old servants' quarters yet?" asked Maisie. "The attic rooms? There's a back staircase leading up there and a disguised door on every landing."

"No, we won't get to that part of the house for at least another couple of weeks, and no one's been up there."

At once Maisie was stepping quickly across the dust sheets, and then along the hallway until she reached a place where she pulled back another dust sheet and opened the door that many a visitor would not have noticed was there.

"Maisie, where are you going? Maisie! Maisie, have you lost your senses?"

She could hear James' footsteps behind her, but now she was on the back stairs. Oh, how often she had gone up and down these stairs as a girl, a coal scuttle in hand, stopping on each floor to light the fires in the family's reception rooms. As she made her way up, it was as if she were on a stairway to the past, but now she had only one thing in mind. She was in pursuit of a ghost.

Almost out of breath by the time she reached the attic floors, she stopped at the room she had once shared with a girl named Enid. She stood outside the door, caught her breath, and knocked with a light hand. She stepped with care across the threshold. To the right was a dressing table, on top of which was the typewriter that had once been placed in the library for the use of guests visiting the mansion-of course, that's why the typeface on her letter from Sandra had seemed so familiar. She moved into the room and sat on the first of two cast-iron beds, reaching out to touch the young woman curled on her side with her eyes open, her cheeks red with the feverishness of so many shed tears.

"It's all right, Sandra. I've got you, you poor love. I've got you." Maisie leaned over and put her arms around the bony frame of Sandra Tapley. "I should have known you would come here. This was your home when you met Eric; it was where you fell in love. I should have known." She waited a while as the sobs ebbed, rubbing Sandra's back as if she were settling a baby for the night. "It's over, Sandra. The police have got him-the man responsible for Eric's death is in custody. You won't be getting into trouble. There, there, it's all done now."

And as she looked back towards the door, Maisie saw James Compton standing in the doorway.

"I can't leave her alone at the flat, James," whispered Maisie. "We must take her to Priscilla's. Could you ..."

"Yes, I'll find a taxi-and I'll let Priscilla and Douglas know-the telephone's been reconnected downstairs. It's Sandra, isn't it?"

"Yes. Tell them we've found Sandra."

Maisie did not trouble Sandra with questions. She could see that the young woman was beyond exhaustion, physically and emotionally, and that her spirit had been battered as if it were a s.h.i.+p in a storm. Now, in the guest room at Priscilla's house, she helped Sandra into the bed and pulled up the sheets and counterpane, coc.o.o.ning her so that she might sleep. She waited a moment, then tiptoed away, closing the door behind her. Priscilla was waiting for her on the landing.

"Maisie, you will stay for lunch, won't you? Sandra isn't the only one who looks as if she needs a rest-look at you, I bet you've been rus.h.i.+ng about all over the place."

"I've been busy, Pris. And I have to leave for Ipswich very soon."

"Ipswich? Ips-b.l.o.o.d.y-wich! What are you going there for, and leaving that lovely man behind?"

Maisie put her finger to her mouth. "Shhhh. You'll wake Sandra."

They walked towards the staircase, but lingered there, still speaking in lowered voices.

"I tell you, Maisie, you'll lose him if you carry on like this. I mean, it's all very well to be working, if that's what you want to do, but for heaven's sake-that man adores you, and I know you feel the same way; you can't fool me, you know. Can't you stay just one day?"

Maisie could barely meet her friend's eyes, so filled with concern. "I wish I could, but the sooner I go, the sooner I'll be back again. James understands."

"I think you'll find there's a distinction between understanding and tolerance. I don't think he'll be that happy about it for much longer."

"He'll surprise you, Pris."

"I hope you're right, my friend. I do hope you're right." They began making their way down the staircase. "You'll stay for a quick lunch, then?"

"Yes, that would be nice."

"We've some salmon in aspic, very nice with new potatoes and a salad. And cook made some freshly baked bread."

"I could eat that-we didn't have a moment for breakfast."

Priscilla winked at her friend. "Didn't we now?"

Maisie liked Priscilla's dining room. It could have been so much more formal, and indeed, when they were entertaining on a larger scale, the room appeared very grand. But at other times, there always seemed to be something to indicate that this was a house where children lived and were not only loved by their parents, but enjoyed. A cricket bat might have been left behind a door, or a rugger ball under a side table. She had once discovered a muddy sock by the French windows, and it seemed there was a model airplane or an abandoned toy motor car to be found in almost every room. At intervals Priscilla was known to announce, "That's enough! All toys to your room!" But such discipline was soon lost with her desire to have fun with her boisterous sons-a sentiment that most of their friends found incomprehensible, if not alarming.

"So, Maisie, what did you discover about Sandra's foray into the world of cat burglary?" asked Priscilla.

"She didn't tiptoe over any tiles, yet I wouldn't have put it past her. But she was was on the scent of the man who killed her husband, though he didn't touch him with his own hands." on the scent of the man who killed her husband, though he didn't touch him with his own hands."

"What happened?"

"First of all, it was my a.s.sistant who did most of the legwork, as I've been concerned with an a.s.signment on behalf of another client. Essentially, here's what happened. A man named William Walling-who appears respectable and businesslike enough but runs a fairly large criminal corporation and controls all sorts of rackets-had stepped up pressure on his people recently. Everything he's done has been under the cover of a legitimate business, but like many such men, he has a protection operation-shopkeepers and so on have to pay a certain amount to him, and if they don't go along with his 'proposition,' then he exerts some force. On the other hand, the business is protected from a similar approach by other men with the same intention, and of course from the attentions of smaller-time crooks."

"I understand there's been an increase in this sort of thing, Maisie," said Douglas Partridge.

"I had a similar case just recently," added Maisie. "Only the villain in that one was a loan shark who had expanded his business interests."

"This is all making me very nervous, Maisie," said James.

"Me, too," said Priscilla, turning to James. "I've been telling Maisie for a long time that she should find something less threatening to do."

"Oh, but that wouldn't be Maisie, would it, darling?" James leaned across and squeezed Maisie's hand, while Maisie smiled at Priscilla, who rolled her eyes.

"Walling had acquired some motor cars needing repairs-likely all of them were stolen," said Maisie. "He asked-by which I mean he told told-Reg Martin, Eric Tapley's employer, that he had the job, and was to complete the work in a very short time-or else. Reg and Eric were working flat out."

"I would have thought that, on the contrary, they might have had time on their hands-aren't those sort of businesses having trouble at the moment?" said James.

Maisie shook her head. "If you've decided not to buy a new motor car, you have to spend more on keeping the old one on the road, so Reg wasn't doing too badly, but he was worried about taking on another mechanic to help out, only to lay him off when this influx of work from Walling dried up. To cut the story short, Reg ran late with a job, he complained that it was more than they could take on, and Walling had equipment tampered with, just to scare Reg. But Walling's men obviously took things a bit too far, because Eric was killed. And Sandra was not going to let it go. She had been suspicious for a while, because she had been doing the books for Reg, then he had suddenly told her he didn't need her to do them anymore. She realized what had transpired, and broke into Walling's offices-to go through his books-only to discover that he was sending money overseas. Of course, little of this came out when she was held at Vine Street. I asked Billy to speak to a Scotland Yard man we know, and apparently they've had their eyes on Walling for a while. He's increased his activities to enable him to send as much money as possible to relatives in Spain-his mother is Spanish. Surprisingly, it wasn't for reasons of criminal intent, though there are people in Spain who would think so. It was to help family members, people who had become dispossessed due to the political turbulence over there."

"This is the sort of talk that rather scares me, to tell you the truth," said Priscilla, extinguis.h.i.+ng a cigarette, then placing another in the long holder, lighting it, and inhaling deeply.

At that moment, Douglas and Priscilla's sons came bounding into the dining room, and it seemed the four walls echoed with the sounds of childhood exuberance.

The three boys cl.u.s.tered around James Compton-the fact that he had been with the Royal Flying Corps during the war had made him a firm favorite with Priscilla's airplane-mad boys. Maisie looked at James as he pulled the youngest, Tarquin, onto his lap and fielded their questions. She turned her attention to Priscilla, who was seated next to her, and realized her eyes had filled with tears.

"I get so inexplicably scared at times, Maisie," Priscilla whispered to her friend.

Maisie took her hand, knowing the memory of losing three beloved brothers in the war sometimes filled Priscilla with a dark dread of the future.

"Look at the time. I suppose you ought to be on your way, Maisie." Priscilla stood up, squaring her shoulders as if she were prepared to take command of the world once more. "Right, you three toads. I don't know what made you think you could return from the park and rush straight into the dining room without was.h.i.+ng hands, or while grown-ups are talking. Elinor doubtless has your lunch ready in the kitchen-special treat while cook's out on Sat.u.r.day errands."

"We should leave now, James," said Maisie.

"Don't worry, I'll ensure Sandra remains under our roof until you return," said Priscilla. "And I am sure that, if she gets bored, Douglas will have plenty of work for her to catch up on. Should we expect a visit from your friends at Scotland Yard?"

"I'll telephone Caldwell; he won't have you bothered unduly, though Sandra will have to make another statement."

Priscilla kissed Maisie on both cheeks, then turned to James.

"For my sake, James-make an honest woman out of her. Her exploits are turning me gray."

James laughed and shook hands with Douglas, then turned to Maisie and led the way to the MG-he had followed the taxi in Maisie's motor car.

"Still leaving me, are you?"

"I can be in Ipswich by half past four if I leave now. It's terribly important that I go now; sooner rather than later. And I have a memorial service to attend tomorrow. Don't worry, James. I promise I will be back soon."

It was four by the time Maisie reached Ipswich, and half past the hour when she parked the MG alongside the cottage where Alice Thurlow lived with her family in the village of Knowsley. She leaned her head forward and rubbed her neck. "A little soft would be awfully welcome right about now," she said aloud to herself.

Hearing voices coming from the back of the cottage, she followed a path leading around the side of the property to the back garden. The family was outside-the sky was overcast, though it had not started to rain. It seemed as if they had all spent Sat.u.r.day afternoon tending vegetables and clearing leaves. Cups of tea had been pa.s.sed around, and Ursula Thurlow was teasing her eldest son, who then pointed to his sister Amber and professed to know who she was in love with.

Ursula was the first to notice the visitor.

"Miss Dobbs. So lovely to see you again. Alice! Alice, your friend from Cambridge is here."

Alice stood up; her cheeks reddened when she saw Maisie, but she approached as if she were indeed the friend her mother believed her to be.

"Miss Dobbs-Maisie-we've just had tea, but I can make another pot. And my sister made some quite delicious fruit cake today-mother dried the fruit last year so it's very rich, and Amber added a little brandy."

Maisie accepted the offering, and after properly greeting the family, she followed Alice into the kitchen.

"May I ask you some more questions, Alice?"

Alice rinsed out the brown teapot and took it to the stove, where she poured in a little of the water that had been kept at a simmer. She did not answer Maisie immediately, but instead used an iron handle to lift the hot-plate cover, then drew the kettle across so that it could be brought to a rolling boil. Maisie watched the young woman's deliberate movements, as if with each element of the task at hand she were slowing down time, buying herself a moment here, a moment there, while she antic.i.p.ated the questions that had brought Maisie back to the cottage.

"Yes, of course. Would you like to sit down?" Alice glanced at Maisie, then fixed her attention back to the kettle while she waited for it to boil. A series of cloths were hanging on a line above the stove; she pulled at one, and was wiping her hands when she sat down opposite Maisie.

"Alice, did you see Dunstan or Robson Headley on the day Greville Liddicote was murdered?"

She nodded.

"Which one?"

"Both."

"Did you speak to either one of them?"

Alice sighed. "Mr. Dunstan Headley."

"Would you tell me what you spoke to him about?"

Alice looked back at the stove, and stood up. She grasped the kettle handle with the cloth, and poured boiling water into the pot. Setting the kettle back down again, she put the lid on the teapot, then placed it on the old pine table, which was almost white from years of scrubbing. She placed clean cups and saucers in front of herself and Maisie, stirred the tea once, and left it to brew for a few minutes. She sighed.

"I told him about my father, Miss Dobbs. I told him that he was a conscientious objector, that he had died in Wandsworth Prison, and that the book published under the name of Greville Liddicote was in fact written by my mother-as were others that he pa.s.sed off as his own. I told Dunstan Headley that Liddicote did well out of those books-which is true, he did-and that my mother never saw a penny. I told him it was a woman's work that set the cat among the pigeons; a woman who wrote stories for her children, to help them to understand the war, and why their father could not hold with such a thing."

"What made you tell him?"

Alice lifted the teapot lid again and stirred the tea. She did not ask Maisie how she liked her tea but poured milk into each cup, then the tea. She pulled a cosy over the teapot, and leaned back to take up her tea and sip. She kept the cup in her hands.

"All right, you might as well know what I did." She took another sip, but this time returned the cup to its saucer. She crossed her arms. "Miss Dobbs, I like to think I can tell a lot about people just by watching them."

"That's very true." Maisie crossed her own arms, and smiled. The crossed arms reminded her of a wooden plank pulled across to secure a drawbridge. She knew that while Alice Thurlow had declared that she would tell everything, there could well be details that she would keep locked inside.

"There was something about Dunstan Headley-I mean, there he was, with his son, two men rattling around together and no woman, unless you count the servants. Did you notice that he couldn't quite meet your eyes? I saw him talk to Dr. Thomas, and to Delphine Lang, so I knew it wasn't just me-the man really didn't like women; I reckon he saw us as the root of everything that's bad in the world."

Maisie nodded. "So what made you approach him, if you knew he was prejudiced in such a way? Wasn't that asking for trouble?"

She smiled and shook her head, uncrossing her arms. "I didn't really care by that time. I came to the college and applied for a job because I wanted to see Liddicote. I wanted to know if he recognized me-which he didn't-and I wanted to ... I wanted to make him sorry. He caused my mother great distress, Miss Dobbs. He broke her heart, and she's a very good woman. She is the most wonderful, darling mother anyone could have, and she had to bring us up alone. After Father was gone, and after Liddicote stole her work-and it was was as good as theft-well, if it wasn't for Aunt Rose, we would have starved. She was an angel, just an angel. So, I wanted to ... I wanted him to hurt, just like we've all been hurt. I am sure it was the deep worry about everything that caused my mother to become so crippled." as good as theft-well, if it wasn't for Aunt Rose, we would have starved. She was an angel, just an angel. So, I wanted to ... I wanted him to hurt, just like we've all been hurt. I am sure it was the deep worry about everything that caused my mother to become so crippled."