“You can count on me, Miss.” Billy extended his wounded leg and rose from his chair.
“That leg giving you trouble again? You seemed to be in less pain this morning.”
“It comes and goes, Miss. Comes and goes. I’ll be off then.”
“Very well, Billy.”
Billy pulled on his overcoat and gave a final wave before clambering down the stairs in an ungainly fashion that could be heard with each receding footfall. The front door opened and closed with a thud. It was six o’clock.
Maisie was in no rush to leave. It had been a long day, and so much had happened. But far from being anxious to return to her rooms, Maisie felt a dragging at her heart as she contemplated the evening ahead. Perhaps she would go down to the kitchen and have a cup of cocoa with Sandra, one of several housemaids who remained at the Comptons’ Belgravia mansion while the rest of the household were at Chelstone. Though Sandra, Valerie, and Teresa were all nice girls, they weren’t quite sure about Maisie Dobbs, whom they knew had been one of them once upon a time but wasn’t anymore. So they were often uneasy about initiating conversation with her, though they were friendly enough.
Gathering up her notes, Maisie placed some outstanding correspondence in her document case, checked that her desk was secure, turned off the gaslights and left the office. Tomorrow was another working day, which, it was to be hoped, would reveal more about the death of Lydia Fisher and, perhaps, about the character, motives, and whereabouts of her client’s daughter. She made a mental note to prepare some additional questions for Joseph Waite about his daughter’s friends. She had not yet decided whether to ask him about his son.
The square was busy when she closed the outer door behind her. There were people wandering across to visit friends, art students from the Slade returning to their digs, and a few people going in and out of the corner grocery shop where Mrs. Clark and her daughter, Phoebe, would be running back and forth to find even the most obscure items that the eclectic mix of customers in Fitzroy Square requested, despite the fact that the country was in the midst of a depression.
Maisie had turned right into Warren Street, pulling on her gloves as she walked, when she stopped suddenly to look at two men who were standing across the road. They had just exited the Prince of Wales pub and stood for a moment under a streetlamp, then moved into the shadows away from the illumination. Maisie also stepped into the shadows to avoid being seen. They spoke for a few moments, each nervously casting glances up and down the street. One man, the stranger, pulled an envelope from a pocket inside his coat, while the other looked both ways, took the envelope, and placed something in the first man’s waiting hand. Maisie suspected that it was several pound notes rolled together, payment for the first item. She continued to watch as the men departed. The one she did not know walked back into the pub, while the fair hair of the other man caught the faint light of the streetlamps burning through an evening smog, as he limped unsteadily on his way toward the Euston Road.
Maisie was deeply troubled as she sat in her rooms at 15 Ebury Place that evening. When Sandra came to inquire whether she would like “a nice cup of cocoa,” Maisie declined the offer and continued to stare out of the window into the darkness. What was happening to Billy? One minute he seemed to be in the depths of a debilitating malaise, the next revitalized and energetic. He seemed to ricochet between forgetting the most basic rules of their work together—work that he had taken to so readily—and being so productive in his duties as to cause Maisie to consider an increase in wages at a time when most employers were rendering staff redundant. Billy’s war wounds were still troubling him, no matter how strong his protestations. And perhaps she had completely underestimated his ability to cope with memories as they were brought in on the tide of pain that seemed to ebb and flow in such a disturbing manner.
Silence encroached, seeping even into the very fabric of the rich linen furnishings. Maisie gathered her thoughts and sought to banish the sound of nothing at all by reviewing her notes on the Waite case once again. Lydia Fisher had been killed before she could ask her about Charlotte Waite. Had she been murdered to prevent Maisie from seeing her? But what about the Coulsden case? Had it really been the newspaper account of that murder that had caused Charlotte to bolt? Could the two murders be random and simply a coincidence that should have no bearing on Maisie’s assignment? Maisie pondered more questions, then finally put her work aside for the night. She felt a lack of composure in her body, a sure sign of the turmoil in her mind, which must be stilled if she was to enjoy a good night’s sleep and a fruitful morning.
Taking the pillows from her bed, Maisie placed them on the floor, loosened her dressing gown slightly for greater freedom of movement, and sat down with legs crossed. There was only one way to still her thoughts and racing heart, and that was to secure dominion over her body in meditation. She took four long breaths through her nose, placed her hands on her knees with the thumb and forefinger of each hand touching, and half closed her eyes. Allowing her gaze to rest on a barely discernible stain on the carpet in front of her, Maisie endeavored to banish all thought. Slowly the stillness of the room embraced her being, and the heartbeat that had been so frantic seemed to become one with her breath. As a consideration or worry struggled to enter her mind, Maisie relaxed and refused such thoughts an audience, instead imagining them leaving the range of her inner vision, like clouds that pass in the afternoon sky. She breathed deeply and was calm.
Later, as Maisie opened her eyes fully, she acknowledged the truth that had been revealed to her in the silence—the truth that had caused her to avoid visiting her father, for he would see it immediately. The truth that Maisie had been avoiding for so long was a simple one: She was lonely. And as she remained still for just a moment longer, she wondered if that, too, had been Charlotte Waite’s sorrow.
CHAPTER SIX
Maisie awoke as the sun forced its way through the crack where the curtains met, fingering at her leaden eyelids until they opened. She moved her head on the pillow to avoid the blade of light, reached out, and pulled her bedside clock a little closer.
“Oh, lumme, a quarter past eight!”
She leaped from the bed, ran to the bathroom, turned the bathtub taps, and then pulled the lever to activate the shower that had only recently been installed. In addition to piping-hot water that pumped from the eight-inch- diameter showerhead, a series of sprays on the vertical pipe ensured that water reached not only the head but the whole body.
“Oh no!” said Maisie, as she stood under the streaming water and extended her arm to reach the soap, for she had realized that her long tresses, now completely drenched, would not be dry by the time she left the house. Exiting the shower, complaining aloud about the “newfangled thing,” she dried herself quickly, wrapped a thick white towel around her head and put on a plain cotton robe. Sitting at her dressing table, she applied just a little cold cream to her face, rubbing the residue into her hands. She dabbed her cheeks, removing any excess cream with a corner of the towel. She applied only the smallest amount of rouge to her cheeks and lips, then hurried back into her bedroom, opened the wardrobe door and selected a plain midnight blue day dress with a dropped waistline and sleeves that came to just below the elbow. Maisie had generally chosen dresses and skirts that came to her mid-calf, and was glad that fashion was moving in her direction once again following a flirtation with shorter hemlines. Her trusty dark blue jacket, some years old now, would have to do, as would her old cloche and plain black shoes. In fact the cloche would come in very handy this morning.
