Birds of a Feather

“Oh, Miss Dobbs, you might see Mrs. Willis waiting down at the bus stop. I don’t know if Dulwich is on your way, but I thought you’d like to know. It’s a long journey for her by bus.”

“Of course, Mrs. Holt. If she’s still there, I’ll give her a lift home.”

“Blast!” said Maisie, as she exited the main gates of the hospital. Mrs. Willis was not at the bus stop, nor was there a queue waiting.

It was still only two o’clock in the afternoon, so Maisie decided to back-track. She was well aware that her curiosity regarding the murders of two women, and the suspected murder of another, had surpassed her interest in the Charlotte Waite “missing person” case. In truth, she was excited that she had discovered a link and that she had reason to investigate further. Maisie had a sense of who Lydia Fisher was, and how she lived, but she wondered about Philippa Sedgewick, the woman murdered in Coulsden. Detective Inspector Stratton had pronounced Lydia Fisher’s murder “identical” to Sedgewick’s. Were they unlucky victims of coincidence? Evidence suggested that her killer had been known to Lydia Fisher. Had Philippa Sedgewick known her killer? And if her death was murder rather than suicide, then Rosamund Thorpe had taken tea with her murderer as well. Yet in her case, there had been no vicious post-mortem knife attack. While steering with one hand, Maisie nibbled at the nail on the little finger of the other. Charlotte was the key.

In the meantime, while Maisie waited for an audience with Charlotte at Camden Abbey, she would see what she could find out about Philippa Sedgewick. Nothing could take the place of collecting information and impressions personally.

Maisie drove toward Kingston-upon-Thames, following a route that took her through Ewell as she made her way to Coulsden. A stop on her way from Kent to Richmond would have been a more judicious use of time and petrol but she hadn’t planned to visit Coulsden when she set out this morning. Now she felt more anxiety than she had since the death of Lydia Fisher. The killer might strike again soon. If the deaths were random, with the killer soft-talking his way into victims’ homes, then no woman on her own was safe. But if the killer was known to his victims, there might be more links in the chain that connected them.

As she entered Coulsden, Maisie pulled over to the side of the road and reached into her document case. She quickly turned to the second page of last week’s Times until she found what she was looking for. COULSDEN WOMAN MURDER INVESTIGATION, followed by a subheading POLICE SEARCH FOR KILLER. Her eyes scanned the columns, the work of reporters feeding the story. As the words “merciless,” “plunged,” and finally “butcher” leapt out at her, Maisie finally found what she was looking for: “The dead woman, Mrs. Philippa Sedgewick of 14 Bluebell Avenue. . . .”

Maisie parked the car in the road opposite Number 14 and shut off the engine. The houses were not old, built perhaps in 1925 for the new commuter class, the men who traveled into the City each day on the train, and the women who waved them goodbye in the morning and greeted them with dinner on the table when they returned. Children would be in pajamas, bathed, and ready for bed as soon as father had placed his hat and coat on the stand by the door, kissed each girl on the head, and squeezed each boy on the arm along with the words, “Good man.”

Young sycamores grew on each side of the street, planted with the intention of creating an opulent canopy to shade the family homes. Each house was identical, with a broad bow window at the front, an asymmetrical roof with a cat’s-slide sweep on one side, and a small turreted bedroom under the eaves of the other. The front door had a stained-glass window, and the same glass had been used in a border that ran along the upper edge of every other window at the front of the house. But this house was special. This was the house where Philippa Sedgewick had spent her days waiting for her husband to return from his job in the City. This was the house where a woman of thirty-two had been murdered. Maisie took out a small pack of index cards from her document case. She did not alight from the car, but simply described the house on a card, and penciled questions to herself: Why have I assumed husband worked in the City? Find out about husband. Job for Billy?

The curtains were closed, as was the mourning custom. The house seemed dark and cold, shadowy against the low sun of a spring afternoon. Yes, thought Maisie, death has passed over this house and will linger until the woman’s spirit is at rest. She sighed, allowed her gaze to settle on the house again and slipped into a deliberately relaxed observation of the property. It appeared a very sad house, set in a street of homes for families with children. Already she could imagine them walking home from school, girls with satchels banging against hips, boys holding their caps in one hand, with arms out to balance as they returned a football or ran to tease the girls, pulling hair so that screams drew a mother into the street to admonish every one of them. According to the newspaper, there had been no children in the Sedgewick marriage, though perhaps children were hoped for, otherwise why live in such a place? Yes, a sad house.

The curtain moved almost imperceptibly. At first it was just a sensation at the corner of her eye. Maisie focused on the curved window of the turreted small bedroom to the left. The curtain moved again. She was being watched. Maisie stepped out of the MG and set off briskly across the road, unlatched the waist-high gate, and continued along the path to the front door. Taking up the brass door knocker, she rapped loudly, ensuring that anyone inside the house would hear her summons. She waited. No answer. Rat-tat-tat again. She waited, listening.

The door opened.

“Can’t you people leave me alone?! Haven’t you got enough stories? You’re vultures, all of you. Vultures!”

A man of medium height stood before Maisie. His brown hair was in need of a comb, his face sported a rough salt-and-pepper shadow of beard, and he was dressed in baggy tweed trousers, a gray flannel shirt topped with a knitted sleeveless pullover in a pale gray with flecks of green and purple woven into the yarn. He wore neither shoes, socks, nor tie, and looked, thought Maisie, as if he could do with a good meal.

“I do beg your pardon, Mr. Sedgewick—”

“Don’t ‘pardon, Mr. Sedgewick’ me, you nasty little piece of—”

“Mr. Sedgewick, I am not a member of the press!” Maisie stood to her full height, and looked him in the eyes.

The man shuffled his feet, looked down, rubbed his chin, then looked again at Maisie. His shoulders, which had been drawn up tensely, almost touching his earlobes, now drooped, making him look as broken in body as he was in spirit. He was exhausted. “I am sorry. Please forgive me, but I just want to be left alone.” He began to close the door.

“But please . . . I need to speak to you.” Maisie reminded herself that Philippa Sedgewick’s husband might also be her killer. While she doubted that this man was a murderer, she had to proceed with caution.

“Be quick, and tell me what you want, though I doubt I can help anyone. I can’t even help myself!” said Sedgewick.