“You have another plan, don’t you, Maisie?”
“Yes.Yes, I do”
Maisie heard Maurice tap out his pipe and the rustle of a packet of sweet Old Holborn tobacco. Maisie closed her eyes and envisaged him preparing the bowl, pressing tobacco down, then striking a match, holding it to the tobacco and drawing on the stem to light the fragrant leaf. Maisie breathed in deeply, imagining the aroma. In that moment she was a girl again, sitting at the table in the library at Ebury Place, reading aloud from her notes while her teacher paced back and forth, back and forth, then, holding the bowl of the pipe in his right hand, pointed at her and asked out loud, “Tell me what evidence you have, upon which to base such conclusions
“So, what else have to to tell me? And where, if I may ask, are the police?” asked Maurice.
“Charlotte has confessed her part in bringing about the enlistment of a good number of her father’s employees, including her older half-brother, Joe, who was the apple of her father’s eye.” Maisie drew breath deeply and told Maurice the story that she had first heard from the warehouse manager and then from Charlotte. “She believes herself guilty of a crime.”
“I take it that you do not consider Charlotte capable of murder.”
“I am sure she is not the killer, though she may be the next victim.”
“And the man in custody, the man the police believe to be the murderer?”
“I believe him to be innocent of the crime of murder. He may not be a good man . . . but he did not kill Rosamund, Philippa, and Lydia.”
“Stratton seemed a fair man in the past. Has he not heard your protests?”
As they spoke, Maisie felt, not for the first time, a sensation of oneness with the mind of her teacher, an intimacy of intellect and understanding, even as he quizzed her. “Detective Inspector Stratton has brought his prejudices to the case. He lost his wife in childbirth and was left with a son. His inner turmoil has clouded his usual sound judgment. The man he believes to be the killer—Magnus Fisher—is an unlikable character, one who has not treated women fairly. Indeed, he admits that he married Lydia Fisher for her money.”
“Ah, I see.”
“I’ve tried to communicate my suspicions to him on several occasions, to no avail. Stratton will not believe that Fisher is not the guilty man until I hand him the real murderer on a plate.”
“Yes, yes indeed.” Maurice drew deeply on his pipe. “And you plan to trap the killer, do you not?”
Maisie nodded. “Yes, I do.”
Maurice began to speak once more. “Tell me about the means of death again, Maisie.”
“Sir Bernard Spilsbury has concluded that poison was administered, which Cuthbert has identified as morphine. In two of the cases the victim’s death was followed by a brutal stabbing.”
“The weapon?”
“The bayonet from a short-barrel Lee Enfield rifle.”
Maurice nodded. “The killer venting his fury after the death of his victim.”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
“Anger, pain, suffering . . . loneliness,” said Maisie. “There’s quite a cocktail of motives there to be going on with.”
“Charlotte is right, Maisie. It could be any one of a hundred people.”
“One hundred people might have reason for vengeance, but not every one of those people would seek revenge in such a way. The killer is a person tormented day in and day out, one for whom there is no respite, not for one minute in twenty-four hours. And that person has discovered, tragically, that in meting out punishment, there has been no escape from the terrible ache of loss. The killer isn’t just anyone in that mass of grieving relatives, Maurice. No, it’s one person in particular.”
Maurice nodded. “And you know who it is, don’t you?”
“Yes. I believe I do.”
“You will take all necessary precautions, Maisie.”
“Of course.”
“Good.”
They were silent for a moment, then Maurice spoke quietly. “Be wary of compassion, Maisie. Do not let it blind you to dangers. Never let pity gain the upper hand. I know this killer must be stopped, that he may not feel that his pain is assuaged even if he kills Charlotte. He may go on killing thereafter. We have together faced great dangers, Maisie. Remember all that you have learned. Now then—go. You must prepare for tomorrrow. It will be a long day.”
Maisie nodded. “I’ll be in touch as soon as it’s over, Maurice.”
Before finally seeking the comfort of her bed, Maisie once again put on her coat and hat and slipped out of the house, remembering her mentor’s counsel when they first worked together: “When we walk, and when we look out at a view other than one we are used to every day, we are challenging ourselves to move freely in our work and to look at our conclusions from another perspective. Move the body, Maisie, and you will move the mind.” As she walked the quiet nighttime streets of Belgravia, Maisie realized that in his final words to her, Maurice had made an assumption, an assumption that was quite wrong.
She had spent hours in silent meditation and was now ready for what the next twenty-four hours might hold. Before taking a light breakfast in the kitchen, where Sandra confirmed that she had personally served breakfast on a tray to Miss Waite in the guest suite and had run a bath for her, Maisie placed a telephone call to the Waite residence. In the kitchen, she went over her other arrangements before knocking on the door of Charlotte’s room.
