“Oh, don’t take any notice of me. I just cannot abide wearing shoes to this day. I was barefoot until I was eleven and I try to reclaim that sense of freedom whenever I can. I think I would go quite mad if I couldn’t take my shoes off several times a day.”
Maisie said good-bye, and as she moved to leave, noticed a pair of polished brown leather shoes set on the floor just inside the door, each with a stocking folded and tucked inside.
NINE
“So, what I need to know, for numbers, darling, is are you coming?”
“Coming? Coming where?” Maisie frowned, taken aback when the telephone rang and she picked up the receiver to hear Priscilla’s question, without so much as a “Hello, Maisie” by way of introduction.
“Old Year’s Night—party, at our house. Everyone—and I do mean everyone—in London will be there. Do not let me down, Maisie, I have a very nice man for you to meet.”
Priscilla was Maisie’s dear friend from her early days at Girton College, and though they were as different as two young women could be—Priscilla’s devil-may-care attitude toward work and play was intimidating to Maisie at first—they had been drawn to each other in the way that opposites attract. The loss of all three beloved brothers in the war, followed by the death of her parents, who succumbed to the flu epidemic, led Priscilla to escape to Biarritz on the west coast of France soon after the end of the war. It was here that she steeped herself in a raucous social life, and drank to anesthetize the pain of her losses. Then she met Douglas Partridge, who had been wounded in the war—his arm had been amputated and he required a cane to support his weight as he walked—and fell in love. She credited their marriage and family life with their three sons as having saved her from herself. Since returning to London for the sake of their sons’ education, Maisie had noticed that Priscilla was not taking to life back in England.
“Oh, Pris, no—I don’t think I could bear another one of your arranged meetings with so-called eligible men, who seem to me to be playing the field for all they’re worth.”
“But you will come to the party, won’t you? Supper at half-past eight, then dancing before we see in the New Year—and let’s all hope things get better this year. Now then, do not tell me you’ve had second thoughts. How long have we been friends? And this will be the first turn of the year we’ve been able to spend together.”
“You’re verging on blackmail, Priscilla.”
“I know, look what you’ve driven me to—do say you’ll be coming.”
Maisie smiled and sighed. “Oh, all right, I’ll come—in fact, it will be lovely. I could do with some lightness in my life.”
“You could do with a lot of lightness, if you ask me. So, see you at half-past seven for drinks—opening salvo to the evening’s festivities. And you never know, you may rub shoulders with the PM himself—not that we expect him to stay, being more of your dour sort.”
Maisie thought she could hear the clink of ice against glass in the background. “I’ve already rubbed shoulders with him—and yes, he is a bit uninspiring.”
“You’ve met the PM?”
Priscilla’s voice was louder than was necessary, and now Maisie was sure that she was drinking, but she made no mention of the fact.
“I know what you’re thinking, Pris—surprising in my line of work, eh?”
“Well, now that you come to mention it . . . but anyway, see you for the party. Wear something stunning. If you are not suitably clad, I will drag you to my dressing room to re-garb you. Remember it’s a party, Maisie, not a wake!”
“I’m sure no one will be interested in what I wear—”
“Nonsense. Now, I must dash, so much to do. Bye for now, Maisie dear.”
“Bye, Pris.”
Priscilla’s telephone call had come within moments of Maisie’s return to her office in Fitzroy Square. Billy was out, and it was already late afternoon. She considered the worrisome possibility of Priscilla drinking so early in the day, before the pre-supper cocktail hour that had become so popular in the past few years, and could imagine her friend pouring a gin and tonic while saying, “Well, the sun must be over the yardarm somewhere in the Empire!” But she feared that in Priscilla’s case, the distinction between a pleasant pre-prandial drink and being drunk was beginning to blur once again.
Maisie had intended to catch her breath and bring her notes up to date before going to the meeting in support of women’s pensions. She couldn’t think why MacFarlane insisted upon her going. She was aware that the interest of Special Branch in groups of women gathering together had started with the suffragettes long ago, based upon the threat they represented to the men who governed the country—yet she could no more imagine such a group involved with poison gas than she could imagine a woman taking over Ramsey MacDonald’s job. But if such an investigation brought her ever closer to the real threat, then she had to go.
She set to work, checking the clock on the mantelpiece, for she would have to make her way to Scotland Yard following the meeting of women, but after spending some time making notations on her own case map pinned across the table by the window, Maisie sat back, her thoughts on the conversation with Elsbeth Masters. She had always liked Masters. There seemed to be a wisdom about the woman, a way of carrying herself that suggested knowledge, capability and compassion, without the need to be strident, the latter being an unfortunate trait she had found in other women of a similar professional stature. More than anything, Maisie could not banish the picture of a dying gazelle from her mind, and kept seeing the fine-boned face, the luminous black eyes devoid of a spirit that had ascended as the lion’s teeth clutched the animal by the back of the neck and brought it down. And she wondered: Was that me? Had her soul abandoned her as shell fire rained down on the casualty clearing station? In her youth, had she been unable to reclaim that essential part of her being? Might it account for her reticence, her lack of emotional mastery when faced with the possibility of a more intimate connection?
She stood up and stepped back from the desk to stand in front of the gas fire, first crouching down to turn up the jets. Am I healing, now? She had sensed a newness within her of late, as if spring itself were waiting behind winter’s cold cloak. She had felt the need to bring color into her life, and music, for didn’t song lift the spirit and provide a conduit for the soul’s voice? And hadn’t she read, somewhere, that in dancing we are seeking a connection with the Divine? Had she, simply by engaging in those endeavors that called to her, given her spirit permission to come home? She closed her eyes and thought of Simon, now gone, now nothing more than a memory and ashes wind-strewn across a field. Looking into the past was like looking into a long tunnel, and she knew the tragedy of his wounding and his passing no longer touched her with such an immediate rawness. It was more akin to an ache that came and went, like a breeze that lifts a lace curtain back from the window, then sets it down again. Now, it was as if those jagged and painful memories of him were clothing she no longer needed, that she had laundered, dried and placed in a sealed box in the attic. She might open that box on occasion and look inside, perhaps touch the fabric and hold it to her cheek, but she would never wear those clothes again, because they did not fit. She had changed. It was as if her tentative returning spirit had required nothing less of her.
Maisie looked at the clock once more. Perhaps the unrelenting grief she had worn like a heavy cloak had been akin to madness; after all, it had kept her incarcerated in a cell of wartime memories, and she had been her own jailer, the keys to her past jangling from her waist.
The telephone rang, causing Maisie to jump and put her hand on her heart. She reached for the receiver. “Fitzroy—”
“Miss Dobbs, MacFarlane here.”
“Good afternoon, Chief Superintendent. I was just about to leave for the women’s union meeting.”
“I thought as much. Anyway, change of plan. There’s a motor on its way to you now—it should be outside in about five minutes.”
“Have there been developme
nts?”
“Well, if you call finding out who’s been messing around with poison gas and building a cache of Mills Bombs a ‘development’—then we certainly have one.”
“You have the culprit?”
“Culprits. Plural. Stratton is on his way. I’ll see you when you get here.” There was a click and then a single unbroken tone as MacFarlane hung up the receiver.
“And good-bye to you, Detective Chief Superintendent MacFarlane!” Maisie set the receiver down and went to the table, where she tidied the colored pencils and picked up her document case.
The door opened and Billy entered. “Afternoon, Miss. There’s a big old Invicta just pulled up outside—that for you?”
“I’m afraid it is. I’m off to Scotland Yard.”
Billy, placing his coat on the hook, took Maisie’s mackintosh down and held it open for her. “Any progress?”
“Yes, they reckon they’ve caught the men behind the poison gas attacks.”
“And you don’t think they’ve got the right blokes—I can see it written all over your face.”
“You’re right, but I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt.” Maisie paused. “Look, come with me. I’ve managed to involve you, so you should be there. Get your coat on and let’s go. I want to talk to you anyway, about my meeting with Elsbeth Masters.”
Billy took down his coat and opened the door for Maisie. “Miss . . . I’m sorry to bother you, but . . . and I hope you don’t mind me asking again, but—do you think we can get Doreen into the Clifton?”
Maisie reached out and placed her hand on his arm. “No firm ‘yes’ yet, but I believe we’ll be in luck. And the sooner the better, after what we saw at Wychett Hill.”
MACFARLANE, STRATTON and Colm Darby were together in the usual meeting room at Scotland Yard when Maisie arrived with Billy. After introducing her assistant to the policemen, they took their seats for a briefing from Robert MacFarlane.
“Acting on a tip-off, our men interrupted”—he looked at the group over the top of horn-rimmed spectacles, and winked—“interrupted a meeting of union troublemakers who had set themselves up in the cellar of a house in Finchley. Caught them red-handed with the wherewithal to make and activate incendiary devices at will. Though the laboratory chaps are still completing their investigation, we are given to believe these villains have constructed gas bombs ready to let loose across the city.”
“How many men?” asked Maisie. She did not look up as she held her pencil ready to make notes on a clutch of index cards.
“Four. And one woman.”
“And you say they are union sympathizers?”
“Yes. We found anti-government literature, along with details of likely targets, et cetera, et cetera.”
“Have you details on the ‘et ceteras,’ Detective Chief Superintendent?” She turned to Colm Darby. “Inspector Darby, have you had the opportunity to view handwriting samples yet? And has there been some sort of psychological analysis?”
Stratton caught Maisie’s eye and shook his head, as if to warn her against pressing MacFarlane too far. Maisie looked away, and back at MacFarlane, waiting for an answer.
“Miss Dobbs, I take it you doubt the integrity of our investigation.”
“No, certainly not. You’ve acted upon credible intelligence and come up with proof of subversive activity that could compromise the well-being of the general public, possibly leading to loss of life on a frightening scale. No, I am not questioning the integrity of the actual investigation that has led to these people being brought in on suspicion of causing terror, but instead I’m wondering whether they are the people involved in the threats received by the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Minister for Pensions, and if they are the ones responsible for the deaths of innocent animals. I am wondering if union sympathizers would not take another course of action—would it occur to them, for example, to show their intent in an initial attack on dogs and then birds? It doesn’t seem to me to be the sort of thing a group of union activists might do. What do you think?”
MacFarlane shuffled his papers, set them down, then looked back at Maisie, supported by his knuckles as he leaned across the table. “I think I would like you to come down to a lineup of our little gang of subversive warriors and tell us if you have seen any of them before.” He turned to Billy, who was following the conversation with an increasing degree of discomfort, and wondering whether his employer was pushing her luck. “And you too, Mr. Beale. You were also walking along Charlotte Street on Christmas Eve—you might recall a face or two.”
Billy nodded. “Right you are, sir.”
MacFarlane looked at Maisie. “See, even your man here thinks I’m right.”
She inclined her head and stood up, ready to follow MacFarlane. “Then let’s go down to view the suspects, shall we?”
The group was led by MacFarlane to a damp red-brick room without plaster on the walls, where four men and a solitary woman had been told to stand with their legs apart and their hands behind their backs.
“Let me introduce our motley crew here today,” said MacFarlane. “First, Graham Tucker, thirty-four, union activist, small-time crook—though his mates here probably don’t know about his previous, which includes pickpocketing and receiving stolen goods. Learned a thing or two about explosives in the war, courtesy of His Majesty’s Army.” He moved along the line. “Tommy Burgess. Thirty years of age. Mineworkers union and, again, a bit of previous behind him, including assault and robbery.” He shook his head. “I think we’re seeing something of a pattern here. Now to Miss Catherine Jones. Chemist, a university girl no less—and look where it’s got her today.”
Maisie suspected Catherine Jones was about to spit on MacFarlane’s feet, but had thought better of it and instead looked at the ground. MacFarlane introduced the last two members of the gang, Wilfred Knight and Frederick Ovendale, both union men, both soldiers in the war.
“Right then, we’ve seen enough, I think we can resume our meeting now,” said MacFarlane.
Maisie spoke in a low voice to MacFarlane: “I’d like to question Miss Jones, if I may?”
MacFarlane rolled his eyes. “Be my guest.” He turned to a constable and a woman police auxiliary, and directed them to take Catherine Jones to an interview room, then held out his hand for Maisie to follow.
Maisie turned to her assistant. “Billy, perhaps you would be so kind as to return to the meeting room and take down my case map. I won’t be long—about ten to fifteen minutes.”
Billy nodded and looked at Stratton, who indicated that Billy should follow him.
When they entered the interview room, no more than twelve feet square with eggshell-finished walls and a small window that allowed only a narrow shaft of light in, Maisie held out her hand for the woman to be seated, then turned to the constable. “Perhaps you’d be so kind as to wait outside. I’ll only need your Miss Hawkins here to witness the interview.”
She kept her coat on, for it was cold in the room, and sat down opposite the woman.
“If you think I’m going to be the Judas here, you’ve got another think coming.” Catherine Jones spat out the words and did not face Maisie, but sat with her legs to one side, so that she could look at the wall and not her interviewer.
“I’m not going to ask you to be disloyal to your friends, but I do want to establish the extent to which you have already used your skills and knowledge on behalf of the union agitators. You are an intelligent, well-educated woman, Miss Jones, yet you have risked everything by throwing in your lot with these men.” Maisie paused, clasping her hands together on the table in front of her. “What led you to take such a gamble?”
The woman braced her shoulders as if to fight the urge to respond, then breathed a sigh and slumped toward the table, her head resting on her forearms. The policewoman stepped forward, but Maisie held up her hand. Jones shook her head and looked up. “This is a bloody nightmare.”
“Yes, it is. But it started somewhere, didn’t it?”
The woman sat back. “I’d give my eyeteeth for a ciggie.”
“Sorry, I don’t smoke.”
“No, I didn’t think so. You’re not the type, more’s the pity.”
“Tell me how you became mixed up in this, Catherine.”
Jones shrugged. “I lost my job. Easy as that. Laid off with no money coming in. My parents are dead, my brother was wounded in the war and died in a hospital in Southampton—septicemia. I’m alone, so I need money to live. I’d joined the union, and became more involved in politics.” She paused. “You probably have no idea what it’s like, do you, not knowing where the next penny’s coming from?”
Maisie wanted to respond, but held back, instead letting the vacuum of silence force the woman to continue.
“No, I thought not. You haven’t a clue, not a bloody clue.” Jones shook her head again. “Well, I might as well go on.” Another sigh. “Looking for a place to go, I walked into the wrong crowd. As I said before—all as easy as that.” She snapped her fingers into the space between her interrogator and herself. “Soon our band had broken away from the union, and we decided the only way to make our presence felt was . . . was . . . a show of strength.” She sat in silence. “Not that we’d actually shown anyone anything, to tell you the truth. We were just getting going.”
“So you had your cache of weaponry, but hadn’t used it?”
“Not a bloody thing. To tell you the truth, I think we were all a bit scared. It soon became clear to me that Tommy Burgess had more interest in making plans to hold up banks than in making a point by showing the boys in Whitehall that the unions had something to say. I was on the verge of getting out of it, and I was sure that Wilf was an informer—bloody scab!”
“Do you know a man by the name of Ian Jennings?”
“Am I supposed to?”