“Billy, I am not seeking to find an alibi but to give Cecil Lawton as much meat as I can for his defense of Avril Jarvis. It will mean the difference between murder and manslaughter, between a life behind bars or a shorter sentence, perhaps even an acquittal.”
Billy was nonplussed. “But…but I thought you reckoned she ’adn’t done it—the murder.”
Maisie was still holding the watch, which she shook again, her attention to the stalled hands allowing her to think. “No, I didn’t say I thought her innocent, though I do think she is keeping something under her hat.” Placing the watch in her pocket, Maisie continued. “What’s the time?”
“About twelve, I reckon, Miss.”
“You’re not wearing a watch.” Maisie looked at her assistant, surprised.
“Nah, my old watch broke while I was down in Kent in the summer. One of the ’orses rubbed its snout against me ribs, and the next thing you know my pocket watch’d dropped to the ground for the big old lug to step on. ’Course, I was lucky to ’ave a watch in the first place, not a usual thing for the likes of me, if you know what I mean. But I can usually reckon the time, or there’s the clock in the office, or in a shop if I’m out.”
“But haven’t we checked the time lately, ensured that both our watches were set to the very minute?”
Billy smiled and shrugged. “You’ve checked your watch, Miss. I’ve used me noddle.” He tapped the side of his head.
Maisie frowned and shook her head. “Oh. Well, I’ll see you at the office later.”
Billy watched Maisie as she turned and walked away. He was sure he had never seen her so distracted.
MAISIE CONTINUED ON her way to the War Office Repository on Arnside Street, to make inquiries regarding Peter Evernden’s service record. Having registered and stated her business, Maisie was escorted to a room where she was asked to wait at a table for the relevant records to be brought to her. The spacious main records hall had tall ceilings and a series of deep oak tables polished to a shine that mirrored that of the floor. Maisie walked on tiptoe as much to avoid slipping as to prevent the clatter of her heels along the floorboards. She took a seat at the table indicated by the clerk. Only two other people were in the room, an elderly man and woman poring over a series of papers taken from a folder. A shaft of light from the late-afternoon sun that had finally broken through illuminated their heads, close together as they read, passing pages to each other and whispering. Were they the mother and father of a boy who was lost, finally able to come to London to seek more information on a son well loved? Or perhaps their search was on behalf of another; they might be an aunt and uncle or from overseas.
“Miss Dobbs?”
“I—I—excuse me, I was miles away.” Maisie shook her head and stood up to speak to the clerk, who had returned.
The young man smiled. “It gets very close in here, even on a chilly day. Now then. Captain Peter Evernden.”
“You’ve found his records?”
“Well, that’s the thing, there’s nothing here.”
“I understood that this is where I could see his military service records.”
“Normally, madam, that’s right. But they’re not here. I double-checked and couldn’t find a thing, although it seems as though they were here once.”
“So what happened to them?”
“Might’ve been moved, you know. Perhaps mislaid, pushed in with another chap’s records, that sort of thing.”
“Do you think you can find them?”
The man shook his head, his light brown hair reflecting the sunlight that had moved across the room. Maisie looked around. The man and woman had left.
“Like a needle in a haystack. Thousands of records here, you know. I’ve looked at the files on either side, up and down, but no—nothing.”
“Do you keep a ledger with names of those who have requested files?”
“Yes, of course, madam, but again, I would have to go back through the ledgers and unless I had an idea of who and when—well, it would take forever.”
Maisie nodded. “I see. But they were held here, weren’t they?”
“According to the indexes, yes, they were.”
“But….” Maisie sighed. “I suppose that unless we look into each one of the thousands of records, we won’t find them; that’s about the measure of it, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is, I’m afraid. Although I will note the loss; then we can keep a lookout for Captain Evernden’s records. Shall I write to you, if and when we find them?”
“That might take years!” Maisie shook her head again but reached into her document case for her calling card. “You might as well have this, just in case. You never know, I may be lucky.”
“Right you are. Good day, madam.”
MAISIE’S MIND WAS still buzzing with conjecture throughout her entire conversation with the clerk at Thomas Cook’s who issued her tickets for the ferry from Dover to Calais. Though a Mr. Stuart Townsend had been running his Channel ferry service for motor cars and passengers for several years now, using a decommissioned minesweeper now pressed into commercial service, she wasn’t sure she would be able to look while her beloved MG was hoisted on board. Perhaps she should have looked into acquiring a motor to drive while in France, for surely the MG would not be comfortable for Maurice. But it was too late. She knew the elevated energy that caused her to fuss and fret now were a result of her earlier frustrations as well as another emotion: fear.
Maisie could see only one France, only one Flanders. She could see only a desolate landscape filled with darkness, with mud, lice, rats, and rivers of fetid water and blood. Though she had worked on days that were warm, days when even in the worst of times she could hear a skylark high above the land in the lull of shelling that was all too close, her abiding memories were of rain, mud-soaked skirts, and hands that were chapped and raw. And death. The abiding vision of death.
Maisie wasn’t quite sure how she arrived at the Embankment. In the late afternoon she had felt her body shaking, the sweat trickling in rivulets down her spine from her neck to her waist, and known instinctively that she should make her way from the Strand to the water, the river that now soothed her. She breathed in the air, which was not fresh like Kentish air but calmed her all the same. How must she have looked, to those she had passed? A woman wide-eyed, seeing not the streets along which she walked but a path she had traveled at another time. A time when hell was closer and, she thought, the gods even farther away.
Maisie bit her lip and the tears—locked all day behind a round of determination and decisions—flooded forth. How would she hide this descent from Maurice, who had helped restore her spirit when she returned wounded from France? How would she conceal the fact that the nightmares had come again, spurred on, perhaps, by seeing Priscilla, by the dead young men—Ralph Lawton and Peter Evernden—and by the love of a man who cared so deeply for her? How could she admit that, like a young girl, she yearned to be ministered to by one who would surely have soothed the wounds of her child if she could? As Maisie felt the wave of grief break through the dam of her acquired resilience, she felt, too, a pressure on her shoulder, as if someone had reached out to her. She turned slowly, with hope in her heart, but there was no one there.
TWELVE
“Good evening, m’um.” Sandra opened the door for Maisie, who had not, after all, returned to her office but had instead walked for some time along the Embankment before making her way to the underground and, ultimately, to Ebury Place. “You can tell the nights are beginning to draw in. Look at that mist out there. There’ll be some nasty fogs soon, what with all this funny weather we’re having.”
Maisie nodded, taking off her coat, but as she turned to pass the coat to Sandra, she noticed the young woman leaning over the threshold, looking back and forth along the half-moon curve of the street.
“Are you expecting someone, Sandra?”
“No, no, m’um.” Sandra closed the door behind her, with one last look along the street. She was frowni
ng. “I was just checking. There was a man out there this morning, then again this afternoon. Looking up at the house, he was. I had a mind to go out and ask him his business, or at least send Eric.”
“A man?” Maisie shivered. “What did he look like?”
Sandra folded Maisie’s mackintosh over her crossed arms and leaned toward her in a conspiratorial manner. “Well, that’s the funny thing. Teresa said it wasn’t a man at all. She came up the kitchen steps and had a look from around the side wall, and she said it was a woman all bundled up to look like a man.”
Maisie was just about to ask another question, when Sandra interjected.
“Oh, and there was a telephone call from the operator this afternoon, saying that a connection has been booked from Canada for Miss Maisie Dobbs.” She looked around at the clock. “Oh, look at the time, it’s booked for half past seven, so you’ve only got a few minutes.”
“Thank you, Sandra. That will be Master James.”
Sandra shook her head. “It’s amazing, when you think of it, the way you can talk to someone all the way across the world nowadays.”
Maisie smiled. “It certainly is, Sandra. I’ll go immediately to the library and answer the call myself.”
“Right you are, m’um.”
“THIS IS THE operator for Miss Maisie Dobbs. Connection to Toronto, Canada.”
“Yes, thank you.” Maisie heard two operators speaking, one with a Canadian accent; then the resonant voice of James Compton could be heard clearly.
“Maisie, can you hear me?”
“Yes, James, I’m here. It’s so good of you to telephone.”
“Couldn’t ignore a telegram from the intrepid Maisie Dobbs, could I?” James laughed. “To tell you the truth, it’s hot and humid here; I’ve been stuck in my office on Yonge Street since dawn and thought I’d liven things up a bit. And I must confess, I was intrigued by your questions.”
“You were the first person I thought of.” Maisie pressed on. “James, when you were in the Flying Corps, were you ever required to do—and I know do probably isn’t the right word—but were you ever required to do a stop-start landing?”
“God, I hoped I’d never have to think about all that again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh, no, it just seems so long ago, but there again, just like yesterday. I was so young—we were all so young.”
“I know, James.” Maisie looked around at the grandfather clock, then turned back. He’s lonely. And still so vulnerable.
“Now then, you know, I may have tried it once, but frankly, training didn’t really last as long as you might think. I was an observer first, which trains you to—well, observe. Then I began flying; then, as you know, I copped a Blighty while standing on the ground, if you please. Lovely way for an aviator to go out!”
“So, stop-start landings? Why would you need to execute such a maneuver?”
“Now you’re sounding like my old CO.” James paused for so long, Maisie wondered whether the line had failed.
“James?”
“Yes, I’m here. The only reason for doing a stop-start is if you need to go up again immediately. For example, if you have landed and suddenly you come under fire, you have to go up again. We’d have to get the aeroplanes up in the air to protect them and us. Or if you are delivering something that can be thrown out: a communication pouch, for example. Mind you, you can do that from the air. Then there are the really brave and secret missions.”
“Brave and secret? That sounds like a Boy’s Own adventure.”
James laughed. “Just a bit tongue-in-cheek. Of course, some of us thought the whole war was going to be a Boy’s Own adventure. Then we got over there, and things were not quite as we imagined.”
“So what would have been brave and secret?”
“Maisie, some of us weren’t out there long enough to know much more than what was required of us when we received daily orders, and we were glad if we made it to the end of the day. However, it was understood, let’s say, that there were a few who crossed into enemy territory to do more than just report back on where the Hun was in relation to where we all thought they were. They went in with someone but came back alone.”
“You mean that the someone was left behind?”
“Yes, that’s about the measure of it.”
Maisie frowned, ignoring the minutes ticking by. As much as was allowed by the telephone cord, she began to pace. “James, forgive me, but I want to ensure I understand what you are saying. An aviator would take on a passenger, cross over into enemy territory, land the craft just long enough for another person to leap out, and then the aviator would be off and away again before anyone had even known they were there—assuming the whole thing was not observed.”
“Yes.”
“Gosh.”
“Quite.”
“Were you ever asked to do such a thing?”
A laugh cracked in the receiver, which Maisie moved slightly. “Oh, Maisie, I was never that good!” The laughing stopped. “And now that time has passed, I wonder where I ever acquired the nerve to do what I did. Certainly couldn’t do it now! But that level of courage, keeping one’s nerve for that kind of thing—no, not me.”
“James, you’ve been most helpful. One last thing: Did you ever know Ralph Lawton, perhaps as children?”
“Oh, Ralph, Cecil Lawton’s son. You know, we sort of knew each other as young boys, but we weren’t pally or anything like that. He was a bit soft, you know, the type who always tried to please mummy, that sort of thing. Not exactly one who would be reading Boy’s Own!”
“I see. Then you didn’t know him in the Flying Corps then?”
“I knew he was in but never actually came across him. Probably wouldn’t have recognized him, you know.”
“Thank you, James. Well, it’s doubtless time for lunch in your neck of the woods. I’d better go now.” Maisie began to close the call, but felt that James wanted to speak longer. “Is everything all right, James? I’ve heard through the grapevine that you’re courting a very nice young woman.”
“News travels. And I hear you are seeing a doctor—and not because you’re ill!”
“Touché!”
“But it isn’t the same, is it?”
Maisie frowned. She now pictured James in her mind’s eye, James going home to an empty apartment, sitting alone with a drink in his hand. More than anyone, she knew how deeply he had loved Enid, who had worked at Ebury Place and had shared a bedroom in the servants’ quarters with Maisie. Before the war, Lord and Lady Compton had sought to end the liaison by sending their son to Canada to become familiar with the family business there, but he returned to England—and to Enid—when war was declared. Enid had soon left the Comptons’ employ to work in a munitions factory, though she and James continued to see each other. It was her death in an explosion, in 1915, that had spurred Maisie to enlist for nursing service. The past still haunts us. She worried about James, who had suffered so, crushed by his loss and tormented with memories of the war and of what might have been. A near-breakdown had led to his return to Canada, a country where he had reclaimed a sense of peace, of the old joy that had been his in earlier years.
“Now then, you’re not getting maudlin, James? I know Lady Rowan is aching for grandchildren, so she’s waiting to hear of an engagement soon.”
The melancholy seemed to lift. “Oh, I’ll try not to disappoint her. After all, we aren’t getting any younger, are we?”
“No, James. Now then, this telephone call will cost a fortune—” And indeed, as Maisie spoke, the operator interrupted and the call was ended with only time to bid a quick farewell.
Maisie left the library and went to her rooms. A bath had been drawn for her, and the vapor of lavender oil lingered in the air. She stood by the window for a few moments, the telephone conversation with James whirling around in her mind. Could Ralph Lawton have been engaged in work that was brave and secret? If so, might that have led to his death? After all, his aeroplane we
nt down behind enemy lines. And what if he was, did it have any bearing on the discord between the Lawtons regarding Agnes’s belief that her son was dead? No. They probably didn’t even know what work he was involved in. Or did they? Might Ralph have been so pleased with his accomplishments that he told his parents, eager for some recognition of worth from his father? Or might he have told Jeremy Hazleton? And what if he had? Maisie shook her head. Ralph’s papers were fairly straightforward, whereas Peter Evernden’s…that was another matter.
As she turned from the window, a slight movement on the street caught her eye. Was someone watching her? It was quite dark now, but there, out on the street? She leaned closer. No, there was no one there.
Later, as she sat in her rooms having eaten only half a supper of fish and vegetables, Maisie leaned back into the armchair and reflected upon her day. She knew sleep would come as soon as she closed her eyes, along with the nightmares once more. So she would sit in silence and stillness before going to bed, to quiet her mind and soothe her soul. Yet as tiredness claimed her, James Compton’s words spun in her mind. But it isn’t the same, is it?
“MAISIE, I AM so glad to have caught you before you whiz off to your office in that little red car of yours!”
“Hello, Andrew, how are you? And how are your patients after the emergency? It sounded terrible.”
“It was. There’s a new hotel being built along the seafront. The scaffolding failed and some twenty men and boys were injured—some quite seriously. Two men were killed.”
“Oh!”
“Yes, there will be a big inquiry. So, I was busy all weekend and missed you. Will you come on Saturday?”
“I’m sorry, Andrew, I can’t.”
“Can’t?”
Maisie felt the tension in his voice. “I’m leaving for France on Friday, Andrew. Maurice is coming with me. I think we’ll be gone a week or ten days, something of that order.”