The voices came closer, and when the man looked around to follow the sound, Maisie kicked out at him, as hard as she could. He fell backward, again, and braced his fall against the wall. Maisie staggered, feeling her feet slide in blood that had seeped from Croucher’s broken skull. Still clutching the jar with one hand, she reached for the table to keep herself steady. Sweat poured from her brow as the man began to lumber forward again. Then he stopped and looked out the window, his face tilted upward to view the street. Footsteps running back and forth echoed on wet flagstones, but Maisie knew that even if she called out she would not be heard from inside the basement flat.
The man brought his attention back to her, as if he had just been woken from a deep sleep, his eyes moving slowly, reminding her of a patient after an operation, when the effects of ether were still evident, before full consciousness had been regained.
“It’s over, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” said Maisie, her voice soft. “It’s over now.”
“They won’t take me, you know.”
Maisie felt tears prickle against the corners of her eyes. She remembered Ian Jennings. She could see him in front of her, could see her hand held out to try to stop what she knew was about to happen, and she could feel, again, the knowing that came to her, that the man would take his own life.
She nodded. “Yes, I know.”
“Do you think there’s a heaven, Miss Dobbs?”
Maisie cleared her throat. “I think there’s a better place than this.”
The man shrugged, lifted the knife to his wrists, and, without a sound, sliced deeply into the flesh. And as he fell to the ground, the lifeblood pumping from his body, she began to weep. With one last ounce of energy, he held the knife steady with blade pointed upward, and rolled onto it so that his heart was pierced.
Maisie cried out and, still clutching the jar to her chest, moved around the body, opened the door and ran up into the street.
“MacFarlane! Are you there? MacFarlane!”
Two policemen came out of the layers of smog toward her, whistles blowing. Soon a black Invicta swung around the corner, and even before the driver had maneuvered to a halt, the back door opened and Robert MacFarlane was running to her side. He put his arms around her, and spoke with a softness, she realized later, that she had never heard before.
“It’s all right, it’s all right. We’re here, we’re all here, it’s over now. It’s all over.”
Maisie allowed herself to be soothed, allowed herself to weep into MacFarlane’s shoulder. Police cars swooped down the street, and soon MacFarlane had taken Maisie to the Invicta, and was barking orders to the men. Stratton and Darby arrived in minutes, and while Maisie leaned back into the firm leather upholstery, the scene of a murder and a suicide were secured, and the pathologist summoned.
The passenger door of the Invicta opened, and Maisie looked up, expecting it to be MacFarlane or Stratton. It was Urquhart.
“Nice work, Miss Dobbs. Two dead bodies and no one to question, and—oh, I think that’s for me.” He reached out toward the jar, but Maisie held firm.
“Mr. Urquhart. Two dead bodies, not two hundred. One murder—and I can recount the whole event to you now, if you like, or you can await my statement via Scotland Yard. I can also tell you about the suicide, which was going to happen anyway, because that’s what the man had planned. Only he didn’t take anyone with him—except Mr. Croucher.”
Urquhart shook his head. “I’m sorry—you look like hell.”
“That’s how people look, when they have seen hell through another’s eyes.”
“May I?” He held out his hand toward the jar.
Maisie waited a moment, then handed it to him. “Be careful, Mr. Urquhart. I believe that within that jar is one half of another destructive agent—and if you go into the flat you’ll find a vial, which I think is some sort of catalyst to render whatever you have there into a veritable killing machine.”
“It will be going directly to Mulberry Point.”
“I don’t care where you take it, Mr. Urquhart, as long as it goes as far away from innocent human beings as possible.”
“Thank you, Miss Dobbs. I know we haven’t enjoyed the best working relationship, given that you’re a civilian attached to Special Branch, but you’ve done a good job.”
Maisie nodded and closed her eyes. “Shut the door as quietly as you can, if you don’t mind.”
MAISIE MADE HER statement and was questioned for over an hour at Scotland Yard, after which she joined MacFarlane, Stratton and Darby in MacFarlane’s office. It was a quarter to twelve at night and it had been a long day for all concerned.
“We’re going to have to be back here first thing in the morning—early.”
“But—” Before he could say more, Stratton stopped speaking.
“Problem with that, Stratton?” MacFarlane looked up from notes taken during a search of the basement flat.
“No, sir. It was nothing.” He stole a glance at Maisie, who knew Stratton had a son with whom he had doubtless promised to spend the first day of the New Year.
“Right then,” MacFarlane continued. “Here’s where we are.” He looked at Maisie, then at the men. “Obviously our investigation will continue. For now, I can tell you all that there was nothing in the flat to identify the man who killed Mr. Edwin Croucher, a hospital porter residing in Catford. There were no letters, no bills, nothing.”
“What about the landlord?” Maisie sat forward on her chair.
“According to the landlord, the man paid his rent in advance, from one week to the next, and was never late. He gave no name when he rented the flat, about eighteen months ago, and the landlord was happy to have the money, so no questions asked. The rent was always paid with coins—pennies, thrup’ny bits, ha’pennies, florins. He paid his rent with the fruits of his labors, sitting with his hand out on the streets of London.”
“You mean there was not one single item in that flat that we could use to put a name to this man?” Darby frowned as he faced MacFarlane.
MacFarlane picked up a package wrapped in muslin and folded back flaps of cloth. “Nothing but this, the man’s diary. The ramblings of a barely-there-at-all man.”
“Have you read it, Chief Superintendent?” asked Maisie.
“I’ve had a quick gander.”
“May I?” She reached out toward MacFarlane, and he placed the cloth-covered diary in her hands.
“Be careful, Miss Dobbs, that’s got to go down to the lab boys.”
“I understand. May I read it?”
“Well, you can, but before you do that, I thought you might all like to join me in a toast.”
“Toast?” asked Darby.
“Colm, my old boy, we’ve been forgetting ourselves.” MacFarlane stood up, opened a filing cabinet, and from the bottom drawer removed a bottle of malt whiskey and four tot glasses. He lined up the glasses on his desk and poured a full measure of the amber liquid into each glass. Keeping the bottle in his hand, he took a glass and clinked it hard enough against each glass in turn so that the members of his staff, including Maisie, had to be quick to grab their whiskey as it tilted toward them.
“A happy New Year to one and all. Slainte!” MacFarlane gulped his whiskey, then slammed the glass on the table to pour another, just as Big Ben began to chime the hour and the passing of the new year.
The men emulated their boss, drinking the toast back in one, while Maisie closed her eyes, tilted her head, and took but a single mouthful while trying not to cough.
“That’s it, lass, get it down you, it cleans out the tubes—and it’ll help you sleep tonight. Anyone for another?” He waved the bottle, then poured a second measure each for Stratton and Darby.
Maisie cleared her throat, which was burning. “I wonder, Chief Superintendent, may I use your telephone?”
“Stratton, show Miss Dobbs to the next office—give her a bit of privacy. If someone wants to place a telephone call when the New Year is still in swaddli
ng clothes, you can bet it’s personal.”
“I can find my way next door. I won’t be long.”
Closing the door of the empty office behind her, Maisie went to the desk, lifted the telephone receiver, and placed a call to Priscilla’s house. The telephone at the Holland Park mansion was answered by a housekeeper, and Maisie was asked to wait while Mrs. Partridge was summoned.
“I do hope you have an excellent excuse.” Priscilla sounded terse, and—as Maisie expected—upset.
“Actually, Priscilla, I have an excellent excuse, only I can’t tell you about it, not yet, not now.”
Priscilla’s tone softened. “You sound exhausted, Maisie.”
“I am a bit. How are you? How’s the party?”
“Lovely, as parties go. We’re still at the champers, still dancing, still weaving our way into the New Year with all the glee we can muster.”
Whether it was the whiskey or the events of the day, Maisie felt emotion well in her voice. “I’ve missed seeing you, Priscilla.”
“Oh, darling, I’ve missed you too, my friend. Are you sure you can’t come tonight? We’re still going strong, and breakfast won’t be served until half-past four to finish off the celebrations, then everyone can go home.”
Hearing the eagerness in Priscilla’s voice, Maisie was loath to upset her once more. “Pris, I—I’ll see how I feel when I get back to the flat. But don’t bank on it.”
Maisie thought she heard Priscilla weep, and there was a pause before her friend spoke again.
“I suppose I’m being terribly selfish, aren’t I? I just find the new year so trying. All that looking forward and saying, ‘Happy New Year’ and I’m standing here wondering what might happen before December the thirty-first rolls around again. I feel as if I’m under siege.”
“Hush, Pris, hush. Go back to your party, shine that smile of yours at your guests, and though I can’t promise, perhaps I’ll get a second wind by the time I get home.”
“Happy New Year, Maisie.”
“You, too, Pris. You too.”
MAISIE RETURNED TO MacFarlane’s office, where the men continued to discuss the case. With one ear to the conversation, Maisie picked up the diary and began to read.
My name’s not important anymore. I am not a person, not the person I was, and I can’t remember who that person was anyway. I did what my country asked of me, I stepped forward to do my bit, and then, when I came home, they didn’t want me anymore—well, except for my mind. No one wanted me, no one wanted to see me, or speak to me. They wanted me tucked away in a place where they wouldn’t have to see me ever again. I am the man they sent to war, I am the man who went forward at their battle cry. And there are thousands of me, so many hundreds and thousands of me, all of us back here, but never to return home. Home doesn’t even exist for us . . .
“Well, you can’t sit there and read all night.” MacFarlane held out his hand for the dead man’s diary, and instructed Stratton to escort Maisie to her MG, which had been brought to the Yard by a detective constable.
“Will you need me here tomorrow, Chief Superintendent?”
MacFarlane shook his head. “No, shouldn’t think so.” He looked at Maisie and smiled. “You’ve done a bloody good job, Miss Dobbs. We might not know that man’s name, but we do know he was our letter-writer, and we do know he was our murderer. You brought him down before he killed in a way that doesn’t even bear thinking of, ever. You should go home and rest.”
Maisie shook hands with Colm Darby and with MacFarlane, who might have held her hand for a second longer than was necessary.
“It’s been a long day, hasn’t it?” said Stratton, as they made their way to Maisie’s motor car.
“Yes, but we have our man.”
“You were right to follow that lead, Miss Dobbs.”
“And you were right to follow every other lead—MacFarlane could not limit his resources to just one possibility. He couldn’t put all his eggs in one basket—and who knows when one of those groups might decide to up the ante and choose a more violent method of making a point, though I doubt whether the women fighting for equal pensions will resort to dynamite or chemical weaponry.”
They reached the MG. “Well, happy New Year, Miss Dobbs—and a safe one. I daresay we will be in touch in due course. There’s still much to do on this case. For a start, we’ll be bringing in your Dr. Anthony Lawrence to identify the body tomorrow.”
“Of course.” She paused. “I’m sorry you’ll be missing a day with your son though.”
Stratton shrugged. “Name of the game, Miss Dobbs. I’ll make it up to him.”
Maisie smiled and as she took the driver’s seat of her motor car, she looked up at Stratton. “Happy New Year, Inspector.”
Stratton stood back as Maisie eased the MG out onto the road. She drove home on all but empty streets, as the bells of London continued to peal, and those who could afford such levity raised another glass to 1932.
SETTLING BACK INTO a soothing hot bath, Maisie considered Priscilla’s party and how much her friend had wanted her to be there. For her part, the last thing Maisie wanted was to see Priscilla with another drink in her hand to dull the fear in her heart. Even so, Priscilla was her dearest friend, and to Maisie, close associations always mattered. She sighed, closed her eyes, and thought about her day from beginning to end, and again saw Croucher running for his bus, and the final meeting with the man he had befriended, perhaps when he recognized his solitary condition. Men like Jennings and Oliver—she had assumed it was Oliver, though they had yet to find any letters or documents to confirm the killer’s identity—were both incarcerated by their wounds, the latter being a man who had lost all semblance of rational thought, and in whose head the battle continued to rage, day after day. He had been an intelligent man, a man thought “brilliant” by his peers, and yet had taken up weapons to fight on behalf of those passed on the street and forgotten when war was done.
As the bathwater began to cool, Maisie’s thoughts moved to Billy’s wife, and it occurred to her that Doreen and Priscilla suffered from variations of the same affliction. But whereas Doreen was caught in the past’s quicksand, trapped in a world where she ached for a daughter who was dead, Priscilla feared the future. She had fought the onslaught of grief in Biarritz, a place removed from the connections of her girlhood, where the only early memories were happy recollections of family holidays. Unlike England, Biarritz held no reminder of her parents’ terror upon hearing of the loss of their sons, of her own sorrow when she received news that her brothers were dead. But now she had returned to the country from which her siblings left for war. Now she feared for her own sons, for the eldest, who would be on the cusp of manhood before the decade’s end. And her fears were taking her back in time—a time when drink dulled the ache in her soul.
Priscilla had been safe in the world she controlled in Biarritz, as safe as a patient in a hospital. But now she was back in the thick of London society, and it was clear she was floundering. And she needed a friend.
Maisie stepped from the bath, toweled herself dry, then put on the black day dress that also served as suitable garb for a cocktail party. She had no gown to wear, but she was sure Priscilla wouldn’t mind. Either that or Priscilla would drag her off to her dressing room to find something she considered more suitable. But that was all right, Maisie would allow her friend the indulgence of having all her guests in evening dress. After styling her hair, applying some kohl to her eyes, just the faintest dash of rouge to her cheeks, and red lipstick, she put on her black leather shoes with straps that buckled at the side, followed by her coat and hat. She pushed a handkerchief, some money and the lipstick into a black clutch bag, picked up her keys, and left the flat. It was a quarter to two in the morning when she set off for Holland Park.
“MAISIE, DARLING, I knew, just knew you would come!” Priscilla’s eyes filled with tears as Maisie was led through the throng of guests who had spilled out into the entrance hall, and shown into the drawing room.
Waving her cigarette holder in the air, Priscilla called out to her husband. “Douglas, Douglas, look who’s here. It’s Maisie.”
As Douglas Partridge waded through the crowd toward them, taking a glass of champagne from a maid as he went, Priscilla turned to Maisie once again, linking her arm through Maisie’s and looking into her eyes. “I know you must be terribly worn out, I can see it in your eyes, but . . . but . . .” She began to cry, pulling her arm away from Maisie so that she could squeeze the bridge of her nose to prevent the tears.
“Oh, Priscilla, don’t weep. This is your party, your time to celebrate being here in London with your family. Come on, Pris, come on, look, here comes Douglas.”
Douglas Partridge stood alongside his wife, rested his cane against his thigh, and put his arm around her. “Tears of happiness, aren’t they, darling?” Keeping his arm around Priscilla’s shoulder, he winked at Maisie and leaned forward to kiss her on each cheek. “We’re so glad you could come. Priscilla’s been looking forward to this evening for weeks. And it’s a thumping good party, isn’t it, love?” He looked into his wife’s eyes, then kissed her on the nose. “Now, I am going to leave you with your dearest friend and see if I can find Raymond Grasslyn for a chat.”
Priscilla took a deep breath to temper her emotions, and looked Maisie up and down, feigning bossiness. “Come on, five minutes in my dressing room. I want to see you in a gown. You’re not in one of those Scotland Yard morgues now—it’s a party!”
If it had been anyone but Priscilla, Maisie would have been offended, but on this occasion, she nodded and laughed. “Oh, all right, let’s get it over with.”
Fifteen minutes later, after Priscilla had pulled out four gowns for her to choose from, Maisie came downstairs to renew her entrance to the party wearing a gown of deep purple silk that reflected the color of her eyes. The boat neckline and hem were embellished with bands of sequins, as were the cuffs, which came to a point across the back of each hand. The dress was narrow to the hip, where a sequined seam sat above a fuller skirt that fell in soft folds to the floor. Maisie wore a pair of Priscilla’s diamond teardrop earrings, and was relieved that she took the same size shoes as her friend, because she was now wearing a pair of black satin pumps with a low heel.
Among the Mad Page 24
