Messenger of Truth

by Jacqueline Winspear

  A clock on the mantelpiece struck the hour. It was six o’clock, time to get ready for Georgina Bassington-Hope’s party. She was dreading it. The truth was that she knew she would feel ill at ease, and not only due to the doubts that had enveloped her earlier in the day. The very thought of a party brought to mind her years at Girton, when she returned after the war to complete her studies. There were occasions when she and other women were invited to parties, usually by men also taking up their studies once again, or younger men embarking upon them. And it seemed as if everyone wanted to dance the past away. For Maisie, such events usually meant an hour or two holding up the wall, a barely sipped drink in her hand, before leaving without even locating a host to thank. She had been to only one party she had ever enjoyed, where she had ever allowed herself to let down her defenses, and that was at the beginning of the war. Her friend Priscilla had taken her to a party being thrown by the parents of Captain Simon Lynch, who wanted to give him a joy-filled farewell before he left for France. Memories of that party remained bittersweet. Since then, despite the passage of time along with academic and professional success, she had never managed to garner confidence in such social situations.

  Dressing in her black day dress along with the knee-length pale-blue cashmere cardigan and matching stole that Priscilla had given her last year, Maisie brushed out her hair, rubbed a little rouge on her cheeks and added a sweep of color to her lips. Checking her watch as she dropped it into the cardigan pocket, she took the navy coat from the wardrobe in her bedroom, collected her black shoulder bag, then pushed her feet into her black shoes with the single straps that she’d left by the door.

  Maisie had debated the most appropriate time to arrive for the party, which, according to the invitation, started at seven, with a light supper to be served at nine. She didn’t want to be the first to arrive, but neither did she want to enter late and miss someone with whom it would behoove her to engage in conversation.

  It was not possible to travel at more than a crawl along the Embankment, so dense was the ochre smog that enveloped buses, horses and carts and pedestrians alike—not that there were many of the latter out on a murky Sunday night. Parking close to the red-brick mansions, Maisie was grateful to secure a parking spot from which she could see people enter Georgina’s flat, and get her bearings, if only for a moment. It was cold, so she pulled the wrap around her neck and blew across her fingers as she waited for more guests to arrive.

  An elegant couple arrived in a chauffeur-driven motor car, the woman—thankfully, observed Maisie—not wearing evening dress but clearly something shorter for what had now become the “cocktail” hour. On her way to Chelsea, it had occurred to Maisie that an evening dress may have been more appropriate, an academic thought, in any case, as she did not own a gown. Another motor car screeched to a halt in front of the wrong mansion, whereupon the driver slammed the vehicle into reverse gear with a grinding crunch, the brakes squealing as he then shuddered to a halt alongside the correct address. Two women and a man alighted, all looking a bit tipsy, whereupon the driver yelled that he was going to find a spot for the motor car, which he drove just another few feet and parked haphazardly before leaving the vehicle with the lights on. Maisie decided that rather than call after him, she would locate the man when she went into the party.

  Maisie reached for her bag and was just about to open the door when another motor car pulled up, followed by a second that she recognized immediately. She hoped that her vehicle could not be easily seen from the front of the building. Fortunately, in the darkness, the usually distinctive claret would blend in among other motor cars parked on the street. As she watched, Stratton stepped from the Invicta, whereupon he approached the first motor car just as the man she had seen him speaking to yesterday alighted onto the pavement. They didn’t shake hands, so Maisie assumed they had met earlier, or—and this was a new consideration—that they didn’t particularly care for each other. A young woman, dressed for a party, followed the man from the first motor, and as both Stratton and the man spoke to her, she nodded. Maisie suspected the woman might be one of the new female recruits to detection working with Dorothy Peto at Scotland Yard. She waited. Soon the woman entered Georgina’s building, whereupon the two men returned to their respective vehicles and departed. Maisie ducked as they drove past, hoping, again, that she had not been seen.

  She waited as two more motor cars, both chauffeur-driven, deposited party guests at the mansion. Then a man came out of the shadows and swirling smog, walking along the street. He was swinging a cane, his gait suggesting that of a young man, a man who was perhaps singing to himself. He wore no hat, and his overcoat was open to reveal evening attire, with a white dinner scarf hanging rakishly around his neck. Maisie suspected that this was Harry Bassington-Hope. As he walked up the steps to the front door, another motor car emerged from the shadows, and drove slowly past, much as a predator tracked his prey. But just as a lion might stalk for a while just for the sport, so the driver seemed only to be following. The scene suggested to Maisie that this was someone who was simply watching and waiting, someone in no hurry to make his move. At least, not yet.

  Though the street was dimly lit, as the motor car came alongside, the driver looked directly at the MG. Maisie leaned back into the seat and remained as still as a statue, but at that moment a light went on in the window of the mansion to her left, illuminating his features. Despite the limitations of a sideways glance, she recognized him at once.

  “MAISIE, LOVELY TO see you, so glad you’re here.” Georgina waved a waiter to one side, then linked her arm through Maisie’s, a demonstration of affection that unsettled Maisie, though she understood that for the people she was now mixing with, certain social boundaries and codes of behavior had been eroding in the past ten years.

  “Let me introduce you to a few people.” Georgina turned to another waiter and took two glasses of champagne, passing one to Maisie, before tapping a man on the shoulder. The family likeness was instantly evident, and he was, without doubt, the same man Maisie had seen walking along the street, cane in hand. Though his coat was now gone, he was still wearing the dinner scarf.

  “Harry, I want you to meet Maisie Dobbs.”

  The young man reached out to shake hands. “Charmed, I’m sure. Always good to meet one of Georgina’s Amazons.”

  “Amazons?” asked Maisie.

  “Oh, you know, accomplished independent new women and all that, a fellow marauder abroad. Likes to cut off a man in his prime—don’t you, Georgie Porgie?”

  “Don’t make me sorry I asked you to come, Harry.” Georgina shook her head at her brother, then led her guest through the crowded room toward three men standing close to the fireplace. “Come and meet Nick’s old friends. It’s such a pity you missed Duncan and Quentin in Dungeness—they came up again this morning. Alex, as ever, had already cadged a bed here for a few nights!” As they approached the men, Georgina gained their attention. “Gentlemen, I’d love you to meet an old friend from Girton: Maisie Dobbs. Maisie—allow me to introduce Alex Courtman, Duncan Haywood and Quentin Trayner.” Georgina glanced back into the room, then extricated herself from the group. “Oh, do excuse me, the Sandlings have arrived.”

  They watched Georgina vanish into the gathering throng, then turned to one another again. Maisie was the first to speak. “So, you’ve known each other for years, I understand.”

  Duncan reached up to the mantelpiece to press a half-smoked cigarette into a silver ashtray. He was shorter than his friends, with a wiry build, quick in his movements and precise in manner. His features were sharp, with a small slender nose, mouselike eyes and light brown hair swept back away from his forehead. Maisie thought he looked like a vole. He was about to reply when Alex responded to Maisie’s question.

  “Yes, since before the war, actually. Duncan, Quentin, Nick and I met at the Slade.” Alex nodded toward his two friends as he recited their names, and at the floor when he spoke of Nick. “And when the powers that be learned t
hat I was a bit on the young side to have joined up—wanting to follow my compatriots into the fray but thwarted when my mother insisted I was to be sent home, whereupon she boxed my ears for good measure—I was put to work at the ministry. Nick turned up after he was wounded and we both ended up drafting pictures to shake the populace out of its midwar torpor. Then Nick was sent over again for a stint with a paintbrush instead of a bayonet.”

  “I see.” Maisie thought Alex painted an almost romantic picture of the friends’ wartime exploits, though was hardly surprised, for he seemed to be something of a romantic figure himself, with dark brown hair combed into place in such a way as to remind her of a poet, or an actor, someone she had seen at the picture house—Leslie Howard, perhaps. He was the taller of the three, and had retained something of the lanky adolescence of youth. His eyes seemed to narrow into half-moons when he smiled, which was often, and Maisie thought that one could see every one of his teeth when he laughed. Quentin, who was of medium height and stocky, with light brown hair and deep, hooded eyelids, seemed to stand apart, looking down at his feet or across at other guests as Maisie conversed with Duncan and Alex. She felt something akin to fear emanate from him, as if he wanted nothing more than for her to leave the three in peace.

  “…so you should have seen us, raw recruits on the Friday route-marches across London.” Alex was speaking of the early days following their enlistment. “We’d be led by the regimental band along the Euston Road, past Lord’s, up the Finchley Road, past Swiss Cottage then on to Hampstead Heath. It was a lark, for us lads, because all the shopgirls used to come out and throw cigarettes and sweets at us.”

  Duncan spoke up. “Frankly, as Nick always said, the most objectionable and insufferable enemies we had to face were mud and rats.”

  “Oh, and do you remember the anthem?” Alex nudged Quentin, and looked at Duncan before bringing his attention back to Maisie. “Nick would get everyone singing—in fact, I think he wanted a spot at the Artists’ Rifles recruiting concert in 1915, but of course, we’d all gone over by then.” He cleared his throat and began to sing a verse.

  “Danger and hardship ne’er can alarm us.

  Ready at England’s call are we,

  The Arts of Peace themselves shall aid us,

  We fight for Queen and Liberty.”

  A group nearby turned and applauded, calling out for more, whereupon Alex bowed and shook his head. He turned to Maisie. “Actually, I think that’s the only verse I can remember, and of course, it’s ‘Queen’ because the Rifles were founded in old Victoria’s time.”

  Quentin spoke for the first time, adding in a surprisingly strong voice, “And we were never ready, any of us, for anything, especially not for France.”

  The group became quiet, a few seconds of discomfort until a waiter approached with a tray of glasses filled to the brim with champagne.

  “I say, over here!” Alex handed fresh glasses to his friends, while Maisie raised hers to indicate that it was still half full.

  “And now you all live down in Dungeness?”

  Once again Alex was first to reply. “We’re all moving on now, aren’t we chaps?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Duncan has recently married his long-suffering fiancée, so he’s moved to an idyllic cottage in Hythe. And Quentin’s in the process of moving.” He turned to Maisie and said in a mock whisper, “To live with his thrice-wed paramour in Mayfair.”

  “That’s quite enough, if you don’t mind.” Quentin’s voice signaled a warning.

  As the conversation listed toward matters of property in London, Maisie wondered how she might orchestrate a meeting with each man alone, deciding that the party presented neither the time nor the place. For now it was enough to have made the acquaintances necessary to reintroduce herself when they met again, which she planned would be within the next few days.

  Maisie chatted to the men for a little longer, then excused herself, claiming a need to catch up with an old friend she had just noticed standing in the corner. As she walked toward the young woman she had seen with Stratton earlier, she was aware of the silence behind her and knew that Nick’s fellow artists were waiting until she was out of earshot before discussing the encounter.

  “Oh, hello, I think we’ve met before, haven’t we? Was it at the Derby last year?” Maisie addressed the woman as she was reaching for an hors d’oeuvres offered by a waiter.

  “I—I—yes, I do believe we have. And yes, it must have been the Derby.”

  Maisie smiled. “Hadn’t you just backed a horse called Murder Squad?”

  “Oh, crikey!” The woman all but choked on a vol-au-vont, then shook her head.

  “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me, but next time, don’t agree to having seen someone at a place you haven’t visited. Best to admit that you don’t recognize them, then take it from there. A downright lie will always catch you out, unless you’re very clever.”

  “Who are you?”

  Maisie smiled as if she really were chatting to an old friend. “I’m Maisie Dobbs.”

  “Oh, Lord.”

  “At least you know I’m friend, not foe. Are you working for Stratton?”

  She nodded. “I—I can’t tell you anything. Look, I really should be going.”

  “No, don’t give up now, you’ll likely lose your job—or end up in front of a typewriter at Scotland Yard. Just tell me who you’re here to report on. Does our hostess know who you are?”

  “No. I came in and latched on to one of those frightful men over there, they were leaning against the door when I came in, it was just the situation I needed.”

  “Go on.”

  The woman sighed. “I was seconded to come here by Stratton, and also Vance, from the Flying Squad.”

  “And who are you watching?”

  “Harry Bassington-Hope.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  She shook her head. “I’m just here to report back on what time he arrived, who he spoke to, what time he leaves. I’m to note whether he arrived by taxi and whether he takes a taxi when he departs.”

  “And how were you supposed to know how he arrived here if you were here first?”

  “I’d ask him.”

  “Have you?”

  She shook her head.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Doris Watts.”

  “All right, Doris, here’s what you need to know. He came on foot from the far end of the road, possibly having walked or caught a tube from his digs or another engagement—though you can hardly be expected to supply such details, unless he tells you. He’s currently drinking and entertaining anyone who cares to talk to him, so why don’t you go across and introduce yourself.”

  “Will you tell Stratton you saw me?”

  Maisie glanced around the room to locate Georgina, then replied, “Yes, I probably will, but I will also tell him that you were acting quite inconspicuously and that I would only have guessed that you were with the Yard because I saw them drop you off—now that was amateurish, so it’s entirely their fault.”

  Doris Watts was about to speak again, when there was a commotion at the door as Georgina welcomed another guest into the party, the noise level of which had increased in the short time since Maisie had arrived. The hubbub of conversation died down and people began looking at the new arrival, stepping back as their hostess maneuvered the man into the center of a group standing by the window. Maisie turned away, for she had grown cold.

  “Oh, my goodness, look who it is.” Doris Watts placed her hand on Maisie’s arm.

  At that point, Maisie looked around, her curiosity piqued by the guest who had not only caused the sea of onlookers to part but whose presence had chilled her to the bone.

  “Mosley,” she whispered.

  “It is him, isn’t it? Wait until I tell D.I. Stratton that she knows Oswald Mosley.”

  As the man began to speak to the group, more guests edged nearer to him. And
with his immediate circle burgeoning to become an audience, what was at first an intimate conversation began to develop into a speech. Maisie, too, was drawn to the clustering guests, though not to listen, but to observe the effect one man could have on the surge of people around him that now encompassed the entire party—with the exception of Alex, Duncan and Quentin, who had quite noticeably moved away, each of them frowning as they looked back and forth from the man, then to one another as they whispered.

  Oswald Mosley, the former Labour member of Parliament, was a suave, almost hypnotic orator, with black hair accentuating his piercing dark eyes. Maisie found him cobralike, with a power to beguile that mesmerized those present as he expounded his views on the future of the country.

  “The New Party will lead the way, friends. There will be no more unemployment, which has only been increased by our Labour Party’s policies. There will be new friendships forged with our former enemies, and never, ever will we march again, to die on foreign lands in defense of our soil. We will build our country and protect our own borders. And we will go forward to take up our rightful place as leaders of the modern age.”

  The cheers and shouts of “Hear, hear!” and “Hurrah!” escalated around her, with men and women reaching out to touch the charismatic politician as he began to shake hands with those who were queuing up, almost as if he were Midas and one touch would give them the blessing of untold riches. Maisie decided to take her leave. She stopped on the way to the front door to speak to Alex Courtman, who was reaching for another glass of champagne from a waiter’s tray.

  “I say, Miss Dobbs, not leaving already, are you? The dancing will start in a moment!” As if on cue, the music changed from a background melody to a loud rag. “Oh, jolly good!” Courtman took Maisie’s glass and set it on the waiter’s tray with his own, and pulled her into the center of the room, where others were already moving in time to the music. “Just one before you go.”