“I’ll wait outside.”
Maisie studied the room. Of course there had been no reason for the woman to mention her brother, yet by the same token there had been no sign of his presence in the drawing room—Maisie thought it would have been comforting for him to be seated close to the windows, or outside in the garden in fine weather. She knew she should not rush to judgment, but she wondered why on earth his bed had not been situated in a room downstairs. Surely it would have been far more comfortable.
“Ready when you are,” Miller called out to Maisie. He was in his chair by the time Maisie opened the door. She could see he had been weeping again, and she knew there would be many more tears.
“You’re very good at this sort of thing, Miss Dobbs.”
Maisie smiled as she pulled clothing from a chest of drawers for Miller—a pair of trousers, a clean shirt, tie, and pullover.
“It’s the second time today I’ve told someone this, but I was a nurse in the war, and afterwards for a while. They teach you how to lift and carry men—after all, you can’t have nurses going down with backache every day.”
Hearing vehicles pulling up beyond the mansion, Maisie moved across to the window. The Alvis, a black police motor car, and a coroner’s van were lined up outside.
“I’d better go downstairs, Mr. Miller. I’m sure they’ll think I did it if I’m not there waiting for them.”
“And I can tell them you didn’t.”
Maisie looked back at Miller, his empty sockets staring blindly at a place above her head.
“Do you know who killed Rosemary, Mr. Miller?”
He shook his head. “No. But his hands were almost as soft as yours, and he smelled of Brylcreem, as if he’d slathered it all over his scalp. Anyway, Nurse Dobbs, you’d better go down.”
Maisie turned towards the door. “If you want to get it right,” she commented as she left the room, “it was Sister Dobbs by the time I’d finished.”
Chapter 8
It was past eight o’clock when Maisie arrived back at the Dower House. A soft late summer dusk had begun to descend by the time she parked the Alvis, so she sat for a while in the motor car to take advantage of the waning light and the quiet, and to marshal the many trains of thought that had run through her mind on the journey home to Chelstone. Brenda had come to the kitchen window twice to see if it was indeed Maisie’s motor car—most callers would have parked a vehicle at the front of the house—but hadn’t ventured out to ask why she lingered. Brenda had worked for Maurice Blanche and known Maisie as his apprentice; she understood her need for silence.
She had been detained by the police at the home of Rosemary Hartley-Davies to answer questions, which she expected. She recounted the story that she’d had an appointment with the now-deceased woman and had been perplexed by the locked gates preventing access to the property. She explained that Constable Sharman had fortuitously come along, whereupon she had described her concern to him, so together they had gained entry by moving the rusted gate open. Seeing as the police had indeed checked her identity with Caldwell, there was no point in hiding the fact that she had been looking into the deaths of two former refugees and had hoped that Rosemary Hartley-Davies might be able to help her.
“Oh yes, I remember the Belgians—had a load of them in Tunbridge Wells during the war, we did,” said Detective Inspector Wood, who had been sent to the scene along with Constable Sharman, two other policemen, and the pathologist. He was a not a young man, and it seemed to Maisie that he must be approaching retirement. He appeared tired, as if not really interested whilst going through the motions of inquiry. A young detective sergeant proved more energetic. On at least two occasions, Maisie caught Wood rolling his eyes as his sergeant expressed enthusiasm at this or that observation.