“Miss Dobbs—Miss Dobbs.”
“Mr. Miles—how are you?” Walter Miles reached the top step of the stairs that led from the basement flat up to the street. “Oh, and I must thank you once again for getting me out of a tight spot the other day.”
“I was wondering if everything was all right now—are you safe?” asked Miles.
“I’m not sure I was particularly unsafe, but I didn’t want to be followed by that motor car.”
“They have been back, you know,” said Miles.
Maisie felt the familiar ice cold sensation across her neck, as if a finger had traced the old wartime scar that was now hardly visible.
“You’ve seen them?”
He nodded. “You weren’t here, nor were your two friends, as I discovered. There were two men, one older, one younger. The older one waited across the road in the motor car, while the younger came toward the square, lingering over there with his newspaper and cigarette. When one of the students who lives upstairs left, the younger one sprinted across and caught the door just in time. I’d been tending my plants down there.” He pointed to a lower window, where a series of flowers struggled to bloom in terra-cotta pots. “That area never catches the sun, but I try, though my ministrations are not as successful as they are in the courtyard at the back. Anyway, I’d come up a few steps to look across, that’s how I knew what was going on. I was worried that Mrs. Pickering was upstairs on her own with young Martin, so I went into my flat and then up to your office via the inside staircase. I found the man outside the door, looking at the lock. It’s a good one, isn’t it?”
“What happened?”
“I asked him if he needed assistance, and he—very quickly—asked me if it was where Vivian lived. I told him he had the wrong address, and sent him on his way. I would say he picked the name out of thin air—it was probably his mother’s name, which is why it came to mind when he was put on the spot.”
Maisie nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Miles—I am much obliged to you for looking out for us.” She smiled, not wanting him to know her level of concern. “And thank you for being so thoughtful regarding the safety of my staff—especially Mrs. Pickering. I—I didn’t know you’d already met.”
“Oh, she always says hello. Such a nice young lady, and not often you see a woman working following marriage and especially now she has a child. I suppose times are changing. But that lock stood you in good stead.”
“Yes, it certainly has been worth it.” Maisie paused. “Actually, before her marriage to Mr. Pickering, she was a widow—her first husband was killed in a terrible accident. But he had put in those locks for me when they were courting, and the subsequent tenant obviously kept them—I’ve leased the office twice, you see.”
Miles nodded and began to retreat down the stairs, holding on to the railing for balance as he took each step. “I’d better get back to work, Miss Dobbs. Always much to do.”
As she walked toward the Tube station, Maisie considered two elements of the conversation with Walter Miles—first, the fact that the younger man Miles had intercepted had said he was looking for “Vivian.” The second was that Miles had seemed so easy to confide in. Sandra had clearly made his acquaintance, to the extent that he was concerned for her safety. And for her part, she had told a story about Sandra’s past—something that, as a rule, she wouldn’t do. Now she was intrigued, though the intrigue did not extend to the man looking for Vivian. She already knew his identity.
Chapter 14
Four days had passed since the service at Westminster Abbey. Four days since Tim’s disappearance. Later in the afternoon, Maisie would collect her motor car, pick up Priscilla, and the two would drive to Chelstone. Priscilla would be distracted from worrying about her son by the journey, then—hopefully—by life at Chelstone and being away until Monday, at least.
The more she thought about it, the more sound Maisie considered her plan to limit the time she, Billy and Sandra spent in the office during the week. Sandra was already working only on those days when administrative tasks had piled up, and she seemed to enjoy coming in. She and her husband were renting Maisie’s old flat in Pimlico, and had made no plans to move, despite having a new baby to consider. Lawrence’s small publishing firm was located in London, and employed several people, so they could not up and move. Indeed, Sandra’s fears while expecting—of bringing a child into a country at war—seemed to have been put aside, which surprised Maisie. Billy lived outside the capital, and if need be could work from home on occasion, traveling as any investigation demanded. For her part, she was beginning to begrudge time spent in London when she could be in Kent, at the Dower House and closer to her family. Fortunately, as she had told Billy and Sandra, business was still coming in, and in fact seemed to have increased of late—which in turn could mean her plan might not work.
The telephone was ringing when she entered the office. She ran to the desk and picked up the receiver. The caller addressed her before she could issue a greeting.
“Is that Miss Dobbs?”
“Yes, speaking,” said Maisie, recognizing the voice.
“Clarissa Clark here. Do you have a moment, Miss Dobbs?”
With one hand, Maisie removed her hat. “Of course, Dr. Clark.”
“It’s regarding Joseph Coombes. As you know by now, I have had to be less decisive in my report than I might have wanted to be—to be fair, it was entirely possible that the injury to the skull could well have taken place during a fall onto the railway lines. But that’s not why I’m calling.”
“Go on,” said Maisie.
“I’ve been studying Joe’s brain matter. By the way, I hope you don’t mind me calling him ‘Joe.’ The police don’t always like it—they want to remain detached, claiming it makes them lose focus or some such thing. But Dr. Blanche taught us that we should speak to the dead by name—it helps us to remember respect, and to keep our questions coming. I’m sure you know that. Anyway, I’ve always done it—I find it’s led me up some very fruitful alleys of inquiry, and reminds me I’m dealing with a human being who was alive and in the world until fate stepped in to stamp the time card.” She paused, and Maisie heard a leaf of paper turn. “Right, anyway, as I said, I was studying Joe’s brain matter, and as you know it bothered me, this discoloration. So I spoke to a neurologist friend of mine because I know he’s interested in diseases of the brain and how they affect behavior. He came down to the lab here to have a look, and we’ve come to the conclusion that it’s likely that Joe was suffering from more than the physical sensation of headache, but also dizziness and swings in mood. He might also have been sensitive to sound.”
“Traffic, and such like.”
“Yes.”
“That explains one thing—he didn’t want to go back to London. He wanted to leave his job and stay in the country, working on a farm.”
“Hmmm, psychology is more your bailiwick, but I would say the physical trauma to the brain from whatever toxins he had been exposed to would have led people to say things such as ‘Joe isn’t himself these days.’”
“Yes, that’s why his parents came to me. But what about the injury that killed him.”
“To be fair, it could just as well have happened as a result of a fall as a blunt instrument.” Clark sighed, and Maisie thought she sounded exasperated. “There were tiny specks of cast iron in the hair and brain, but the railway line is iron, so that doesn’t help. And the behavior I’ve indicated might have led him to jump—my colleague has pointed that out.”