Pardonable Lie (6 page)

Maisie stepped toward the door, but not before she had noticed the line of perspiration across Lawton’s forehead, and the shaking of his hands as he took out a handkerchief and held it against his brow. She would not press him too much during the walk. No, it was important to lure him back into her field of influence with lighter questions. But she would visit him again, and soon. For Maisie had understood something very quickly. Ralph Lawton had failed his father in some way, and Cecil Lawton, the famous Cecil Lawton, the great legal miracle worker, could not forgive him for it—
even in death
.

SIX

Sir Cecil Lawton had furnished Maisie with several names, per her request, along with an invitation to visit both his Regent’s Park home and his country estate in Cambridgeshire, where Ralph had enjoyed school holidays. Billy and Doreen Beale had left Paddington Station for Taunton on the early morning train and, after lunch with Priscilla the following day, Friday, Maisie planned to drive to Chelstone, where she would visit her father, before continuing on to Hastings on Saturday morning. As Maisie considered the next two days, her inquiry plan taking shape on a large sheet of paper referred to as a
case map
, the telephone rang.

“Fitzroy, five, six, double-oh,” said Maisie, leafing through a box of papers that had just arrived by messenger from Lawton’s chambers.

“Maisie, darling, I thought I’d give you a quick ring.”

“Hello, Andrew.” Maisie bit the inside of her lip. Though they had planned a day together, she felt torn, wanting to have time alone to consider the two cases now uppermost on her mind.

“Oh, dear, I know that voice. You’re knee deep in a case and you want to be still and think about it for hours without any interruption, planned weekends with the unflappable Dr. Andrew Dene notwithstanding.” He paused briefly. “But, dear Maisie, I will hold you to your promise. In fact, I have a surprise for you, so I expect you at my door by eleven on Saturday morning.”

Maisie smiled as she looked up from her papers, seeing Dene in her mind’s eye. His unruly hazelnut-brown hair would doubtless be flopping into his eyes. His tie loosened as he came into his office, he would have thrown his woolen jacket across the back of his chair and would be trying to pull on his white coat while talking to her.

“All right, all right, I confess, I was going to try to weasel out—”

“I knew it!”

Maisie heard a pile of papers and files fall from his overladen desk, then a scuffle as he tried to retrieve them and listen to her at the same time.

“—but I will come to Hastings on Saturday morning.”

“Excellent. I’ll take you out for fish and chips on the beach, if you play your cards right!”

“Oh, how could I turn down an offer like that?”

“You couldn’t. Righty-o, I must dash. I’ve got a new patient this morning, a youngster crippled with polio, I’m afraid. See you Saturday.”

“Until then, Andrew.” Maisie replaced the receiver and stared out of the window for a moment. In truth, she suspected that Dene had fallen in love with her but would not ask her to marry him until he felt confident that her answer would be yes. And they both knew that time had not yet come. For her part, the relationship had been an easy one, given Dene’s happy-go-lucky character. Yet one aspect of her response to their relationship bothered Maisie: the fact that, when apart, she seldom thought about Dene; then, when she saw him again, she was quick to remember how charming she found him to be. He, too, had risen above difficult circumstances—the death of both parents at an early age—and he had worked hard to put himself through medical school. After serving in the war, he was now an orthopedic specialist with a bright future at a rehabilitation and convalescence hospital high on the cliffs above Hastings Old Town, in Sussex. Maisie sometimes envied the way in which Dene refused to allow the weight of his past to be a burden, though she suspected he used his lightness and good humor as an antidote to his own sufferings and those of his patients.

She turned to the papers once more and made a notation on an index card. She glanced at her watch. Lawton had given her the names of three women claiming to be psychics whom his wife had consulted, and she planned to visit each woman today. She remembered only too well the many psychics and others like them who feigned a special relationship with the dead and claimed to have heard from a son, father, brother, or husband who had been killed. She also remembered the grieving, those whom her mentor, Maurice Blanche, had counseled following such disappointments—and the practitioners he had challenged and effectively put out of business.

During her apprenticeship they had worked together to break a ring of fraudulent psychics who took money from the bereaved in return for bogus messages from the dead. It was a landmark case that tested Maisie to the core, not least because it was the first time she was personally required to give evidence in court. According to the newspapers, it was the youthful innocence of one of the witnesses, Miss Maisie Dobbs, that swayed the jury to find Frances Sinden, Irene Nelson and Margaret Awkright guilty, a result that would pack them off to Holloway Prison for a very long time indeed. Now, having checked to see whether there had been any previous convictions or complaints against the women on Lawton’s list, or whether she and Maurice had investigated one or all of them years ago, she set off.

B
ARROW
R
OAD
, I
SLINGTON
, was on the cusp of change. The large Victorian houses had been divided into flats, some of them run-down, some clinging to a haughty grandeur despite paint that was beginning to peel. The downstairs flat at number 21 might have seemed gray and damp if someone who cared less than Lillian Browning was in residence. The soot-blackened exterior was made bright by window boxes with pink and red geraniums, and on each step down to the flat a medium-sized terra-cotta flowerpot over-flowed with brightly colored blooms. Mrs. Browning had planted an ivy in a larger pot, and it was now furiously making its way along the recently replaced iron railings, the original railings having been torn up for use in the armaments factories at the outset of war in 1914.

Maisie knocked at the door.

Lillian Browning was about forty years of age, with light hazel eyes and mousy brown hair recently treated to a permanent wave that had resulted in frizz rather than a smooth curling of her locks. Her plain pale-green dress seemed a little tight across the middle, indicating, perhaps, that Mrs. Browning had enjoyed a slender figure in girlhood but had reached an age when some restraint in food consumption might be advised.

“Yes?” Browning squinted as she smiled at Maisie, then took out a pair of wire spectacles from the pocket of a black cardigan, placed them on her nose, and scrutinized her visitor.

“Mrs. Browning?”

“Yes. How can I help you?”

“My name’s Maisie Dobbs. I wonder if you might be able to spare me a moment or two?” Maisie smiled and inclined her head, a seemingly insignificant move that she used to great effect.

“Here for a reading, are you?”

“Well, I
am
intrigued by your line of work, Mrs. Browning. May I come in?”

The woman nodded and stepped aside, directing Maisie along the narrow passage and into the parlor to the right. “Recommended by a friend, were you?”

“Yes, sort of.” Waiting for an invitation to be seated, she looked around the small room. A Victorian anaglypta decorating paper adorned the walls, overpainted in a deep creamy gloss that had become stained across the ridges of the pattern. The faded velvet curtains were edged with a fraying silk fringe, but though the room revealed additional evidence of rather worn gentility, it was comfortable and clean, if musty.

“Please do sit down, Miss Dobbs.” Browning nodded toward an armchair with threadbare cushions. “May I offer you a cup of tea?”

“No, thank you.” Maisie smiled again. She was actually somewhat relieved, for she knew she had nothing to fear or shield herself against in this house. No otherworldly spirit had ever entered the room. Browning was nothing more than a fake trying to make ends meet. But she might yet be useful.

“What can I do for you, Miss Dobbs?” Browning reached toward a wooden box on the top of the sideboard and took out a pack of tarot cards. “I charge one-and-sixpence for the cards. More if I have to summon the spirits.”

“No, there will be no need, Mrs. Browning. I should have told you immediately that I am here to ask you about one of your former clients, Lady Agnes Lawton.”

Browning stood up quickly, replaced the cards, and folded her arms. “Well, like you said, you should have mentioned it at first, I could’ve told you on the step that I have nothing to say. You from the authorities?”

Maisie leaned back in her chair. “No, I’m not from the authorities, but I am trying to…” Maisie paused. “I’m trying to assist Agnes Lawton’s husband in putting the memory of his son and wife to rest. I understand that she came to you for help.”

The woman sat down again and pursed her lips before speaking. “I knew she’d passed on. I go down to the library once a week to read the obituaries, and I saw that she’d shaken off this mortal coil.”

Maisie looked down at her hands. There was something sadly amusing about this woman, who spoke again after giving the matter a little thought.

“Well, as long as you’re not here to close me down, I s’pose it’s all right. I can hardly get by as it is, being a war widow. Of course, that’s why she came to me, having been through losing someone. I have a very highly respected clientele, I’ll have you know, and they trust me.”

Maisie nodded.

“Of course, I couldn’t forget that one, even though it was years ago that I saw her. Very posh, she was. Very well heeled, though she never called herself
Lady
at the time, said she was
Mrs
. Lawton. Poor woman thought her son was alive.”

“And what did you tell her?” Maisie leaned forward.

Browning avoided meeting Maisie’s eyes as she answered. “Well, I told her that he hadn’t come to me, you know, in spirit.”

“And you led her to believe he wasn’t dead?”

“I never said any such thing, not exactly. Now then. I think, Miss Dobbs—”

“Did she ever say why she thought her son was alive?”

Browning stood up and walked toward the window. Maisie knew the woman’s desire to protect her reputation would prevent her from sending her from the house; after all, she might be well connected. “Mrs. Lawton said a mother knows, and he would have come to her. You heard about it a lot, sons coming home to their mothers for just a second; then the next thing you know, the telegram’s arrived. Happened to me, it did, so I knew what she meant. I thought I saw my Bernard walking down them steps there; then all of a sudden he was gone. Vanished. A week later the telegram arrived, telling me he’d been killed. That’s how I knew I had the sight.”

“I’m sorry—”

“So I knew what she meant. If he hadn’t come to her, just for a glimpse, then he must be alive.”

Maisie stood up, ready to leave. There was nothing for her here, except perhaps an impression of Agnes Lawton’s desperation. She imagined the woman making her way to Browning’s dark parlor—despite her attempts to cheer the exterior with flowers—and sitting while the fake spiritualist feigned communion with the dead, allowing her to believe her son was still alive. Even though she loathed such deceit, Maisie was filled with compassion. There was an immense sadness in Browning’s work, though the woman could not see the harm inherent in her claims.

“Do you have many visits from the bereaved nowadays?”

“Oh, I still get the odd one here and there, but not like it was during the war. I get a lot of young girls now wanting to know who they are going to marry, whether they’ll marry well, that sort of thing. I put it down to the talkies, you know. They all want to know if they’ll meet the likes of Douglas Fairbanks or Ronald Colman, or if they’ll be rich and live in a big house.” She looked up at Maisie. “Now, I notice you aren’t engaged, Miss Dobbs. I do think I see a tall man in your future, wears a hat—”

Maisie raised a hand. “Not me! I’ll be on my way, Mrs. Browning. Thank you for your time.”

And before Lillian Browning had even a chance to say goodbye, Maisie was gone.

T
HE NEXT STOP
was Camberwell and a Miss Darby. The small terraced house backed onto the railway line, with air acrid from the constant to-ing and fro-ing of steam trains belching in and out of the main London stations, the residue of raw boiler fuel from the Welsh coal mines lingering in the gardens. Maisie knocked at the door of number 5 Denton Street, and a small thin woman of about sixty opened the door. She held a handkerchief to her mouth and nose and only removed it to say quickly, “Yes?”

Maisie coughed. “Maisie Dobbs to see Miss Darby. If you have a moment.”

The woman nodded and stood aside, saying nothing until they were inside and walking toward the sitting room. “I tell you, there’s days I can’t even sit in my own garden. I put my washing out, and it’s all splattered with black spots. Mind you, always the same, it is. Always been like it ever since I first came to live here, but lately, since I went down with the flu in—oh, sorry, Miss Dobbs. Do take a seat.” The woman pointed to a wooden Windsor chair and pulled an identical chair alongside. She took Maisie’s hand in hers. “Now, then, has a dear one passed on?”

SEVEN

The visit to Miss Darby proceeded much as Maisie had anticipated. Though the woman’s compassion for her clients was obvious, Maisie detected no authentic ability to communicate with anything other than flesh and blood, which she did very well and to her advantage. Darby had taken care not to make promises that could not be kept and—from her account of their meetings—it would seem that Agnes Lawton gained nothing more than an hour or two’s comfort. Maisie left the house with a sense of frustration and pity: frustration that Agnes Lawton had not seen the fakery behind the claims, and pity for a woman who had clearly been in deep crisis, her grief so deep that common sense could not prevail. The thought of a third such visit was almost too much to bear, but Maisie tried to shake off all preconceptions as she drove to Balham, where she would visit Madeleine Hartnell.

After parking alongside Dufrayne Court, a modern block of flats surrounded by landscaped courtyards, Maisie stood for a moment, leaning with her back against the MG to observe the white building. Designed to resemble an ocean liner, each of the building’s three floors seemed enlarged by a wraparound balcony in the same white finish, though portholes in the balcony allowed glimpses of the floor-to-ceiling French windows of each flat beyond. Maisie imagined the occupants as rather well-to-do people who entertained, who enjoyed being at the forefront of life on the outskirts of London. They were people who might have been thought to be going places, though the speed with which they made progress may well have been curtailed by the depression that now gripped the country. It seemed an unlikely choice of accommodation for a woman who, according to the claims she made to Agnes Lawton, kept company with the past.

Maisie located the bell for Hartnell’s apartment, alongside her surname on a glass-fronted directory of residents. She pressed the button, and an intercom crackled.

“Who is it?” The voice was difficult to discern, given the sputtering line.

“Maisie Dobbs to see Miss Hartnell.” The line crackled again.

“I’ll ask Miss Hartnell.”

There was more noise on the line as Maisie waited; then she heard the receiver being picked up once more.

“Miss Hartnell will see you now, Miss Dobbs. You’ll hear a buzz, then a click, and all you do is push the door and walk in. All right?”

“Yes.” The buzzer sounded and Maisie entered a light, airy entrance hall with a carpeted staircase in front of her. The main door to each flat was only accessible from an inner courtyard.

Maisie climbed the stairs to the second floor, where the door to number 7 Dufrayne Court was open and the housekeeper stood waiting.

“Good afternoon, Miss Dobbs. Lucky for you Miss Hartnell had a cancellation this afternoon. Do come in.” She closed the door behind Maisie, then walked ahead.

For her part, Maisie hoped for a moment or two of solitude before meeting Hartnell. Though it began as only the whisper of sensation while she regarded the building from outside, she now felt a stronger prickle across her neck, her most vulnerable place. A chill air seemed to embrace her, just for the briefest moment, as they walked along the hallway. Maisie knew only too well the source of such chills, though she was not afraid. Hartnell may have misled Agnes Lawton, may have encouraged her to believe that her son was not dead, but even when the housekeeper had left for the day, Hartnell was never completely alone in her home.

A large drawing room was visible through glass double doors ahead, and Maisie could see a red brick fireplace against a white background. The polished wooden floors were covered with rugs and a shaft of light seemed to sweep from the left, where Maisie imagined the French windows and balcony to be. Before reaching the drawing room, the housekeeper stopped and indicated a smaller room, also on the left.

“Miss Hartnell will be with you directly. I’ll bring tea in a moment.”

“Oh, that’s not necess—” Maisie began, but was interrupted.

“Miss Hartnell always has a cup of tea at three.” The housekeeper pressed her hands together, nodded, and left the room, closing the door behind her.

Maisie quickly appraised the room. There was no circular table, no heavily fringed lamp that she had seen in the rooms of others plying their trade as mediums and psychics. Instead, two armchairs were set in front of a window, and a low table with just enough room for a tray was positioned at an angle to the chairs. There were no curtains, only blinds partially drawn against a fierce afternoon sun. A vase of lilies had been placed in the corner, and in the air a sweet fragrance lingered for which Maisie could detect no immediate source, for as she leaned toward the blooms, no scent was apparent. Maisie stood in front of the window and closed her eyes. She brought her hands together and imagined a circle. She saw the circle moving toward her before slipping over her head and down the length of her body, enveloping her in a protective shell. As the circle dropped to her feet, she breathed deeply again. She would be safe now.

The door opened.

“Miss Dobbs. Please do take a seat.”

Though she had expected someone younger than the two women visited earlier, Maisie was not prepared for Madeleine Hartnell to be quite so youthful. She appeared to be only about twenty-four years old and was fashionably dressed in a pale blue crepe costume. She was a very attractive woman. Hartnell held Maisie’s initial look with her piercing blue-green eyes, her platinum-blond hair catching a narrow shaft of light that had forced its way through the blinds.
She understands exactly why I am here
, thought Maisie, as she felt the skin at the nape of her neck prickle again. She would have to take great care with Madeleine Hartnell.

“Mrs. Kemp will bring tea in a moment.” Hartnell held out a hand to indicate the chair just as the housekeeper entered with a tea tray. “Ah, there she is now.” Hartnell smiled. “Thank you, Mrs. Kemp.”

Without first asking, Hartnell poured tea for two, placed a cup in front of Maisie, and leaned back into the chair with her own cup of tea. She sipped once, then turned to her visitor.

“So. You have some questions for me, Miss Dobbs?”

“Yes, I do. And thank you for seeing me.”

Hartnell nodded. Maisie noted the woman’s relaxed manner.
Too calm, much too calm
.

“I understand that Lady Agnes Lawton was a client.” She framed her words as neither question nor statement, allowing Hartnell to respond as she wished.

Hartnell looked at her for a few seconds, sipped again, and leaned forward to place her cup on the tray.

“Please, Miss Dobbs, put all your cards on the table. It would make our conversation so much easier.”

Maisie felt as if she were engaged in a game of chess, a player looking for the next strategic move. “Of course. On her deathbed, Agnes Lawton exacted a promise from her husband, Sir Cecil Lawton. As you know…” Maisie paused and held Hartnell’s piercing eyes with her own. Hartnell did not flinch. “As you know, Lady Agnes never accepted the death of her son, despite the fact that his remains were buried at the Faubourg-d’Amiens Cemetery, along with other members of the Royal Flying Corps who gave their lives.” Maisie paused. “I have been retained by Sir Cecil Lawton to prove that his son is dead.”

“Is that so?”

Maisie did not respond immediately but allowed a pause before replying. “Yes, that is so.” She moved in her chair, mirroring the woman’s position. Hartnell was confident and calm, though as soon as she noticed Maisie change position, she uncrossed her legs, and leaned forward, smiling.
She’s anticipating my every move
, thought Maisie.

“I had hoped you might be able to help me, Miss Hartnell, to throw light on the issue of Ralph Lawton’s death,” said Maisie.

Leaning back again, Hartnell shook her head. “I’m afraid there’s little I can say, Miss Dobbs. Lady Agnes believed her son to be alive, and I saw no reason to doubt her. I should add that my clients expect and receive a promise of complete confidentiality. I know she’s dead now, but”—again she held Maisie’s eyes with her own—“that doesn’t have a bearing on my work. Death is not the end of the line as far as my responsibility to my clients goes.”

“I see.”

“I know you do, Miss Dobbs.”

Maisie inclined her head, a move emulated by Hartnell.

“You see farther than you let on to most people, though I am not most people.” Hartnell reached forward, poured a small measure of still-hot tea from the pot into her teacup, and added milk. “You get it from your mother’s side, don’t you?”

“Miss Hartnell, I’m afraid—”

“No, you’re not afraid. You have no reason to be, because she walks with you. She’s always with you, your mother, watching over you.”

Maisie felt a lump grow in her throat. She felt protected against any darkness in the spirit world, but not in the most vulnerable places of her heart. She sat straighter, but Hartnell was ready.

“Yes, it’s one thing protecting oneself from the dead, but only too easy to forget the damage that the living can do, eh?” Hartnell smiled at Maisie, then at a place beyond Maisie’s shoulder, as if sharing a secret with another.

“You make a good point, Miss Hartnell.” Maisie was anxious to gain control of the conversation, though she wanted dearly to reach behind her chair, to touch, just once, the soft yet strong hand that had once grasped her own small one.
Come on, Maisie, love, skip along, we’ve to be back from the park and have your dad’s tea on the table by five. Come along, my girl, come along, skip along with Mummy
. Maisie spoke quickly before any more memories flooded into her mind’s eye. “Have you any information that might help me? I seek only to assist my client and to bring a measure of peace into his life.”

“And knowing will bring him peace?”

“I have, of course, suggested that peace may not come with such knowledge, but in the meantime I have a commitment to search for truth.”

Hartnell moved to the window and opened the blinds, using a pulley secured to the wall. She closed her eyes and turned to Maisie, her blond hair now haloed by a bright ring of sunlight. “I can tell you nothing more, Miss Dobbs, though I will say this: You would be advised to withdraw from the agreement immediately.”

“I have given my word.”

“Yes, I know. And you can’t abandon the girl either, can you?” Hartnell closed the blind and moved to the door. The meeting had ended.

Taken aback by the comment and her abrupt dismissal, Maisie stood, gathered her document case, and opened it to take out a calling card. She knew very well what Hartnell meant but would not acknowledge the accuracy of her words.

“Miss Hartnell, thank you for your time, it is most appreciated.” She held out her card. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to telephone me, should you think of anything that might assist me in my search for proof of Ralph Lawton’s death.”

Hartnell held the card in one hand, the doorhandle in the other. She glanced at the card. “Psychologist and investigator? Well, well, well….”

Maisie again said nothing and moved toward the now-open door.

“I have been asked to tell you two things, Miss Dobbs.”

“Yes?” Startled, Maisie turned quickly, her senses alert.

“First, that you look beyond the town, the town in the west country.”

Maisie nodded.

“The other is that you have two from the other side who protect you, though one has not passed over.” Hartnell closed her eyes. Maisie could hear the housekeeper’s footsteps as they
click-clicked
closer along the parquet hallway. “It is strange; he is between this world and the next: caught in life, yet his spirit wanders. It is so very sad.” Madeleine Hartnell did not say goodbye but left the room with tears in her eyes.

Maisie thanked Mrs. Kemp and left the flat at Dufrayne Court quickly. Slipping into the driver’s seat of the MG, she leaned back and exhaled deeply. Madeleine Hartnell was formidable, without doubt. Maisie placed her hand on the buckle at the front of her belted dress and took another, deeper, breath.
Calm, become calm
. A moment or two passed before Maisie leaned forward to start the engine. As she pulled away, she considered all she had learned about Madeleine Hartnell. She did not doubt that Hartnell had command of the abilities she claimed—indeed, she had proven as much. Or had she? Were her comments a shot in the dark? No, she was too close to the target—so much so that Maisie made a mental note to contact Billy with instructions to make inquiries in the villages close to Taunton. She thought of Hartnell’s parting words. Suddenly, Maisie felt her eyes prickle.
Oh, Mum, I have missed you so much, so much
. But it was as she drove toward the West End that Maisie felt her heart ache and a vision of her former love, Simon, came to her. She imagined him in his wheelchair with a blanket across his knees, a gentle breeze catching the leaves of exotic plants in the nursing home conservatory as he sat alone.
Caught in life, yet his spirit wanders
….

What was it about Madeleine Hartnell that Maisie mistrusted, more so than either Browning or Darby? The latter were both certainly fakes trying to make a living in difficult times.
Be careful
. The words echoed into Maisie’s mind.
Be careful
. It was her mother’s voice she heard.

Something else intrigued Maisie. For all her sophistication, command, and supersensitivity, there was a vulnerability about Madeleine Hartnell that reminded her of Avril Jarvis. As she pressed her foot harder on the accelerator, it occurred to her that she saw a girlishness in Hartnell, though she could not put her finger on the reason for such a thought.