Authors: Jacqueline Winspear
She reached a door left ajar, and, when she looked closer, could see the lights had not been switched off. Curiosity—she almost laughed when she remembered the conversation with Otterburn about the curiosity of an inquiry agent—fanned the flames of interest, and she pushed against the door, only to realize that this room was a study and library. At once she was reminded of her nighttime excursions into the library at Ebury Place when she was a maid on the bottom rung of service. In the early hours she had tiptoed into the library to read and to learn, and she had never lost her love of libraries, of places of learning. Now she crept alongside Otterburn’s bookshelves, her head to one side as she scanned the titles. Indeed, it was an enviable collection. Tapping her fingers against the leather spines, she stopped when she reached the two volumes of
Mein Kampf,
written by Adolf Hitler. She was at once surprised, then not, for this was the house of a leading newspaperman, and the German Chancellor was nothing if not newsworthy. She took down the first volume and began to read, skipping from one chapter to another as she drew upon memories of German classes from her student days. Then, with the book in hand, she walked across the room and took the liberty of seating herself at John Otterburn’s desk.
Fifteen minutes later, she looked up at the mantelpiece clock and realized that time had indeed passed, and the men had likely finished their port and cigars and withdrawn from the dining room to join their womenfolk.
“Oh, heavens!” she whispered into the silence of the room.
Standing up, Maisie felt her foot catch on the carpet and began to stumble. She reached out for the desk to steady herself, knocking a pile of papers—which had been neatly stacked—onto the floor.
“Blast!” she said as she set the book on the desk and knelt down to gather the folders and pages.
She came to her feet slowly, leaning across towards the desk lamp to better see what was in her hand, but before she could read the words on the top page, she was interrupted.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Maisie?”
James stood before her, his expression open, questioning.
“I was reading this book—you know what I’m like with a library, James, and when I saw the light on, I couldn’t resist. Mr. Otterburn has a copy of
Mein Kampf
, so I began reading a few pages, and when I realized how much time had gone by, I started to hurry and knocked all these papers across the floor. I am so terribly sorry—I must have embarrassed you by not being in the drawing room with the other women.”
James looked at the floor and at the papers in Maisie’s hand.
“If I had no knowledge of your profession, I might be more inclined to believe you without question, but—oh well, look, let’s put it all back and then join the other guests. I had to insist upon coming to find you when you weren’t there with the women—frankly, I suppose I feared you might be up to something.” James squared the papers on Otterburn’s desk, while Maisie returned the book to its place. “There’s more drinking going on in the drawing room, Maisie. I don’t know if I want to stay long now, in any case.”
They walked together towards the staircase.
“You seemed to be having a lively conversation with Mr. Churchill.”
“Yes, he’s an interesting fellow. I can’t say you did as well, what with that woman who’s obsessed with the Prince, and that drunk lolling all over you.” He put an arm around her shoulder. “Come to think of it, no wonder you made a run for the library.”
Maisie laughed, relieved that another row had been averted.
“Perhaps we should go home now, James.”
“Mine or yours?”
“Either will do.”
James pulled her to him and kissed her tenderly.
“Oh, I see you found your love, James.” Otterburn walked along the hallway towards them.
“She was in the library, John.” James took Maisie’s hand. “If Maisie’s missing, it’s where I’ll always find her, you know.”
“Anything to interest you on my shelves, Miss Dobbs?”
“You have an impressive collection, Mr. Otterburn. I saw that you have the two volumes of
Mein Kampf
, so I started to read and . . . well, it’s what always happens with me when I’ve a book in my hand; I forget time, and that’s it.”
“And what do you think of Hitler?”
“I didn’t read very far into the book, just dipped here and there, but if I add what I read to what I know from the newspapers—your newspapers, actually—I would say he’s someone to be worried about.”
“You’ve got that right.” Otterburn paused, extending his hand to James. Maisie thought it was the first time his Canadian accent had been evident in his speech. “In any case, my main collection is at our country home in Surrey. It’s where I do most of my serious thinking—and talking—at the week’s end. In fact, it’s unusual for us to entertain so many guests during the week, but Lorrie insisted it would be the most convenient day for our guests here tonight.” He turned to James. “See you again soon, James. Looking forward to it.”
James caught Maisie’s eye, and it was clear that he had confirmed their presence at the Easter gathering at the Otterburns’ Box Hill estate in Surrey.
John Otterburn escorted Maisie and James to the drawing room, where a few guests were making ready to leave, but others seemed to be settling in for an evening of convivial company.
On the way back to Ebury Place, James once again reached across to Maisie.
“Everything all right? You seem distant.”
Maisie shook her head. “Oh, sorry. Nothing. Just thinking.”
“Of me, I hope!”
“Yes, James—I think of you all the time.” She smiled, teasing, and squeezed his hand in return.
The earlier arguments were buried for now. But Maisie had not been thinking of James. She was wondering if it was so unusual to find Bartholomew Soames’ name on a file among the papers in John Otterburn’s study—after all, the man was a reporter. More interesting was a file entitled “Douglas Partridge.”
But most intriguing was the sheaf of papers she had glimpsed while she was on her knees gathering them from the floor where they had fallen. On these pages were drawings—quite sophisticated drawings, each accompanied by detailed notes—of aeroplanes. She was not familiar with aviation, her experience limited to the wood-and-cloth contraptions that buzzed overhead like moths in the wind during the war, and, more recently, when she’d boarded an Imperial Airways Armstrong Whitworth Argosy aeroplane and flown from Paris to Croydon Airport with Maurice. She wished James had waited just a few more minutes before coming in search of her, for she remembered being told that Eddie had talked about aeroplanes. It was a recollection that chilled her.
M
aisie and James breakfasted together at Ebury Place, then each went their separate ways to work. Little was said about the events of the previous evening, as if each wanted to steer clear of the matter now that a measure of oil had been poured on the troubled waters of their relationship. For her part, Maisie was anxious about the day ahead, knowing that she would be seeing Billy, and also accompanying Evelyn Butterworth to the writers’ studios at Lancaster Gate. She anticipated Evelyn’s nervousness at seeing the place where Bart Soames had worked.
Leaving at the same time, the lovers turned to each other and kissed.
“Will I see you this evening, Maisie?” asked James. He seemed to be avoiding eye contact with her, looking at his watch while asking the question.
“I think we should talk, James. Don’t you?” Maisie sensed a resignation in his manner. She went on. “I think we must be honest with each other, and look at how we can best be a light for each other. I’ve been . . . well, I’ve been giving it all some thought, and—”
“Me too. Yes, you’re right. How about a quiet supper at your flat?”
Maisie smiled. “Oh, yes, James. Yes, that would be lovely.” She rested her hand against the side of his face. “You’re a good man, James.”
He covered her hand with his, then pulled her to him and kissed her forehead. “See you later then.”
“Yes, later. I’ll go straight to the flat after work.”
“See you then, my love.”
Maisie slipped from James’ grasp. “Well, we’d better be off, hadn’t we?”
“Wouldn’t do to be late at the office, eh?”
They parted, each walking to their separate motor cars, waving to each other as they drove away.
P
ushing all thoughts of James to the back of her mind, Maisie recollected in her mind’s eye the moment she began to pick up the papers that had fallen from John Otterburn’s desk. She could see the pile of manila folders and a sheaf of loose pages, and, as if time had slowed, she could again feel her shoe catch the carpet and her hand reach out, sending the papers cascading onto the floor. In her imagination she could see the words and drawings, and could feel the tremor of shock as James entered, looking at her as if he had come upon a common thief. She could see the images in front of her, as if she were still holding the pages in her hands. What was going on? The pieces of the puzzle were at odds: Douglas Partridge a friend of Otterburn; Bart Soames’ name among his private papers; and then detailed drawings of aeroplanes, the like of which she had never seen. Beyond what she already knew about him, who was Otterburn? And what had happened with Eddie Pettit that seemed to link him with Soames? James had said that Otterburn had a finger in many pies, intimating that he was a linchpin in the marriage between business and politics. One only had to cast a glance around the supper table at his Park Lane mansion to see the diverse walks of life represented. What strings was he pulling? And if there were strings being pulled, was he doing it to benefit himself, or another?
Evelyn Butterworth was waiting outside her friends’ flat as Maisie pulled alongside the curb. She reached across and opened the passenger door for Evelyn, and as soon as her passenger was settled, Maisie negotiated the MG out into traffic and drove in the direction of Bayswater and Lancaster Gate, one of London’s most prestigious addresses.
Decelerating as they approached a terrace of white stucco mansions alongside Hyde Park, Maisie slowed even more, to better see the properties, and Evelyn rolled down the side window.
“There, I think that’s the one. Can you stop here?” said Evelyn.
“It’s probably best to go around the corner and park by the church.”
With the MG left close to Christ Church, the women walked back to the mansion owned by Douglas Partridge. As they walked, Evelyn told Maisie that, according to Bart, two floors had been designated as a place of retreat for writers who needed peace and quiet to accommodate the needs of their craft.
Evelyn pushed against the main door, which was unlocked.
“That’s a stroke of luck!” she said, turning to Maisie. “I wouldn’t know where to find the key.”
A sweeping staircase led from the ground floor to the first floor, then narrowed as it snaked to the upper floors, where a series of private residences were rented out to gentlemen and women of means. A door at the first landing opened out into an expansive sitting room with a series of less ornate doors around it, each offering entrance to a small office for a working writer. A man sat in front of the fire, reading and smoking his pipe. He was dressed in corduroy trousers and a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches. Though his clothing seemed well cared for, it also showed age, with a shine to the trouser fabric and a line of darning at one edge of the jacket.
“May I help you, ladies?” inquired the man.
“Yes,” replied Maisie. “Would you direct us to Bartholomew Soames’ studio?”
Holding the bowl of his pipe in his right hand, he waved the stem in the direction of the last office on the right. “Over there. Haven’t seen him in a while, though. Mind you, I’ve been away. India, you know. A lot going on there.”
“Has anyone else been to visit his office?” asked Maisie.
The man put on a show of thinking, closing his eyes and tapping the lip of his pipe against his temple. “I’m wondering who you could ask. Despite the professional envy from which we all suffer when someone sells an article or, heaven forbid, a book to be published, we tend not to invade each other’s havens, so any visitors would most likely have come from outside.” He cleared his throat and was about to draw from the pipe when he frowned. “Look here, are you supposed to be going in there?”
“I am Mr. Soames’ wife, sir,” said Evelyn. “My husband passed away several weeks ago, and this is the first opportunity I’ve had to come collect his things. I asked my friend to accompany me.”
“Bart? Dead? Oh good Lord, whatever happened to him? As I said, I’ve been away and this is my first day back.”
Evelyn pulled a handkerchief from her handbag and pressed it to her eyes. Maisie put an arm around her shoulder.
“She’s quite upset, if you don’t mind. We’ll go in now,” said Maisie, leading Evelyn in the direction of Soames’ office.
As they entered and closed the door behind them, Evelyn straightened her spine and looked around the room.
“Right then, let’s get on with it.”
“You’re very good, you know,” said Maisie.
“My heart’s been broken, I’ve wept a thousand tears, and I’ve cursed every deity you can think of. And now I have to galvanize. Someone broke into our flat, into my home, my castle—small though it might be—and I am absolutely livid about it. So, let’s get on with what has to be done; I’ll do whatever I can to help you in your quest to get to the bottom of all this.”
Maisie suggested to Evelyn that she go through the bookcase, take out each book, shake the pages, and check to see if anything had been written inside, other than marginal notes on the text itself. In the meantime, Maisie would search the desk, which was very much like that of a bank clerk, with a series of drawers on each side and a single wide drawer in the middle. Papers were stacked neatly on top, along with a pile of six or so books, leather markers lolling out from between the pages, like the tongues of dogs on a hot day.
“Remember to go slowly, Eve. Don’t rush, just in case you miss something.” She looked around the room. “Then we’ll look at the piles of papers and books on the floor.”
“Bart always was one for keeping things in piles on the floor. When he ran out of space on his desk—which, by the way, is worryingly tidy—instead of making more room, he would just start to pile things on the floor.”
“I’ll bear that in mind about the tidy desk—but people are sometimes like that: untidy at home, yet neat at their place of work, or vice versa.”
Evelyn began taking down the books as instructed by Maisie, who opened the top drawer of the desk. Pencils, a blade for sharpening, an eraser, and a ruler. Drawing pins, several unused notebooks, a hole-punch, a small box of paper clips. Instead of closing the drawer, she eased it out and laid it on the floor.
One by one, she checked each of the other drawers, reading through correspondence, files of clippings of articles and essays written by Soames, and going through his notes. And as she finished with each drawer, she removed it, until finally all the drawers had been taken from the desk. She peered inside the wooden shell. Nothing. On her hands and knees, she stretched one arm in as far as she could and felt around the inside of the desk. Nothing. She even pulled the Anglepoise lamp from the top of the desk and directed the beam onto the dark interior wood, checking top, sides, and corners. Nothing. And as she replaced each drawer, she lifted it up to check the underside, to no avail.
“Anything yet, Eve?”
“No. And I’m not feeling terribly confident either.”
“Still too tidy?”
“Yes.” Evelyn Butterworth turned around. “Those books on the table each have a proper marker. Now, I’ve seen Bart when he’s working, and let me tell you, he rips off bits of paper all the time—from newspapers, usually—to place between pages he wanted to come back to—and he scribbles in books too. Here, look at this one—here’s where he’s made notes in the margin about something he’s questioned. That’s Bart. His mind was too active, and he learned that if he didn’t put in a makeshift marker while he thought about it, he would be onto something else and forget there was a question unanswered. And it’s not as if he didn’t have proper bookmarks in his desk—but his mind was often working too fast to do things properly.” She sighed and looked around the room while pushing back her hair with fingers dusty from handling books. “A big unanswered question—bit like this.”
Maisie followed her gaze. “At the moment, yes, it is. But the answers will be found, you can mark my words.”
Evelyn went back to taking book after book from the shelves as Maisie leafed through pages of manuscript on the desk. After turning each page so that it was face down on the desk, she would square it with the others. One by one, she turned the pages, reading a paragraph here, a sentence there. Bart Soames had been writing a novel, yet instead of being set in the present or even the past, it was a fantasy set in a mythical kingdom with an overpowering, godlike monarch; it was a story which, had she time to linger, might have intrigued her. As she lifted a page close to the end, however, she discovered that the following page was not part of the novel at all, but a list of fifteen names. “Douglas Partridge” was listed two-thirds of the way down the sheet of paper, and Maisie immediately recognized the others as being well-known novelists, for the most part, although she recognized the names of a playwright and a poet.
“Eve, I’ve found a list of names here—did Bart know these people?” She took out the page and passed it over to Evelyn. “I mean, did he know them well, or was he connected with them in some way?”
Evelyn looked down the list. “Hmmm, well, I recognize them, and certainly Bart knew
of
every one of them, but I don’t think he knew any of them well—I don’t think he’d ever met Partridge, even though he owns this place.”
“You don’t recall Bart talking about any of them?”
“No.”
Maisie tucked her hair behind her right ear. “I think I’ll hang on to this.”
“Do you think it’s important?”
“You know, I have a feeling it might be. Anyway, let’s get on—and when we’re finished, we should go and ask someone if there are spare boxes around here. For two women who’ve come to clear out someone’s office, we are suspiciously bereft of boxes.”
The women spent another hour and a half going through papers, which in the main amounted to transcribed interviews that had no connection to either Eddie Pettit, Douglas Partridge, or John Otterburn. They searched through the books, and they checked under a carpet and behind the picture frames, even going so far as to remove the back of each frame to check inside. Finally, they sat down—Maisie on the desk chair and Evelyn on a small button-back leather chair—and studied the room.
“It’s very quiet, I will say that,” said Evelyn. “No wonder Bart liked working here.”
“Are you still planning to try to take it over?”
“I’ve been thinking about it a bit more, and, what with the distance, it’s probably best for me to just work at the flat—it’s not as if there’s someone else there to disturb me.” She shrugged. “Anyway, word went around my friends about the break-in, and people are dropping off bits and pieces for me over the next few days. I’ll probably end up with more than Bart and I started with, and I’m going to make sure I have a desk.”
“And you’re sure you won’t find other accommodation?”
She shook her head. “I suppose it’s my way of keeping him close, being at the flat. In fact, the burglars, whoever they were, probably did me a favor, because it won’t look like it did when Bart was there, when we were there together—but I’ll still feel him there.” She paused and closed her eyes. “I feel him here, too.”
There was a faint aroma in the air that Maisie thought might remind Evelyn of Bart. Perhaps it was the soap he used, or hair oil, or the polish from his shoes; indeed, it was likely all three were blended to give an impression of Bart’s unique presence.
As if woken from a dream, Evelyn looked up. “It looks like we’re finished here, doesn’t it, Maisie?”
“Yes, I think we’ve gone over everything.”
The two women stood up, and as they did so, Maisie brushed against a photograph on the desk, catching it as it was about to fall. “Oh dear, not again. That’s the second time I’ve knocked something off another person’s desk in less than twenty-four hours.”
“Is that a photograph?” asked Evelyn.
“Yes. I noticed it when I first looked at the desk—I think it’s Bart’s mother, though it must have been taken a while ago. I took the photograph out of the frame and had a look.”
“Let me see.” Evelyn took the photograph. “Yes, it’s Pauline. It was taken before she was married—that’s the school behind her.” She looked up at Maisie. “But Bart always kept this at home. He must have brought it here just before he died. I wonder why?”