A Lesson In Secrets_ A Maisie Dobbs Novel Part 17

"The sun's over the yardarm somewhere in the Empire, so we thought we'd drop in for a swift one at the local-join us?"

Maisie smiled at MacFarlane. "Thank you for asking, but I really must be getting back to my lodgings."

"Making progress?"

"Putting the pieces into place. You?"

"No, not really. Can't seem to get any purchase on the mountain of interviews and who saw this and who saw that. You would have thought the whole college was comatose while Greville Liddicote was murdered."

"Colleges can be fairly soporific places in the afternoons-and I am being absolutely serious. Whoever walked in with the intention of taking Liddicote's life chose the right time. Cla.s.ses were in progress, the secretary was out and about in the building somewhere, and a sort of daze comes over the place, no matter how hard one tries to chivvy students along in their work."

"That much is obvious," Stratton interjected, looking at Maisie. "Have you discovered anything that might help us?"

Maisie nodded. "Yes, I have, I think. Both Delphine Lang and Robson Headley were familiar with Chinese methods of martial art. I know I should have mentioned this before, but I discovered that they have both spent time in the Orient: Lang in China when her father was a.s.signed a position there, and Headley when his father chose to situate the family in Hong Kong after the war. His company had a lot of business there, so when Dunstan wanted to try to put the older son's death behind them, that's where he took his wife and son."

"Would you consider them suspects?" asked Stratton.

"At this point I wouldn't rule them out."

"Anyone else?" MacFarlane asked; then he leaned forward and tapped on the window. They had arrived at the pub where the detective chief superintendent would have his "swift one."

"Not yet, but perhaps by Sat.u.r.day I might have a name or two for you." Maisie noticed that MacFarlane had not admonished her again for looking into the issue of Liddicote's death.

"You don't want to give us an inkling-or is this something else you're going to keep to yourself?" Stratton raised his eyebrows as he asked the question.

"I don't want to implicate someone who might be far from a murderer."

MacFarlane instructed the driver to take Maisie to her lodgings, where she went straight to her room and spread the case map across the desk. She drew a line between several names, jotted in another, and stood back to consider her work. She noted information she had gleaned from the young woman known as Rosemary Linden, and added a line under Francesca Thomas' name. Tomorrow she would attend the debate, and on Friday she would drive to London. A conversation with Miss Hawthorne revealed that Dr. Thomas had mentioned arriving in London at mid-morning to conduct research for her paper at the British Library. Knowing that the best liars often disguise their tales with an element of truth, Maisie planned to be outside Liverpool Street station by mid-morning at the latest. And this time she was determined not to lose her.

Maisie left her landlady's bicycle tethered to a tree some yards from the Cambridge Union, then stood to watch the audience of students and academic staff file into the venue for the first debate. She noticed a couple of men she thought to be journalists, and then saw a deep-maroon motor car draw up outside.

Dunstan Headley emerged from the vehicle, followed by his son and Matthias Roth. Some of the onlookers were craning their heads to see who the important guests might be, and as Maisie scanned the line of people, she saw Delphine Lang, alone, waiting along with everyone else.

A contingent of supporters from the College of St. Francis waved their green scarves in the air, and soon Maisie caught sight of Francesca Thomas. She was not queuing with the students but had drawn back as if to watch the opening salvo of a battle. She was smoking a cigarette, and when she was ready to enter the building, she threw it to the ground to extinguish the smoldering tobacco. Maisie smiled as she watched her deftly flick the half-smoked cigarette to the ground.

Offering apologies to those already seated, Maisie squeezed into a place close to the end of one of the long red-leather seats, some rows back from the benches where the debating teams were situated. She had a fair view of the lectern, and, in her estimation, the debate teams seemed as comfortable as they could be while antic.i.p.ating victory for their college. The hall was full; other debates would soon be under way at other university locations, but in the draw the College of St. Francis had been fortunate in being selected to present its case in the home of debate at the University of Cambridge.

Soon the Union's president stood to introduce the teams and the motion, and invited the first speaker from the College of St. Francis to the lectern. Maisie was surprised to see that it was one of her students, and she leaned forward to better hear his arguments for the adoption of a national socialism in Britain, based upon the tenets of the National Socialist Party in Germany. She thought his reasoning, while somewhat idealistic, showed a good deal of preparation, and he presented his points in a manner that was succinct and accessible to an audience comprising quite a few people from outside the many colleges in the city. And she would have been disappointed if he had not demonstrated such idealism, for he was yet to reach twenty-one; youth without optimism, without a strong sense of the possible, would represent a very sad state of affairs. As she listened, she realized how much she had invested in her work at the college-on behalf of her students, and in the service of His Majesty's government. She was enjoying the former more than she might have imagined, despite the distractions of her remit.

The young man spent some twenty minutes making his argument, and ended with a statement that brought with it a round of enthusiastic applause. "National Socialism is the way. There is no other political philosophy that will deliver us from the social stranglehold of our system of lords and serfs, and there is no other party that would protect our sh.o.r.es, while bringing prosperity and security to those of Anglo-Saxon stock." He bowed to the audience, some of whom were on their feet before being called to order.

The student representing the opposition took his turn at the lectern, and proceeded to press the beliefs his team represented, that National Socialism was fascism by any other name, with a sole purpose to undermine British life as it had been lived for centuries. Again the student spoke for twenty minutes, and seemed distracted as he pushed his spectacles back up towards the bridge of his nose, then fiddled with them as they slipped down again. He thumped the lectern at one point, and looked directly at the next speaker, Robson Headley, who seemed relaxed as he lounged with one leg crossed over the other, an elbow resting along the crest of the leather-backed bench. Maisie was surprised to notice that Delphine Lang had managed to sit behind Headley. Dunstan Headley was at the end of the same row, and did not seem pleased-he was glaring at Lang.

Robson Headley was invited to the lectern to give a closing argument on behalf of his team. He stood as if he had all the time in the world, and moved to the place vacated by the opposition's first representative. He opened a paper that Maisie supposed he might refer to, and at that moment she felt a tremor of foreboding. She looked into his eyes and saw a flash of something she could not have put into words. Was it a look of resolve, of vehemence, of blind adherence to his beliefs? Was it defiance? She sensed that he was not about to give a speech with a view to winning the debate with honor, but instead had stepped up with an intention to set the hall afire with his rhetoric-and she hoped that she was wrong. It was as if that foreboding had leached under her skin and into her bones, because as Headley began to speak, she felt fear grip her heart.

While he repeated many of the main arguments that his fellow team member had put forward, there was a pa.s.sion to his words that both attracted and repelled the audience over the course of his allotted twenty minutes. As he spoke, repeatedly hitting his fist against the lectern with every point made, Maisie saw people sitting on the edge of their seats, leaning forward over the balcony; many appeared intimidated, glancing at exits, as if ready to run. Robson Headley thumped the lectern again.

"My argument, gentlemen, is that our country deserves nothing less than national socialism, and that if we had the opportunity we would be well served by a man such as Herr Adolf Hitler standing for our nation as our leader." He paused, his eyes roaming up to the balcony, and then to the gallery behind him. "I can make no more forthright statement on behalf of the motion than the following." He stood to one side, snapped his heels, and raised his right hand in a straight-armed salute. "Heil Hitler!"

Maisie put her head in her hands, but looked up again when a female voice echoed Robson Headley. "Heil Hitler!" Delphine Lang stood to attention. And Dunstan Headley stared at his son with a deep disdain, and then at Lang with a hatred so fierce that Maisie thought Lang must feel as if she had been burned. The elder Headley turned and left the hall, which had erupted in a mixture of boos and cheers. Maisie looked along the row of seats to Matthias Roth, who sat motionless. She could see he was in a state of shock. And then he, too, left the hall, though in his eyes there was not hatred, but tears of deep sorrow.

Maisie left her seat and walked to the exit, turning once to look upon Robson Headley as he swaggered back to his seat. She did not care if the motion was carried or not, whether the opposing team's second speaker made a good argument or failed to carry the day. She had already seen much that she thought was not in the interests of the country she had served in a war still too easily remembered.

Chapter Seventeen.

Maisie walked for some time following her departure from the Union. She meandered along the gra.s.sy verges of the Backs and eventually found her way to a vantage point from which she could look out upon the spires and towers of the city and be soothed by their silhouettes, bathed in the deep-orange glow of the setting sun. And later, having collected the bicycle and returned to her lodgings, she sat by her window in darkness, staring out into a purplish-black night sky embellished as if someone had thrown jewels to the heavens with abandon. She could not remember many starry nights as a child, but occasionally the coverlet of fog seemed to draw back and her father would point out the constellations. "There's the Plough, Maisie-see?" And his hand would sweep across her line of vision, tracing the outline of a cl.u.s.ter of stars so she could see the shape. Now she tried to make sense of all that had come to pa.s.s since she arrived at the College of St. Francis.

She had read parts of the book written by the leader of Germany's National Socialist Party, but was disturbed by so much of what he had laid down under the t.i.tle Mein Kampf Mein Kampf. And when she saw again, in her mind's eye, the vision of Robson Headley standing with his hand held high in salute, and the light in his eyes as he shouted his allegiance, she remembered a line that she had marked in the book. The broad ma.s.ses of the people are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force. The broad ma.s.ses of the people are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force. Huntley had seemed almost indifferent to her concerns regarding the activities of n.a.z.i supporters in Britain, though she understood that at least one person in his midst had also raised an alarm. There were those who were impressed by the leader, not least Britain's own advocates of fascism, and she was dismayed that so many of those people seemed to be in positions of some influence. Huntley had seemed almost indifferent to her concerns regarding the activities of n.a.z.i supporters in Britain, though she understood that at least one person in his midst had also raised an alarm. There were those who were impressed by the leader, not least Britain's own advocates of fascism, and she was dismayed that so many of those people seemed to be in positions of some influence.

But what about Dunstan Headley? She doodled his name on the case map in front of her, then tapped her pencil on the paper, absently creating a cl.u.s.ter of gray dots spiraling in and out, in and out, as if following the pattern of a snail sh.e.l.l. Dunstan Headley was an angry man. Robson was almost entirely dependent upon his father for financial support, and she had little doubt that Headley Senior might choose to turn the screw on his son by withholding money unless he agreed to toe a particular line.

Maisie rubbed her eyes and stood up; it was the early hours of the morning and she finally felt ready to go to bed. When she looked down at the case map, she realized that she had, without thinking, been inscribing the names Robson Headley-Dunstan Headley-Delphine Lang Robson Headley-Dunstan Headley-Delphine Lang time and again in circles across a section of the paper. time and again in circles across a section of the paper.

The following morning-Friday-Maisie arrived at Liverpool Street station at half past nine, drove through the gate marked "Way in for Cabs," and parked the MG. She hurried inside to check the arrival times of trains from Cambridge, then returned and moved the vehicle along so that she was not obstructing the cabbies, to a place that afforded her a view of people exiting the station and setting off again in taxi-cabs. The day was cool and beyond the canopy of the station there was a light rain, for which she was somewhat glad. Waiting in the heat of the day would not be comfortable, though this kind of surveillance always seemed to hurt somewhere in her body. She changed her position frequently, once or twice getting out of the motor car to walk up and down for a few steps, until she noticed a surge of pa.s.sengers exiting the station, and took her place behind the wheel again. At one point a policeman came to ask why she was waiting for so long, and she explained that she was expecting a friend who'd had an accident and was using crutches. The constable laughed and made a comment to the effect that he wished her good luck getting the friend in the two-seater tourer. The exchange was light, but Maisie knew he might come along again and move her on. Another hour pa.s.sed and another surge of pa.s.sengers streamed out, then thinned, and at once she saw a woman whom she believed to be Francesca Thomas. The woman stopped for a second to survey the line of people waiting outside, then walked to a taxi-cab and climbed in. Maisie could not be completely sure it was her, but she knew she had to take a chance. She was slipping the MG into gear when the constable knocked on the window again.

"Still waiting, Miss? You've been here a bit now."

"I think she must have missed her train, constable. Not to worry, I'll get my motor out of the way and telephone her mother."

"I'll keep an eye on your motor if you want to run in-"

"Oh, I'm sure she should have been here by now. Thank you! I'll be off now."

And with that, Maisie stepped on the accelerator pedal, anxious to catch up with the taxi-cab carrying the woman she believed to be Thomas.

"Blast! Where are are you?" you?"

People were crossing the road, and traffic seemed to be converging on the station from all directions. "Blast!" she said again, striking the steering wheel with her hand. Then the crowd parted for a horse and cart to come through, and she realized that the taxi-cab had stopped not far in front of her. A coster had tipped his barrow and was hurrying to load up the fallen fruit and vegetables. Some people stopped to help, for traffic was snarling up, and Maisie saw the cabbie lean out and shake his fist at the coster.

"You shouldn't be on the bleeding road with that old nag."

"Don't you call this 'orse a nag, you and that filthy thing you're driving there. Sc.u.m of the earth on the streets, you are."

The taxi driver was about to get out, when Maisie saw the silhouette of the pa.s.senger inside lean forward, as if to caution him. In time, the horse and cart moved on, the coster shaking his fist back at the cabbie, and traffic began to snake along once more. Maisie's doubts about following the right taxi-cab and whether indeed the pa.s.senger was Francesca Thomas were laid to rest when the journey took them closer to Belgravia. They soon approached Eaton Square, at the same point at which the driver she was with before had lost her quarry. Now she realized why. The taxi-cab's route was circuitous, along smaller parallel streets and cutting back and forth. With traffic easing as they moved into the smaller streets, Maisie maintained her distance, but kept the black vehicle in sight as it doubled back to Eaton Place. The driver stopped, and Maisie pulled over in the shade of a tree. Francesca Thomas alighted from the taxi-cab, paid the fare, then walked along the street and entered one of the grand mansions. Maisie watched and waited for the taxi-cab to be on his way again before slipping the MG into gear and parking on the other side of the square. Pulling her cloche hat down close to her eyes, she walked back to the mansion Francesca Thomas had entered. She looked up at the building, then back and forth along the street, and at that point a man wearing a black suit, white shirt, and bowler hat, and carrying an umbrella, walked towards her. When he was just a couple of steps away, Maisie smiled in his direction.

"Excuse me, sir-may I trouble you for a moment? Do you know this area?"

The man nodded. "Yes. I work here."

"You work here?" Maisie had detected a slight accent.

"Yes, many of the buildings along here are leased; this is the Belgian Emba.s.sy-though of course we haven't quite taken over the whole square."

"I see." Maisie looked up at the building again.

"Can I help you, or did you simply want to know who resided in the square?"

"Oh, no. No, I wanted to know how to get to Victoria station."

The man proceeded to give precise directions to Victoria, and then, with a doffing of his bowler hat, went on his way. With a final look at the building-and an overwhelming sense that she was a fly in a spider's web-Maisie turned to walk away.

"Miss Dobbs!"

Francesca Thomas was standing between the two columns that flanked the mansion's entrance. A man was standing behind her, as if to protect the building and its occupants.

"Dr. Thomas." Maisie pushed up her cloche a little so their eyes could meet, and approached the woman whom she had followed from Liverpool Street station.

Francesca Thomas smiled. It was a wry smile, as if she had seen the funny side of a quip that no one else had quite picked up on. "Since you've made such a determined effort to follow me, I think the least we can do is to offer some sort of refreshment. Would you care to join me?"

Maisie nodded. "Thank you, Dr. Thomas. That's very kind of you."

She led Maisie past the threshold, nodding to the man at the door, who stepped out to look up and down the street before closing the door behind him. They continued across the expansive hallway, up the wide staircase, then along a corridor and into a small room. As they walked along, Maisie noticed that the interior of the mansion bore few comforts. It was, without doubt, a place of work, with plain cream paint and no decoration but for portraits of Albert I, King of the Belgians, and his wife, Elisabeth of Bavaria.

"This is the office I use when I am here." Francesca Thomas held out her hand to one of the beige damask-covered armchairs set in front of a fireplace masked by a needlepoint screen for the summer-the only color in a room that was as plain as the hall, staircase, and corridor. Maisie thought the office might be more welcoming in winter, with a fire in the grate.

"It seems I have been rather careless, that you have managed to find me here."

"You had no need to come to the door, Dr. Thomas. I may have discovered that the emba.s.sy is a frequent destination for your sorties into London, but I confess, I did not quite know what to do with that knowledge-not yet, anyway."

"But you have an idea of what I am doing here, don't you?"

Maisie took off her hat and ran a hand through her hair. "I know this much, that you worked for the British Secret Service during the war. I know that you left after a time, and you did not surface in England again until you applied for the job at the College of St. Francis."

Thomas nodded slowly. "And why are you you at the college, Miss Dobbs? Oh, and do credit me with some sense-please do not tell me it's for the love of teaching philosophy." at the college, Miss Dobbs? Oh, and do credit me with some sense-please do not tell me it's for the love of teaching philosophy."

Maisie regarded the woman seated before her. She was at ease, confident. Her dress was stylish, yet simple-a tailored black skirt and jacket, a white blouse. She was a striking woman, and Maisie could see that she was also one who would brook no subterfuge and would recognize a lie if she heard it.

"I have found that I really do like teaching-but I came to the college to identify any activities not in the interests of the British government."

"Don't forget the Crown. You have to look out for the Crown, you know."

"Yes, of course, not in the interests of the Crown not in the interests of the Crown." Maisie maintained eye contact with her interrogator. "And you? In whose interests are you at the college?"

"Belgium. Among others, of course. Our country suffered occupation in the war and we do not want it to happen again, if we can possibly help it. I have been charged with keeping an eye on developments in this country with regard to our former enemies."

"Developments in this this country?" country?"

"Let's not start by being naive, Miss Dobbs, unless you really are without a clue as to what is happening here. You are aware of the Ortsgruppe, for example, and its London meetings at Cleveland Terrace."

"I saw you there, too, Dr. Thomas. Only you were dressed as a man."

"What gave me away, if I may ask?"

"Your cigarette; the way you held it and discarded the remains after barely smoking half."

"You're an observant one, after all. I'll give you that." She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, her hands clasped, as if she wanted to let Maisie in on a tightly held secret. "The infiltration of universities and other such inst.i.tutions is only one stream of the threat. Your aristocracy, members of your government, indeed, the heir to your throne-they are all quite taken with this man Adolf Hitler. But we know better, we-"

"Dr. Thomas, why do you say we we? I was informed at the college that you were of Anglo-Swiss parentage."

"My maternal grandmother was Belgian. I adored her, and I was close to my family there." She sighed. "I am willing to brief you on my involvement in the security of my country; however, I must have your word that you will not divulge any detail-not a single crumb of information-of what you will hear to another. Even Brian Huntley."

Maisie looked into the woman's eyes, her surprise upon hearing Huntley's name masked by an outer calm. And at that moment she saw a shadow of deep sorrow and remembered a conversation with Maurice about the old proverb "Eyes are the windows to the soul." She thought, now, that if it were indeed so, then Francesca Thomas had chosen this time to slip the lock on her past and allow memories to escape. Instinct told her that what had come to pa.s.s in this woman's earlier years would chill her to the bone "You have my word."

As you know, I worked for the Secret Intelligence Service here in London. There were many departments that fell under the auspices of the broader security organization, and I worked in several different ones. I don't know if this will surprise you, but many, many women worked for the Secret Service-tens of thousands in London alone."

"I was not aware that such numbers were involved."

"The men were off fighting; and if they weren't, and they happened to be able-bodied, they were under suspicion anyway. Of course there were some rather tedious jobs there-intercepting mail from overseas, breaking codes, and so on; but at the same time, women were working on matters of great significance." Thomas paused. "The interesting thing is that one wasn't heavily interrogated prior to being offered a job. They were more interested in where you were educated, who your father was, and what you could do for them. In any case, as time went on, and more and more intelligence was coming through about the situation in Belgium, I realized I wanted to be with my family there. I wanted to save them." She gave a half-laugh and looked away for a few seconds before continuing. "There were intelligence groups working all over the Low Countries and northern France, and I thought I would make a good soldier-I was young, I speak several languages fluently, and I was filled with a desire to do more than sit at a desk and go through letters that might be coded."

"How did you get to Belgium?"

"By parting with some money-a good deal of money, actually. I resigned my position and was smuggled into the country and to my grandmother's house. I speak both Dutch and French Flemish, so I could easily blend into the community. And it didn't take me long to make contact with a group of what you might call resistance agents. Then in 1917 I joined a somewhat new organization called La Dame Blanche-The White Lady. It was a highly structured movement-we were organized along military lines-and we were financed by the British government."

Maisie nodded. She remembered seeing a folder labeled "La Dame Blanche" inside a box in the cellar of The Dower House. She had a.s.sumed it was something to do with Maurice's family.

"You might be interested to know that women of all ages were part of La Dame Blanche-our leaders were aware that the men could all be captured, rounded up, so there was a plan in place for the work to continue if that happened."

"What did you do?"

"As soldiers-for that is what we were, what we considered ourselves to be-we were responsible for almost every kind of intelligence work, up to and including a.s.sa.s.sination, if that was what the job required." She leaned forward again. "You must understand, Miss Dobbs, many of our number also held down jobs; they were teachers, doctors, farmworkers, shop a.s.sistants. Children as young as eight or nine, and elders in their eighties all played a part. Intelligence was filtered via British contacts, or through the Netherlands in particular." She paused, picking a speck of lint from her cuff with perfectly manicured nails. "Our agents hardly slept-they reported on troop movements, they committed acts of sabotage, and they consorted with the enemy, if they had to. They gave their lives so thousands could be spared."

Maisie nodded, waiting for the words to come with which to frame a question or make a comment. "Such bravery is often forgotten when peace is restored and lives and communities are rebuilt."

"Those who gave their lives are never forgotten, though. We have, both of us, experienced death in wartime, Miss Dobbs, and I am determined to do all I can to see that it does not happen again. The shadow of The White Lady lingers, ready to be reconst.i.tuted and put into service if necessary. My job, at the moment, is to coordinate intelligence from our people around Europe regarding the activities of various groups who threaten a fragile peace-and, of course, I am a lecturer at the College of St. Francis, which is certainly an interesting place to be at the moment."

"You were at the debate last night."

"Yes, and what a debacle for Matthias! Poor Matthias-he wants so much to be an instrument of peace, to live by the Prayer of St. Francis, but he is somewhat misguided when it comes to the motivations of certain people."

"Robson Headley?"

She shook her head. "Headstrong Headley and his lover, the very spoiled Miss Lang."

"You think they're dangerous?"

"They are dangerous with their rhetoric, and they are dangerous in who they know and consort with-which is why they came to my attention. But you must realize, Miss Dobbs, that the college was of interest to me not because of some of the people within the establishment, but due to its placement. It's a good viewing platform for a town of many colleges, and, through academic affiliations, has also given me access to other such places around the country."

"Do you have any idea who murdered Greville Liddicote?"

"I know he wasn't universally liked, though he tried his best-and he did very well, in fact, if you look at the college-to overcome past mistakes." She leaned back in her chair. "Liddicote was a man of contradictions. He was not in favor of the war-we discussed this on several occasions-and he thought there should have been a more concerted effort on the part of our government to bring an end to the conflict; it was so b.l.o.o.d.y pointless. And at the same time, he was an expert on medieval literature, and he wrote his children's books. He was drawn to some artistically inclined people who are quite well known, Miss Dobbs, and he wanted recognition. So even though his motivations were true enough, that desire led him to make more than a few errors of judgment-and ultimately, he lied."

"Who do you think hated him?"