Her thoughts turned to the gypsy encampment and her time spent with Beulah next to the fire. The woman had led her into the clearing and bade her sit on the log next to her. The lurcher nestled at the woman’s feet but kept Maisie in her line of vision, lifting her head if she moved even an inch. The animal had no name, and was called, simply, jook, the gypsy word for dog.
While Maisie and the woman spoke, heads drawn close so that conversation could be kept low, she knew the attention of the rest of the tribe was upon her, particularly that of the man she understood to be Webb, Beulah’s son. He was tall, with eyes of blue and long hair that was not as dark as the others. Maisie knew that many Roma had deep copper glints in their hair, and some were redheads, though most had rich black locks like Beulah or Paishey Webb’s wife. Indeed, they had hair like her own. Webb wore an old shirt and dark corduroy trousers, a waistcoat, and a blue scarf around his neck. A hat with a broad brim partially obscured his face, and he too wore earrings, though not as wide in circumference as those of Beulah or Paishey. Even baby Boosul wore tiny earrings.
From the way he moved, Maisie estimated Webb’s age to be about twenty-eight or twenty-nine, just a few years younger than herself, yet in the features she was able to discern he seemed much older. His wife was about nineteen, perhaps twenty. Webb glanced up at his mother every few minutes, as he stooped to light the fire, or when dragging over the heavy cast-iron pot for the women to make a stew of rabbit, with vegetables bought in the village and tasty greens from the forest that anyone other than a gypsy might ignore. Without making her interest obvious, Maisie could tell much about the man from his demeanor. Though she could not emulate his carriage from her seat on the log, she could see the feelings he carried within him, as if a weighted sack were tethered to his body. Webb was not only enraged, he was fearful. Maisie could see both emotions as plain as day. And when she turned to Beulah, she realized the old woman had been watching as the visitor took the measure of her son, and it was clear in her narrowed gypsy eyes that she had seen the conclusion the investigator had reached.
“You here about them gorja boys, from up there.” It was a statement put to Maisie with a wave of the hand in the broad direction of London.
Maisie nodded. “That’s one of the reasons, yes.”
“We di’n ’ave nothin’ t’do with it.” Beulah took a mouthful of tea and winced as she swallowed the scalding liquid.
“Do you think the London boys did it?”
Beulah looked into the fire. “Not my place t’say. What they do is their business, what we do is ours.”
“Your son was seen close to the house on the day of the burglary. Did he see anything?”
“Not my place.” She nodded toward Webb, who was splitting logs with an axe. Two other men with him sawed trees that the wind had blown down last winter, wood that would crackle and burn easily, seasoned by nature and a hot summer. “Talk to ’im if you like.”
Webb looked up from his work at just that moment, and Beulah beckoned to him. “The rawni—woman—wants to talk to you, Webb.”
Without first putting down the axe, and with just a few easy steps, Webb came to stand in front of Maisie. Instinct instructed her to come to her feet, for in height she was almost a match for the matriarch’s son and she would not be unsettled by him. Her own eyes of the deepest blue could flash a look as intimidating as any glance in her direction.
“Mr. Webb, I am looking into the burglary at the Sandermere house on behalf of the parents of the boys who stand accused of the crime. Though it appears there is more than enough evidence to charge them, I understand that you were in the area of the estate and might have seen what happened.”
The man did not move, either to shake his head or nod in accordance with her supposition. He stared for every second of one minute before responding. Maisie did not break connection with his stare, nor did she add any comment to encourage him to speak. Eventually, he chewed the inside of his lip, then began.
“I didn’t see anything. I was just walking along, with the dog.” His voice was unlike his mother’s, lacking the rough guttural low-gypsy dialect.
“He bin to school.” Beulah’s voice caused Maisie to turn, as the woman deflected her thoughts with an unsolicited explanation. “Learned your words, he did. And Webb can write. He does our letters, our doc’ments, and reads for us, so we ain’t ignorant of what’s said and what’s been writ.”
“A useful man to have in the tribe, eh, Aunt Beulah?” Maisie smiled, then turned back to Webb. “Do you think the boys did it? Do you think they broke into the house, stole the silver, and made off with it?”
Again Webb waited, steady with his reply. “Lads are from the streets of London. They’re not stupid, even if they are boys. If they did what the police said, they wouldn’t’ve been caught. Boys like that are light on their feet. I remember when I was that age. I was quick. Had to be.” Then he turned and walked back to his task—set a large log on top of another, raised the axe high above his head, and swung it down with force, so that the splitting of wood in one fell swoop echoed throughout the forest.
Beulah sipped her tea, elbows resting on knees set wide as she watched her son in silence. Then she turned to Maisie.
“You from up there?” Again she nodded in the broad direction of London.
“Born and bred.”
The woman smiled. “Born but not bred, girl.”
Maisie said nothing but looked into the fire, now a heap of blazing wood where there had been sleepy embers just this afternoon.
“Which side, your mother’s?”
Maisie nodded.
“But not your mother.”
“My grandmother. She was of the water folk. Her family had a narrow boat which, once, they brought into the Pool of London. My granddad was a lighterman, a youngish man, I think, though long out of boyhood. She was barely more than a girl. He asked for her hand, and her father eventually agreed. Her people said it would come to an end, because she was a strong-willed girl, my grandmother. But they were together for the rest of their lives and died within days of each other. I was eight years old.”
“And the daughter?”
“My mother died when I was twelve, going on thirteen.”
Beulah sipped her tea again, then bent to stroke her dog’s head. “Come tomorrow, as the sun goes down. A bit of tea will be here for you.”
DURING THE DRIVE to her father’s house, Maisie reflected upon her dismissal. She had been asked questions of her life with honesty, without guile, and she had answered in kind. The invitation for tea the following day was more than a request, it was a summons. She would be able to ask more questions, delve more deeply, during the second visit.
Reaching the village of Chelstone, Maisie slowed the motor car and turned left into the grounds of Chelstone Manor, where she turned left again down a small gravel thoroughfare that led to her father’s cottage. She had a plan for the following day in mind now: In the morning she would go to Maidstone, to the solicitors acting for the two boys. While there she would visit the local newspaper office, to check on old stories about the village. Then she would come back to Heronsdene, simply to walk along the High Street and gain a sense of the community—and perhaps gather a clue as to why such a dour mood prevailed. Much of what she planned to do revolved around legwork that Billy might have done if they were in London, but Maisie looked forward to getting back to some of the nuts and bolts of investigation that had so immersed her when she was an apprentice to Maurice Blanche.