Marta smiled, as she watched Maisie Dobbs work at her loom, and picked up her card again, PSYCHOLOGIST AND INVESTIGATOR. Yes, she must be very good at her trade, this woman who had, without any effort at all, encouraged six people to tell her far more about themselves than they would ever imagine recounting—and all without revealing much about herself, except that she was newly drawn to color.
JAMES COMPTON WALKED at a brisk pace past the Albert Hall, taking advantage of the warm September evening. As his right-hand man in Toronto would have said, he had a head of steam on him, frustration with a land purchase that had proved to be fraught with problems. He did not even care to be in London again, though the thought of returning had at first seemed filled with promise. But the Compton family mansion at Ebury Place had been mothballed, and staying at his father’s club and spending each evening with crusty old men languishing amid tales of doom regarding the economy and reminiscences that began with “In my day . . .” was not his idea of fun.
Of course, life in the city of Toronto was not all beer and skittles—after all, he had a corporation with diversified interests to run—but there was sailing on the lake and skiing in Vermont, across the border, to look forward to. And the cold was different—it didn’t seep into his war wounds the way it did here. He thought of men he’d seen at the labor exchanges, or soup kitchens, or simply walking miles across London each day in search of work, many of them limping, wounds nagging their memories each day, like scabs being picked raw.
But Toronto might have to wait for him a bit longer. Lord Julian Compton, his father, wanted to relinquish more responsibility and was already talking of having James step up to replace him as chairman of the Compton Corporation. And that wasn’t all that was bothering him, as he glanced at the scrap of paper upon which he had scribbled the address given to him by Maisie Dobbs during their conversation this morning. His mother, Maisie’s former employer and longtime supporter, had always encouraged her husband and son to direct any suitable business in Maisie’s direction if possible, so she was the first person he’d thought to telephone when a property transaction began showing signs that it might become troublesome.
“Goddammit!” said James, as he thought of his father’s office in the City once again.
“James!”
James Compton looked up, frowning, then smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners when he saw Maisie waving from the other side of the road. He crumpled the paper and pushed it into his jacket pocket as he walked across to greet her. “Maisie Dobbs! I was so lost in thought I almost walked straight past!” He paused as she offered him her hand. “Maisie, what on earth have you been doing?”
Maisie regarded her hands, then reached into her shoulder bag and brought out her gloves. “It’s dye. I couldn’t get it out of my hands and should have put on my gloves immediately—but I can’t do much about the splashes on my cheek until I get home.” She looked into the eyes of her former employer’s son, then reached out to touch his arm. “How are you, James?”
He shrugged. “Well, the engagement’s off, that’s the first bit of news for you. And as you know, I’m here in England on business—duty calls at the Compton Corporation’s London office.” James consulted his watch. “Look, Maisie, I know I said this wouldn’t take much more time than it would to drink a cup of tea, but I am starving, and I wonder—do you have time for a spot of supper? I’ve been wrangling—”
“Wrangling?”
“Excuse me, I forgot where I was. Let me start again. I’ve been considering—worrying about, to tell you the truth—this business transaction I mentioned, and I’ve not eaten a thing all day.”
“Well, we’d better do something about that, hadn’t we? I’m rather hungry myself.”
James turned and signaled a taxi-cab. “Come on, let’s go to a charming little Italian dining room I know—just around the corner from Exhibition Row.”
“YOU LOOK DIFFERENT, Maisie.” James Compton reached for a bread roll, pulled it apart, and spread one quarter with a thick layer of butter.
“The dye has that effect.” Maisie grinned, looking up from the menu. “You haven’t changed a bit, James.”
“Well, the blond hair has a bit of gray at the sides, but thank heavens it doesn’t show much. If I can still walk as upright as my father when I reach his age, I will be more than grateful.” He poured a glass of Chianti and leaned back. “You seem more . . . I don’t know, sort of . . . lighter.”
“I assure you I am not.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. It’s your demeanor. You seem lighter within yourself, as our Mrs. Crawford would have said.” He looked at Maisie, her black hair, cut just above the shoulders to run parallel with the line of her chin, her fringe brushing against black eyebrows that seemed to deepen her violet-blue eyes. She wore a mid-calf-length wool barathea skirt in a rich purple hue, with a red blouse and blue coat—clearly old but well maintained—that draped to mid-thigh. Her shoes, with a single strap buttoned at the side, were of plain black leather. A silver nurse’s watch was pinned to her lapel.
“Oh, Mrs. Crawford. What will you do for gingersnaps, James, now that your favorite cook has retired?”
James laughed, and for some minutes they spoke of the past, neither shying from the loss of Enid, Maisie’s fellow servant at the Compton household so many years past, a young woman who had been in love with James and whom he had loved in return. Enid died in an explosion at the munitions factory where she worked, in 1915.
“So, tell me how I can help you.” Maisie glanced at her watch as she directed the conversation to the reason for their meeting. She did not want to make a late return to her flat in Pimlico, for her day’s work was not yet done.
As they ate supper, James described the business transaction that was giving him so much trouble and for which he had seen an opportunity to seek her help.
“There’s a large estate down in Kent that I want to buy, on the outskirts of a village called Heronsdene. It’s about ten or so miles from Tunbridge Wells—and not that far from Chelstone, actually. The estate is pretty similar to many of its kind in Kent—you know what I mean: a large manor house, Georgian in this case, tenant farmers to manage the land, hunting privileges. But this property has something I’m particularly interested in—a brickworks. It’s a small concern. Produces the sort of bricks used in those pseudo-posh neo-Tudor affairs they’re building in the new London suburbia. And they manufacture old-fashioned peg tiles for repair of the older buildings you see all over Kent and Sussex.”