ELEVEN
Maisie and Priscilla remained with Margaret Lynch while formalities concerning Simon’s death were completed before accompanying her back to her London home in a taxi-cab. They saw that she was comfortable and her household alerted to her loss before taking their leave. Margaret Lynch had bid farewell to Maisie with an affection laced with melancholy, holding her hands as if she were unwilling to release this young woman who had known and loved her son. Maisie accepted an invitation to visit. She knew that, for the first time, Margaret Lynch would ask her to describe the tragedy that had led to both Simon’s wounds and her own and that, in telling the story, there might be healing for them both. Priscilla insisted on escorting Maisie to her flat, and as soon as she left, Maisie went straight to bed and descended at once into a deep and dreamless sleep.
ARRIVING AT THE Dorchester in something of a rush later that morning, for she had overslept, Maisie saw Priscilla waiting for her outside the hotel. She was dressed in black, as was Maisie. A doorman opened the MG’s passenger door, and Priscilla waved him off quickly with a tip so they could continue on to St. Anselm’s in haste.
“For goodness’ sake, Maisie, when will you have a telephone connected in your flat?” Priscilla wound down the window and lit a cigarette.
“I have one at the office, and that’s an extravagance, Pris.”
“We might have been late.”
“But we’re not. We’ll be at the school on time. What’s wrong with you? Too many bad memories of being called up in front of the Head for a strapping?”
Priscilla laughed and waved a plume of smoke out of the window. “I suspect you’re right. I detest this sort of thing, makes me wonder whether we ought to just leave London for the estate and take on a tutor for the boys—but that rather defeats the object, doesn’t it? So much for my vision of a houseful of boys down for the weekend, games of tennis, and building forts of branches and leaves in the forest. Looks like my three will be outsiders forever if I don’t sort something out.”
“Does it have to be boarding school?”
Priscilla shook her head. “We’ll see. I’ll have to talk to Douglas after I meet Cottingham this morning. And speaking of my absent spouse, thank heavens he’ll be in London next week. We miss him terribly”
“Here we are.” Maisie maneuvered the motor car through the gates of the school, parking alongside one other motor car in the semicircular carriage sweep. “And with five minutes to spare.”
“Look, you wait in the entrance hall, and I’ll go in to see Cottingham. I’ll tell him you’d like to meet him, then suggest that I see my boys while you are in conference, which will give me a chance to find out what they’ve been up to and assess the damage. Let’s hope he’s in an acquiescent mood.” Priscilla stepped from the MG, and as the women made their way to the entrance, Maisie handed her a calling card. The plan went smoothly, and Maisie was called in to see Dr. Cottingham, while Priscilla was escorted to a room where she would be able to see her boys, who would be brought from their classes to join her.
“Dr. Cottingham, how very kind of you to see me this morning, and without prior notice.” Maisie extended her hand to greet the headmaster. She was surprised to find him quite young for such a post, and calculated that he must be in the region of forty-five. She had envisioned a rather crusty professorial character, with a balding pate and eyes narrowed by constant vigilance for the less-than-sterling behavior of his charges. Instead, Cottingham wore a tailored pin-striped suit, crisp white shirt, and silk tie. His shoes were polished to a shine, and his gunmetal-gray hair was swept back. The gown that a master usually wore had been draped across a chair, ready to be donned should a boy be brought to him for punishment or, less likely, praise. Clearly he had no need of such accoutrements to impress or intimidate parents. Yet he gave the immediate impression of being a fair man, which inspired Maisie to wonder how bullying could survive in any environment in which he worked. Or perhaps that first impression was a blind.
“It’s no trouble at all, Miss Dobbs.” Cottingham took her hand and smiled, then returned to his chair behind the polished oak desk. “Please, be seated.” He paused. “Now then, how might I assist you? I understand that you are”—he reached forward to take up her card from the desk—“a private investigator and a psychologist. Very impressive, if I might say so. Where did you study?”
“At Girton and at the University of Edinburgh’s Department of Legal Medicine.”
“Well, well, well.” He set the card back on the desk. “Please, go on.”
“Our conversation must be in confidence.”
“Of course.”
“I would like to ask some questions about a former pupil—and you will have to cast your memory back a few years, I’m afraid.”
“Who?”
“Alfred Sandermere.”
“Oh, lord!” Cottingham rolled his eyes. “Once seen, never forgotten. If I were to pick three or four boys from my days here who might attract the attention of either the police or a private investigator, Sandermere might be at the top of the list.”
“Really, why?”
“Dreadful boy, such a chip on his shoulder. Typical second-son behavior, but multiplied by ten. Possibly because his older brother was definitely a top-drawer scholar, with first-class performance on the sports field—multiplied by ten!” He looked at his watch. “If you will excuse me, I’ll have his file brought up.”
Cottingham left the room, leaving Maisie on her own. It was the first opportunity she’d had to be in wakeful solitude since Simon died, less than twelve hours earlier. She stood up and paced to the window, which overlooked a quadrangle where boys congregated between classes. To the right a stone wall marked the perimeter of the headmaster’s house, beyond which, she suspected, a walled garden gave the impression of being in the country, rather than in west London. Had Simon attended such a school? She frowned. It occurred to her that she had little knowledge of his life before they met, except, perhaps, the snippets shared by Priscilla, for he had been a family friend and a cohort of her three brothers. Maisie’s entire knowledge of him was, more or less, limited to their time together and to life since then, a life spent grieving for a man not yet dead but lost to war all the same. And now he was dead, except that the true mourning had already been done, and there was little more to do now, except respectfully wear black until after the funeral. How would she fill the place he’d occupied? How would she use such freedom, now that it was hers? It was as if she were a seeding ground that had lain fallow for years and had now been freshly tilled. How, then, might she grow, now that he was gone?
“Ah, we’re in luck. My secretary found Sandermere, A.’s records with the greatest of ease. Terribly efficient, our Miss Larkin. Now then, let me see.” He resumed his place without questioning the fact that he had entered his study to find Maisie at the window. She sat opposite him once again.
“Not a terribly impressive academic record. Good at sports, but not what you would call a sportsman—he was a bad loser. Never could make him captain of the cricket or rugger teams, though he certainly had the physical accomplishment.” He turned a few pages.
“Can you tell me, specifically, about his suspensions?”
“That I can.” Cottingham reached for a sheaf of papers clipped separately into the folder. “I have the exact dates of suspensions, until, of course, his final expulsion from the school.” He unclipped the list in question and passed it to Maisie. “You may make a note of those dates. We released him to his father. As I understand it, he languished at his parents’ estate in Kent to consider his wrongdoings.”