“Off we go, then. Sure of your way?”
“Yes, I know Dulwich. The journey shouldn’t take more than an hour, depending upon the traffic.” Maisie slipped the MG into gear and eased out into Warren Street.
“Let’s just go over what we already know about Waite. That Maurice had file cards on him is intriguing in itself.”
“Well, according to this first card, Dr. Blanche went to ’im askin’ for money for a clinic. What’s that about?” Billy glanced at Maisie, then looked ahead at the road. “It’s starting to come down.”
“I know. London weather, so fabulously predictable you never know what might happen,” observed Maisie before answering Billy’s question. “Maurice was a doctor, Billy; you know that. Before he specialized in medical jurisprudence, his patients had a bit more life in them.”
“I should ’ope so.”
“Anyway, years ago, long before I went to work at Ebury Place, Maurice was involved in a case that took him to the East End. While he was there, examining a murder victim, a man came rushing in shouting for help. Maurice followed the man to a neighboring house, where he found a woman in great difficulty in labor with her first child. The short story is that he saved her life and the life of the child, and came away determined to do something about the lack of medical care available to the poor of London, especially women and children. So for one or two days a week, he became a doctor for the living again, working with patients in the East End and then across the water, in Lambeth and Bermondsey.”
“Where does Waite come in?”
“Read the card and you’ll see. I think it was just before I came to Ebury Place, in 1910, that Maurice took Lady Rowan on one of his rounds. She was appalled and determined to help. She set about tapping all her wealthy friends for money so that Maurice might have a proper clinic.”
“I bet they gave her the money just to get her off their backs!”
“She has a reputation for getting what she wants and for not being afraid to ask. I think her example inspired Maurice. He probably met Waite socially and just asked. He knows immediately how to judge a person’s mood, and to use that—I suppose you’d call it energy—to his advantage.”
“Bit like you, Miss?”
Maisie did not reply but simply smiled. It had been her remarkable intuitive powers, along with a sharp intellect, that had led Maurice Blanche to accept her as his pupil and later as his assistant in the work he described as the forensic science of the whole person.
Billy continued. “Well, apparently old Dr. Blanche tapped Waite for five ’undred quid.”
“Look again, and you’ll probably find that the five hundred was the first of several contributions.” Maisie used the back of her hand to wipe away condensation accumulating inside the windshield.
“Oh ’ere’s another thing,” said Billy, suddenly leaning back with his eyes closed.
“What is it?” Maisie looked at her passenger, whose complexion was now rather green.
“I don’t know if I should read in the motor, Miss. Makes me go all queasy.”
Maisie pulled over to the side of the road and instructed Billy to open the passenger door, put his feet on the ground and his head between his knees. She took the cards and then summed up the notes on Joseph Waite. “Wealthy, self-made man. Started off as a butcher’s apprentice in Yorkshire—Harrogate—at age twelve. Quickly demonstrated a business mind. By the time he was twenty he’d bought his first shop. Cultivated the business, then outgrew it inside two years. Started selling fruit and veg as well, dried goods and fancy foods, all high quality and good prices. Opened another shop, then another. Now has several Waite’s International Stores in every city, and smaller Waite’s Fancy Foods in regional towns. What they all have in common is first-class service, deliveries, good prices, and quality foods. Plus he pays a surprise visit to at least one store each day. He can turn up at any time.”
“I bet they love that, them as works for ’im.”
“Hmmm, you have a point. Miss Arthur sounded like a rabbit on the run when we spoke on the telephone this morning.” Maisie flicked over the card she was holding. “Now this is interesting. . . .” she continued. “He called upon Maurice—yes, I remember this—to consult with him about ten years ago. Oh heavens. . . .”
“What is it? What does it say?” asked Billy, wiping his brow with a handkerchief.
“This is not like Maurice. It says only, ‘I could not comply with his request. Discontinued communication.’”
“Charmin’. So where does that put us today?”
“Well, he must still have a high opinion of Maurice to be asking for my help.” Maisie looked at Billy to check his pallor. “Oh dear. Your nose is bleeding! Quickly, lean back and press down on the bridge of your nose with this handkerchief.” Maisie pulled a clean embroidered handkerchief from her pocket, and placed it on Billy’s nose.
“Oh my Gawd, I’m sorry. First I ’ave to lean forward, then back. I dunno . . . I’m getting right in the way today, aren’t I?”
“Nonsense, you’re a great help to me. How’s that nose?”
Billy looked down into the handkerchief, and dabbed at his nose. “I think it’s better.”
“Now then, we’d better get going.”
Maisie parked outside the main gates leading to a red-brick neo-Georgian mansion that stood majestically in the landscaped grounds beyond an ornate wrought iron gate.
“D’you reckon someone’ll come to open the gate?” asked Billy.
“Someone’s coming now.” Maisie pointed to a young man wearing plus fours, a tweed hacking jacket, woolen shirt and spruce green tie. He hurriedly opened an umbrella as he ran toward the entrance, and nodded to Maisie as he unlatched the gates and opened them. Maisie drove the car forward, stopping alongside the man.
“You must be Miss Dobbs, to see Mr. Waite at three o’clock.”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“And your companion is . . . ?” The man bent forward to look at Billy in the passenger seat.
“My assistant, Mr. William Beale.”
Billy was still dabbing his nose with Maisie’s handkerchief.
“Right you are, M’um. Park in front of the main door please, and make sure you reverse into place, M’um, with the nose of your motor pointing toward the gate.”
Maisie raised an eyebrow at the young man, who shrugged.
“It’s how Mr. Waite likes it done, M’um.”
“Bit picky, if you ask me,” said Billy as Maisie drove toward the house. “‘Reverse in with nose pointing out’. Perhaps that’s ’ow I should walk in there, backwards, wiv me nose turned away! I wonder who ’e thinks ’e is?”
“One of the richest men in Britain, if not Europe.” Maisie maneuvered the car as instructed. “And as we know, he needs something from us, otherwise we wouldn’t be here. Come on.”
They strode quickly from the car toward the main door where a woman waited to greet them. She was about fifty-five, in Maisie’s estimation, and wore a plain slate gray mid-calf length dress with white cuffs and a white Peter Pan collar. A cameo was pinned to the center of her collar and her only other adornment was a silver wristwatch on a black leather strap. Her gray hair was drawn back so tightly that it pulled at her temples. Despite her austere appearance, when Maisie and Billy reached the top step she smiled warmly with a welcoming sparkle in her pale blue eyes.
“Come in quickly before you catch your death! What a morning! Mr. Harris, the butler, has been taken poorly with a nasty cold. I’m Mrs. Willis, the housekeeper. Let me take your coats.” Mrs. Willis took Maisie’s mackintosh and Billy’s overcoat, and passed them to a maid. “Hang them on the drier over the fireplace in the laundry room. Mr. Waite’s guests will be leaving in—” she looked at her watch “—approximately thirty-five minutes, so get the coats as dry as possible by then.”