Among the Mad (22 page)

“What are you doing here, Pris?” asked Maisie as they
ascended the stairs. She drew Priscilla into her office, and pulled two chairs
in front of the gas fire, turning up the jets for more warmth.

“So, this is where you beaver away day after day in
the quest for justice, or whatever it is that you do here—you know, chasing
criminals and the like.”

“Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Do you have coffee, by any chance?”

“Sorry, Pris.”

Priscilla waved a begloved hand. Always elegant, she
was dressed in a pale gray costume, the jacket falling at thigh length with a
narrow belt at the waist, and the straight, almost fitted skirt brushing her
mid-calf. A black fur cape was draped around her shoulders, a match for black
shoes and handbag, from which she took a packet of cigarettes.

“Do you mind?”

“Well, actually, I would rather you didn’t. I’ll be
coughing all day.” Maisie rubbed her arms, feeling cold despite heat from the
fire. “Is everything all right, Priscilla?”

Priscilla’s eyes welled with tears. “Oh, nothing,
really. I just thought . . . look, perhaps we can nip out, somewhere where I
can light up.”

“You can wait for a bit. Come on, what’s wrong?”
Maisie looked at her friend of old, who even in her darkest hours had never
been one to slouch, now slipping down in the chair and clutching her cape
around her as if she yearned for comfort.

“Oh, Pris . . . ” Maisie knelt at Priscilla’s feet and
enveloped her with her arms. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I—I just don’t know what’s got into me. Look at me—I
have a lovely home, three simply smashing boys, a husband I adore, who adores
me in return—and I am just flailing around like a woman drowning.” Priscilla
did not draw back, but allowed herself to be held, and seemed to be curling up
like a child against her mother’s chest, so that she was surrounded by her
friend’s warmth and strength. “I feel such a goose. I have felt this knot
inside me getting tighter and tighter for days—and I am supposed to be looking
forward to a party.”

Maisie allowed silence to encroach upon Priscilla’s
weeping, and did not try to prevent the tears. Soon Priscilla sat back, but
kept a firm grip on Maisie’s hand.

“I don’t know what I would do if you weren’t here. All
the time I was in Biarritz, I missed your company very much, you know.” She
pressed her lips together, then continued. “But I have felt so at sea here.”

“You’ve had a huge change, Priscilla. Don’t
underestimate it. Life is very different here in London.”

Priscilla nodded. “I just don’t feel . . . I don’t
feel . . . as if I’m home.”

Maisie nodded and, while allowing Priscilla to
continue holding her hand, pulled a cushion from her chair and sat down at her
feet.

Priscilla sniffed, drew a handkerchief from her bag
and dabbed her eyes, then her nose. “I want to go back to Biarritz, only now,
after that rather shaky start, the boys are thoroughly enjoying being in
London, and Douglas is doing incredibly well indeed, so he’s in no hurry to
rush back.” She sighed. “Oh, I don’t know, I just can’t seem to settle.”

“You settled in Biarritz.”

Priscilla nodded, and her eyes welled with tears once
more. “What’s wrong with me, Maisie? You know all about this sort of thing.
What’s wrong with me?”

Maisie leaned back in her chair. “I can only tell you
what I believe ails you, Pris, though I may be wide of the mark.”

“No, please, tell me. Tell me what you think is wrong
with me. I mean, I am weeping from the time I say good-bye to my boys in the
morning to the time they come home. And I bite my lip to maintain a cheerful
face at social engagements.” She dabbed her eyes again. “I feel so bloody
selfish, Maisie. I mean, there are people starving in this country, men who
can’t work, people who dream of the advantages I have. And I’m a wilting mess.”

“Priscilla, when I came to Biarritz last year, you
talked to me about your life there. You were brutally honest with me, and you
helped me to see how I hadn’t stared down the dragon of my past—the dragon of
all our pasts, men and women like us, who saw the war at first hand. I remember
you telling me how you had come back from the brink, how you had built your
life again, about your family and what they mean to you. You found a place
where you could heal, a place that became your home. And that’s what we are all
looking for, isn’t it? A home. We’re looking for where we belong.”

“But I belong with my family, and they’re here.”

“Yes, of course, but don’t underestimate the wrench of
leaving the place where you found life again, Priscilla.”

“And I came back to the place where death stalked me.”
She looked down at her hand entwined in Maisie’s. “I couldn’t wait to get away
from here, you know. England was my home. I didn’t know it before the war, but
my family was my cocoon. I was so happy, Maisie, so happy. I had my brothers,
my mother and father, and life was just one big party, or so it seemed—then it
was gone. Just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “And I am so scared of
losing it all again.”

“You won’t lose it, Priscilla.”

“But I’m losing it already. My boys are growing, like
little men. And I worry so.” She paused. “Remember that summer before the war?
None of us saw it coming, not really. I think of that summer all the time,
think of my brothers, think of the past. And I am so scared it’s all going to
come crashing down again and I will lose them.”

Maisie reached forward and clasped both Priscilla’s
hands in her own. “You know, none of us can guarantee the future. Your boys
will be growing up wherever you are. They are as much at risk here as they were
swimming in the Atlantic in Biarritz—you know that. You are torturing yourself
with imaginings, Priscilla.”

“What can I do? I sometimes think my head will explode
with all these thoughts.”

“Then counter them with action. Do something, get
yourself out of that head of yours. It is no good lingering in the future, you
have to drag yourself back to the present.”

“How on earth . . . ?”

“Take your motor car into the country and find a place
to ride—you used to love being out on a horse. Or do some voluntary work. I
know you can’t stand all that committee lark, but you never know, you might
find a way to do some good. Worry about someone else’s worries—there are plenty
of them about, you know.”

“You’re right, it’s terribly indulgent.” Priscilla’s
smile was tight, a curve of red lips drawn up to show resolve.

“No, it’s not indulgent. It’s genuine, and what you
feel comes from your love of your family—just don’t let this emotion rob you of
your time with them. I know your boys are growing fast, but remember that each
day you are weaving a memory. Make sure you don’t look back at these times
through a veil of tears.”

Priscilla nodded and reached for her handbag. “Look at
the time. I’ve to be at Fortnum’s this morning to meet Duncan’s dowager aunt.”
She pulled on her black leather gloves. “She’s a bit of an old misery, to tell
you the truth, so I will take it as fair warning—be not like Gertrude!”

MAISIE SAW PRISCILLA to the door, waving to her until
she reached the Bugatti, then returned to her first-floor office. She sat back
in her chair alongside the fire, turning down the jets to save money, and
thought about her dear friend Priscilla, who had countless advantages, or so it
seemed. Yet with money, position, a happy family and a magnificent roof over
her head, she still searched for some sort of anchor, some part of her soul
that seemed to be missing. Even with such abundance, Priscilla did not feel
safe.

With these thoughts on her mind, Maisie picked up her
notebook and ran her finger down a list of names. She picked up the telephone
receiver to place the call that was interrupted by Priscilla’s arrival.

“May I speak to Dr. Anthony Lawrence, please?” She
waited for a moment until a second voice responded to her request. “Not in, but
you expect him tomorrow. I see. Yes. Do tell him that Miss Dobbs telephoned and
would like an appointment at his earliest convenience.” She paused again. “Yes,
would you ask if he would be so kind as to telephone me at my office? Thank
you.” She gave the telephone number and set the receiver in the cradle once
more.

It was not unusual for Dr. Lawrence to be unavailable,
given his responsibility to the patients of more than one hospital, but the
clerk who answered the telephone could not judge when he might return, which
was unusual. Maisie was about to reach for the receiver again when the
telephone rang.

“Fitzroy—”

“Miss Dobbs.” MacFarlane’s voice was low, as if he
feared being overheard. “I’d like you to come to the Yard. Expect a motor car
to be outside your office in the next ten minutes—a chariot to bear you here as
usual.”

“Have there been developments?”

“We can discuss the reasons when you get here—and not
on this line.”

“Right you are, Chief Superintendent.”

Maisie replaced the receiver, consulted the clock on
the mantelpiece once again, and lifted the receiver to dial an Oxford number.
She cleared her throat, ready to speak.

“Yes, may I leave a message for Professor Gale?” She
wove the telephone cord through her fingers. “Thank you. Tell him that Miss Dobbs
telephoned, and I would like to speak to him at his earliest convenience.” Once
more she spelled her name and gave the office telephone number. Doubtless both
calls would be returned while she was out of the office, and there would be
more telephone calls on her part until she effected conversation with the men.
That is, if she chose to wait that long.

As the police vehicle wove its way through the streets
of London, Maisie wondered, not for the first time, why a man she did not know
had mentioned her name in a letter. Had he known her after all? Could he have
been a patient in the wards where she had nursed the casualties of war who were
wounded in the mind? There were so many of them, men who had lingered,
forgotten as time faded memory in the way that the sun took color from the back
of an armchair set in front of a window. Had she known the man when she worked
for Maurice? To each question she drew a blank. She had been familiar with the
records of every man in her care, and there was no one with the knowledge to
build a deadly weapon. For the most part these men had been bank clerks or
carpenters; they had worked on the docks and in post offices; they had worked
the land, the factories and the canals. And though the war might have rendered
them a danger to themselves and others, there was not one who was as
calculating as the man who had murdered the junior minister.

“WHAT DO YOU make of that, Miss Dobbs?” MacFarlane
skimmed a manila file across his desk toward Maisie.

She leaned forward and took the file; then flipping
open the cover, she began to read. The senior pathologist was Bernard
Spilsbury, the famed forensic scientist. His notes were precise. The victim’s
death had taken place within three minutes of exposure to a substance with
which the department was not familiar. Three minutes. She had only been sitting
on the visiting side of MacFarlane’s desk for about three minutes, and it felt
like half an hour already. Three minutes in which one of the government’s
rising stars could feel himself dying, could feel his flesh being eaten
by—what? The report concluded that the poison had been administered in a powder
form, likely thrown into the man’s face when he turned toward the murderer. A
powder that had never been seen before.

“I see a sample of the powder has been sent for
additional testing.”

“Yes, to University College, the Department of
Chemistry.”

“Is a carbon copy of this available?”

MacFarlane held Maisie’s gaze before pursing his lips
and responding to her question. “You want to take the report to someone?”

She nodded. “Yes. And a sample of the powder.”

MacFarlane shook his head. “You can sit here and take
notes from the file, but you cannot have a sample. This stuff might be in
powder form, rather than a gas, but we’re not taking chances with even one
speck of it in the air in London.”

“I assure you I will take every care. I just want a
small sample, a few grains.”

“Who is he?”

“Professor John Gale. He’s a professor at Oxford—a
scientist—and he also works at Mulberry Point. He might be able to tell us if
it has been used before, even in a laboratory setting.”

“This will cost me my job, if it gets out.”

“It won’t.”

He stood up, pushing his chair back against the wall.
“I’ll think about it. In the meantime, remember Catherine the chemist wanted a
word with you. She’s being transferred to Holloway to await trial.”

Maisie nodded. “I’d better get on with it then.”

CATHERINE JONES WAS sitting at the same table as
before. She had made it clear that she would speak only if Maisie were left
alone with her, though it was pointed out that a woman police auxiliary would
remain in the room throughout the interview.