Birds of a Feather
Read Birds of a Feather Online
Authors: Jacqueline Winspear
Birds of a Feather
ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
Maisie Dobbs
Birds of a Feather
A Novel
JACQUELINE WINSPEAR
Copyright © 2004 by Jacqueline Winspear
All rights reserved.
Published by
Soho Press, Inc.
853 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Winspear, Jacqueline, 1955–
Birds of a feather / by Jacqueline Winspear.
p. cm.
ISBN 1-56947-368-4 (alk. paper)
1. Women private investigators—England—London—Fiction. 2. Young women—Crimes against—Fiction. 3. Inheritance and succession—Fiction. 4. Children of the rich—Fiction. 5. World War, 1914–1918—Fiction. 6. London (England)—Fiction. 7. Missing persons—Fiction.
I. Title.
PR6123.I575 B57 2004
823'.92—dc22 2003025732
Designed by Kathleen Lake, Neuwirth & Associates, Inc.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Kenneth Leech
1919–2002
During my childhood I was lucky to have Ken Leech as my teacher. In the years of my growing up and into adulthood, I was privileged to count him among my friends.
How will you fare, sonny, how will you fare
In the far off winter night
When you sit by the fire in the old man’s chair
And your neighbors talk of the fight?
Will you slink away, as it were from a blow,
Your old head shamed and bent?
Or say, “I was not the first to go,
But I went, thank God, I went”?
—from the song “Fall In,” by Harold Begbie, 1914
CONTENTS
M
aisie Dobbs shuffled the papers on her desk into a neat pile and placed them in a plain manila folder. She took up green marble-patterned W.H. Smith fountain pen and inscribed the cover with the name of her new clients: Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Johnson, who were concerned that their son’s fiancée might have misled them regarding her past. It was the sort of case that was easily attended to, that would provide a useful reference, and that could be closed with presentation of a timely report and accompanying account for her services. But for Maisie the case notes would not be filed away until those whose lives were touched by her investigation had reached a certain peace with her findings, with themselves, and with one another—as far as that might be possible. As she wrote, a tendril of jet black hair tumbled down into her eyes. Sighing, she quickly pushed it back into the chignon at the nape of her neck. Suddenly, Maisie set her pen on the blotting pad, pulled the troublesome wisp of hair free so that it hung down again, and walked to the large mirror hanging on the wall above the fireplace. She unpinned her long hair and tucked it inside the collar of her white silk blouse, pulling out just an inch or so around her chin-line. Would shorter hair suit her?
“Perhaps Lady Rowan is right,” said Maisie to her reflection in the mirror. “Perhaps it
would
look better in a bob.”
She turned from side to side several times, and lifted her hair just slightly. Shorter hair might save a few minutes of precious time each morning, and it would no longer come free of the chignon and fall into her eyes. But one thing held her back. She lifted her hair and turned her head. Was the scar visible? Would shorter hair fall in such a way as to reveal the purple weal that etched a line from her neck into the sensitive flesh of her scalp? If her hair were cut, would she lean forward over her notes one day and unwittingly allow a client to see the damage inflicted by the German shell that had ripped into the casualty clearing station where she was working, in France, in 1917?
Looking at the room reflected in the mirror, Maisie considered how far she had come—not only from the dark dingy office in Warren Street that was all she had been able to afford just over a year ago, but from that first meeting with Maurice Blanche, her mentor and teacher, when she had been a maid in the household of Lord Julian Compton and his wife, Lady Rowan. It was Maurice and Lady Rowan who had noted Maisie’s intellect and ensured that she had every opportunity to pursue her hunger for education. They had made it possible for the former tweeny maid to gain admission to Girton College, Cambridge.
Maisie quickly pulled her hair into a neat chignon again, and as she pinned the twist into place, she glanced out of the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked Fitzroy Square. Her assistant, Billy Beale, had just turned in to the square and was crossing the rain-damp gray flagstones toward the office. Her scar began to throb. As she watched Billy, Maisie began to assume his posture. She moved toward the window with shoulders dropped, hands thrust into imaginary pockets, and her gait mimicking the awkwardness caused by Billy’s still-troublesome war wounds. Her disposition began to change, and she realized that the occasional malaise she had sensed several weeks ago was now a constant in Billy’s life.
As she looked down at him from what had once been the drawing room window of the Georgian building, he stretched the cuff of his overcoat over the palm of his hand and polished the brass nameplate informing visitors that the office of M. Dobbs, Psychologist and Investigator, was situated within. Satisfied, Billy straightened, drew back his shoulders, stretched his spine, ran his fingers through his tousled shock of wheaten hair, and took out his key to the main door. Maisie watched as he corrected his posture.
You can’t fool me, Billy Beale,
she said to herself. The front door closed with a heavy thud, and the stairs creaked as Billy ascended to the office.
“Morning, Miss. I picked up the records you wanted.” Billy placed a plain brown envelope on Maisie’s desk. “Oh, and another thing, Miss, I bought a
Daily Express
for you to ’ave a butcher’s ’ook at.” He took a newspaper from the inside pocket of his overcoat.“That woman what was found murdered in ’er own ’ome a week or two ago down in Surrey—you remember, in Coulsden—well, there’s more details ’ere, of who she was, and the state she was in when she was found.”
“Thank you, Billy,” said Maisie, taking the newspaper.
“She was only your age, Miss. Terrible, innit?”
“It certainly is.”
“I wonder if our friend . . . well, your friend, really—Detective Inspector Stratton—is involved?”