Messenger of Truth (12 page)

Maisie looked around the room. The wooden paneling must have once been dark brown, varnished then waxed to a glorious shine. Now it was painted in different colors, a checkerboard of green and yellow with a blue border. In each yellow square, someone had painted a geometric interpretation of a butterfly, a moth or a bee on the flower. Above the blue picture rail, a golden spider’s web ran up to and across the ceiling, with the center of the web at exactly the point at which the light fixture had been added.

“Caught in the Bassington-Hope web!” Maisie smiled to herself as she contemplated the serendipitous assignment of guest room. She walked through to the bathroom, which was mercifully plain, she thought, painted in white, with white tiles surrounding the ancient claw-footed bath and covering the floor. A dark oak chair was situated in one corner and a matching towel rail in another. As she leaned over to turn on the taps, however, she noticed that both pieces of furniture had likely been made to match the room, for the chair had a butterfly carved as if it had just landed on the back, and the towel rail bore a wooden spider climbing along one side. Returning to the bedroom, a closer inspection of the counterpane revealed a patchwork design of garden insects, with needlepoint cushions on the window seat crafted to match. As the bath filled with piping-hot water, Maisie turned to see a poem painted on the back of the door. It was a simple verse, a child’s poem. No doubt the room was the work of Georgina and Nick together, the furniture had been made by Piers, with the counterpane and cushions designed by Emma. Was every room in this house an exhibition of the Bassington-Hopes’ artistry? And if so, how did Nolly feel about being excluded from the hive of activity, for thus far Maisie had seen no evidence of her involvement.

Maisie found Piers to be most solicitous toward his wife and daughters, formally crooking his left elbow for Emma to rest her hand and be escorted into the dining room, then stepping aside for his daughters and Maisie to enter first. He led Emma to one end of the table, made sure she was comfortable, then waited for the women to be seated before taking his place opposite his wife. Emma was wearing a deep-red velvet gown with a black shawl around her shoulders. Her gray hair had been brushed back, but remained loose, neither braided nor coiled.

“Now you’ll be treated to Daddy’s wines!” Georgina reached for her table-napkin, then turned to Piers. “What are we having this evening to grace the duck, Daddy?”

Piers smiled. “Last year’s damson.”

“Fruity with an oakish balance,” added Georgina.

“Utter tosh!” Nolly reached for her glass, as Gower, now dressed in formal attire, served a rich blood-red wine from a crystal decanter. “Not the wine, of course, Daddy, but Georgina’s description, as usual trimmed with lace!”

“Girls, please! Let’s not bicker in front of our guest.”

“Hear, hear, Em, hear, hear.” Piers raised an eyebrow in mock annoyance, then reached out to place a hand on the hand of each daughter. “They may be grown women, Maisie, but together they can be like cats!”

“And when Nick was here, why—”

Maisie looked from Emma to Piers. The head of the Bassington-Hope household had released his daughters’ hands, and now looked down, shaking his head.

“Oh, darling, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have.” Emma shook her head, admonishing herself. “It was the wrong moment, with us all together here, and with company.”

“If you would excuse me—” Piers placed his table-napkin next to his still-full glass and left the room.

Nolly pushed back her chair, as if to follow her father.

“Noelle!” Emma used her elder daughter’s Chistian name, which, Maisie noticed, caused her to turn immediately. “Let your father have a moment. We all feel grief, and we never know when it might catch us. For Piers, it is as a father for his son, and none of us know how deeply that might touch the heart.”

“Emsy’s right, you know, Nolly, you always think you can—”

“Enough, Georgina. Enough!” Emma turned to Maisie and smiled. “Now then, Maisie, I understand that you are good friends with Lady Rowan Compton. Did you know we were presented at court in the same year?”

Maisie held her wineglass by the stem and leaned aside as Mrs. Gower served pea soup from the tureen. She smiled at her hostess. “What a coincidence! No, I didn’t know. I bet she was quite a firebrand in her day.”

“My goodness, yes. In fact, I think that’s why I quite admired her, you know. After all, neither of us really enjoyed that sort of thing, though one was terribly honored to be presented to Her Majesty. Of course, she went off and married Julian Compton—he was considered quite the catch—when, according to my mother, her mother feared that she might take up with that funny man, what was his name?” She tapped the table, trying to remember.

“Maurice Blanche?” offered Maisie.

“Yes, that’s the one. Of course, he’s very famous now, isn’t he?”

Maisie nodded.

“And I—thank heavens,” continued Emma, “found an artist who saw the world from eyes like mine,
and
who also had a name, much to my parents’ delight.”

“Talking about how fortunate you were to bag me, eh, Emsy?”

“Darling, yes I am!” Emma Bassington-Hope’s eyes glistened as her husband entered the room once again, taking his place at the head of the table.

“Here we go, ready for a walk down memory lane, Piers?” Nolly rolled her eyes in a conspiratorial fashion.

“A finer walk could not be had—if our new friend could bear to join us.” Piers looked to Maisie.

“Of course. And I must say, this is an exquisite wine.”

“Yes, and hopefully there will be more of it—where’s Gower?” Nolly interjected again.

Two more decanters of Piers Bassington-Hope’s carefully crafted wine tempered the family’s tensions and, thought Maisie, made them sparkling company. By eleven o’clock they were lingering over the cheese course, Piers had loosened his tie at Emma’s request and the two sisters were finally at ease with each other.

“Do let’s tell Maisie about the big play. You remember, when Nick almost drowned dear little Harry in the river.”

“Should’ve held his head down a bit longer!”

“Oh, Nolly, come on!” Georgina reached across and tapped her sister playfully on the hand, and they both began to laugh. She turned to Maisie. “Now then, I think Nolly must have been sixteen, because Harry was only four.”

“I
was
sixteen, silly—it was my birthday!”

Piers laughed. “Sweet sixteen and we invited everyone we knew for the weekend. How many sixteen-year-olds have two members of Parliament, three actors, a clutch of poets and writers and I don’t know how many artists at her party?”

“And not one other sixteen-year-old!” Nolly turned to Maisie, giggling. Maisie thought that she was most like her sister when she laughed.

Georgina took up the story. “We decided to do a river play—all of us.”

Maisie shook her head. “What’s a river play?”

“A play on the river! Seriously, we had to compose a play that could be acted from the rowing boats, so we thought it would be a good idea to plunder Viking history.”

“Pity we didn’t know your friend Stig, then, isn’t it?”

“Now then…” Piers cautioned his eldest daughter, concerned that such a remark might annoy Georgina, who just waved her hand as if swatting a fly.

“There we were, all dressed up in our finery, the actors in boats, thee-ing and thy-ing and throwing hysterical fits of dramatic art back and forth, and Nick decided, on the spur of the moment, to bring some realism into the play. Harry, dear Harry, had just mastered the recorder and had been cast as a court jester—he was always either the dog or the court jester—” Georgina could hardly speak for laughing, aided, thought Maisie, by another glass of the somewhat lethal damson wine.

Nolly continued where her sister left off. “So, Nick picked up Harry, saying, ‘I shall cast yonder servant into the sea!’ and threw him in the river. Well, of course, Harry went down like an anchor, and there was a bit of laughing, until Emma screamed from the bank, which reminded us that he couldn’t swim! Very stupid, when I come to think of it.”

“Anyway, Nick leaped into the water—which wasn’t that deep—and pulled out poor spluttering Harry.” Georgina was now in fits of laughter.

Piers smiled. “Maisie, this is the sort of high jinks our children got up to when they were younger—terrifying at times, thoroughly mischievous in hindsight, but good for a laugh later on.”

Maisie inclined her head and nodded agreement, though she wondered if Harry found the experience mischievous,
in hindsight
.

“And,” added Georgina, “I remember poor little wet Harry screaming, ‘I hate you, Nick, I hate you! Just you wait until I grow up!’ Which of course incited Nick to even more teasing, along the lines of ‘You and your army, eh, Harrykins?’”

The laughter subsided and Emma suggested retiring to the drawing room for coffee. As they relaxed in front of the fire, Emma brought out photograph albums, telling detailed stories of this event or that. Soon, however, the wine that had aided such mirth an hour earlier now rendered the group more than a little soporific.

Maisie returned to her room, warm and cozy as Gower had made up the fire before retiring. A hot-water bottle had been placed in the bed and an extra blanket folded across the counterpane. She undressed, put on the nightgown left by Georgina and snuggled under the covers. Before turning off the light, Maisie leaned back on the pillows and gazed at the golden threads of the spider’s web above. She found the Bassington-Hopes almost as intoxicating as Piers’s homemade wine, though she had taken only a few sips at dinner. She was warmed by the intimacy of their stories, the sharing of family events and photographs. But was she captivated by the color, by the sheer audacity of the family? And if so, could she be blindsided by them, unable to discern something important with her usual integrity?

It was clear that Nick Bassington-Hope was the blue-eyed boy of the family. And despite their differences, Maisie detected a respect between Noelle and Georgina, as if each held the other’s strength and bravery in some account. Though Noelle might have thought that Georgina took enormous risks, and clearly disapproved of her way of life, she was proud of her sister’s accomplishments as a journalist. For her part, Georgina may well be frustrated by her sister’s bossy behavior, the disapproval even of her parents, but she was filled with compassion for the woman who had lost her husband to war, the young man she clearly adored. Georgina, too, was a woman alone, and understood Noelle’s quest to rebuild her life, the need to fashion a future with financial security, with companionship and with meaning.

Noelle had been completely honest with Maisie about her ambitions for the estate, and her belief that they should use Nick’s legacy to fund repairs and an income foundation based upon more than the leased farms and proceeds from the sale of various crops. It was evident that she considered both Nick and Georgina “troublesome” and Harry a lost cause.
A musician, if you please!

And as Maisie replayed each and every sentence in their conversation, along with an image of the way Noelle moved when she made a point, or waited for Maisie to complete a question, she was struck by the fact that the eldest sibling—the one who tried, with limited success, to rule the Bassington-Hope roost, who acted more like a matriarch than her mother—had, apparently, never asked to speak to the person who discovered Nick’s body, had held back from visiting the gallery and had declined the pilgrimage to a London mortuary to say that final farewell to her brother. While the older sister was recounting events at one of Nick’s exhibitions, Georgina—who was more than a little tipsy and leaning toward Maisie on the soft-cushioned settee—whispered, “She didn’t even come to see him at the chapel of rest.”

No, Maisie had not finished with “poor Nolly” yet, any more than she had with any of the Bassington-Hopes, Georgina included. And then there was Harry. What was it that Georgina’s father had said about his younger son, when they were looking at photographs taken of the children in the summer of 1914? It was when he pointed out the photograph of Noelle, Georgina, Nicholas and Harry, who was about twelve years of age at the time, some ten years younger than the twins, and about half Noelle’s age. “And there he is, bringing up the rear. Harry. Always behind, always on the edge, that’s Harry.”

Burrowing under the covers, Maisie pondered the words before sleep claimed her:
Always behind, always on the edge, that’s Harry.

An early morning thaw, together with the efforts of the industrious tenant farmer and his shire horses, meant that the avenue leading to Bassington Place was cleared of snow by eleven, allowing Maisie to leave at noon with Georgina, who had claimed a lift back into London. After a journey that proved to be slow-going, they reached Chelstone. The women conversed comfortably throughout the drive, though in quiet times, Maisie found herself questioning the source of an unease in Georgina’s company that had dogged her from the time the woman had first come to her office in Fitzroy Square. At first she had brushed it aside, but now the sensation was hard to ignore. As much as she admired Georgina’s strength and felt a compassion for her as she mourned her brother, there was something that nagged at her. It was as they drove through the village of Chelstone that a single word came to Maisie with such power that she almost said it out loud. The word was
doubt
. Her sense of confidence was being undermined by doubt, though she did not know whether it was her ability that she doubted, or her relationship with Georgina and the other Bassington-Hopes or the case itself. She wished she had time alone to think, to discover the cause of a potentially crippling emotion.

“I say, what a pile, Maisie. And I thought Bassington Place was sprawling! You certainly kept this quiet, didn’t you?” Georgina’s voice sounded loud to Maisie.

“Oh, we’re not going to the main house, Georgina. My father lives in the Groom’s Cottage.” She turned left down a lane just past the Dower House, where Maurice Blanche lived, and drew up alongside the small beamed cottage that was her father’s home. “I shan’t be a moment.”

“I’m not sitting out here in the freezing cold! Come on, you’ve met my family. It’s my turn now.” Georgina opened the passenger door and almost ran to the cottage, rubbing her arms as she went.

Before Maisie could take another step, the door had opened and Frankie Dobbs, expecting to see his daughter, instead came face to face with Georgina Bassington-Hope. Maisie felt her cheeks flush. This was only the third time since her mother died that someone she would introduce as a “friend” had come to the house. There had been Simon during the war, then Andrew last year, but no one else.

“Dad, this is—” Maisie slammed the driver’s door.

“Georgina Bassington-Hope. Absolutely delighted to meet you, Mr. Dobbs.”

Frankie appeared somewhat startled, but was quick to welcome Georgina. “Pleasure to meet you, miss.” He beamed as Maisie approached, taking her in his arms as she leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek. “Come on inside, both of you. It’s brassy out here.”

Once in the cottage, Frankie pulled another chair in front of the fire. “You didn’t tell me you’d be bringing a friend home, Maisie. I’d’ve bought something special for tea.”

“It was a last-minute decision, Dad. We’d been snowed in and Georgina needed a lift back to London.”

“I’ll put the kettle on.” Frankie moved toward the kitchen.

“We’re not staying, Dad. I’ve just come to—”

“Nonsense!” Georgina took off her coat and scarf, placed them across the back of an armchair and stood with her back to the fire. “A cup of tea to fortify us for the road would be excellent. Shall I lend a hand?”

Maisie flushed again, annoyed with Georgina for taking liberties—first when she insisted upon coming into the house, and now in assuming that she could just march in and do as she wanted. “No, that’s all right. I’ll go.”

Laughter came from the sitting room as Maisie bustled around the kitchen gathering cups and saucers and setting them on the tray with such energy that she thought they might crack. She knew her behavior was juvenile, knew that if she tried to explain her mood, she would seem—and feel—churlish, but as she listened to Georgina asking her father questions, drawing him out so that the usually reticent man conversed easily, Maisie wanted to run into the room and stop the exchange immediately.
Why do I feel like this?
Was it possible that she was jealous of Georgina, of her colorful family, of the ease with which she assumed the position of engaging guest? Lifting the heavy kettle from the stove, Maisie filled the teapot with boiling water, realizing, as she pulled away from the rising hot steam, that she wanted to protect her father, wanted to stop the conversation so that no more was revealed of their life together. She set the kettle on the stove again, placed the lid on the teapot and lingered.
I do not trust her.
Yes, that was where the doubt was rooted, in a lack of trust.

Having let her guard down while at Bassington Place, Maisie felt that Georgina was using that knowledge of her, overstepping the mark, giving her father the impression of a friendship that did not—could not—exist between them. She picked up the tea tray and, stooping to avoid the low beam above the door, returned to the sitting room, determined to wrest control of the conversation.

It was a half an hour later that Maisie insisted they should leave, given the possibility of poor road conditions. Frankie Dobbs donned a heavy woolen jacket so that he could wave them off. As she pulled out onto the carriage sweep, she automatically looked to her left before proceeding right and saw Lady Rowan walking across the snow-covered lawn with her three dogs at heel. She waved her walking stick in the air to attract Maisie’s attention.

“Who’s that?” asked Georgina.

“Lady Rowan Compton. Look, please stay here, Georgina, I really must say a quick hello.”

Georgina opened her mouth to speak, but Maisie had already stepped from the motor car and slammed the door behind her before running to greet her former employer.

“I say, lovely to see you, Maisie—though I do wish I had known you were at Chelstone. It’s a long time since we sat down for a chat.”

“It’s a flying visit, Lady Rowan, I needed to collect my case. I was snowed in while visiting a friend and couldn’t return to Chelstone until this morning. Now we’re back off into town.”

Lady Rowan squinted toward the motor. “Is that your doctor friend in the MG?”

Maisie shook her head. “Oh, no. That’s the friend I stayed with last night, Georgina Bassington-Hope.”

“Bassington-Hope?” Maisie noticed the older woman’s posture change with her words, her back becoming straighter, her shoulders bracing. “Daughter of Piers and Emma Bassington-Hope, by any chance?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Lady Rowan shook her head. “Well, I never.”

“Is something wrong, Lady Rowan?”

“No, no, nothing at all.” She smiled at Maisie, then added in a brisk manner, “Better not keep you. It’s turned into a lovely day, with the sun streaking across the snow. The roads will be clearer now, so you’ll have a good run back into town.” The dogs began to bark as they ran in the direction of the Groom’s Cottage, for they had seen Frankie Dobbs, whom they knew to be a source of treats. “Oh, dear, just when I thought they were behaving. Cheerio, Maisie.”

Maisie said good-bye, ran to her MG and set off. When she looked back before turning onto the Tonbridge Road, she saw Lady Rowan standing with her father, both of them staring after the motor car. Though Frankie Dobbs gave a final wave, Lady Rowan did not raise her hand. Even from a distance Maisie knew that she was frowning.

MAISIE WAS DELIGHTED
to return to her own flat to find that the radiators were now warm to the touch. It was enough to contribute to the costs of the central boiler, without adding on a gas fire. Thank heavens the builders had decided not to put in one of the efficient, but so expensive, electric fires.

Sitting in an armchair, her legs curled to one side, she rested a notebook on her knees and jotted some notes. Despite thoughts and feelings that assailed her earlier in the day, there was nothing to convince her that Nick Bassington-Hope’s death was anything but an accident. However, if she assumed foul play, she might make progress swiftly. She must look for evidence, motive and a killer. She had not wanted to work in this way at first, for a method based on assumption might lead to misunderstanding, viewing some innocent item as a vital clue, or an offhand comment as the basis for an inaccurate conclusion. She had seen such things happen with the police, when it was obvious that pressure was coming from a higher quarter to make an arrest. Though her approach sometimes took more time, the accuracy of her accomplishments bore out the integrity of her work. But this time, to create momentum, she would take that alternative tack.

Maisie closed her eyes. Envisioning the gallery, she brought to mind the artist working on his platform. He was securing the anchors that would hold the triptych, which must have been quite large. Or was it? The studio in his carriage home would have accommodated a canvas of about eight feet in height, at a pinch, if the canvas were set at an angle for the artist to work. She considered the place where the triptych would hang. Yes, that would have been about right for a center piece, say, eight feet by four or five feet. Then side panels. She thought back to the mural. Everyone assumed that the lost work comprised three pieces, but what if there were more? Would that make a difference to the outcome? She would study the wall in as great a detail as possible to try to ascertain what preparation Nick was making—indentations in the wall where anchors had been placed might provide a clue to the number of pieces, though the screws and nails used in the construction of scaffolding had also left their mark, despite later renovation work.

A clock on the mantelpiece struck the hour. It was six o’clock, time to get ready for Georgina Bassington-Hope’s party. She was dreading it. The truth was that she knew she would feel ill at ease, and not only due to the doubts that had enveloped her earlier in the day. The very thought of a party brought to mind her years at Girton, when she returned after the war to complete her studies. There were occasions when she and other women were invited to parties, usually by men also taking up their studies once again, or younger men embarking upon them. And it seemed as if everyone wanted to dance the past away. For Maisie, such events usually meant an hour or two holding up the wall, a barely sipped drink in her hand, before leaving without even locating a host to thank. She had been to only one party she had ever enjoyed, where she had ever allowed herself to let down her defenses, and that was at the beginning of the war. Her friend Priscilla had taken her to a party being thrown by the parents of Captain Simon Lynch, who wanted to give him a joy-filled farewell before he left for France. Memories of that party remained bittersweet. Since then, despite the passage of time along with academic and professional success, she had never managed to garner confidence in such social situations.

Dressing in her black day dress along with the knee-length pale-blue cashmere cardigan and matching stole that Priscilla had given her last year, Maisie brushed out her hair, rubbed a little rouge on her cheeks and added a sweep of color to her lips. Checking her watch as she dropped it into the cardigan pocket, she took the navy coat from the wardrobe in her bedroom, collected her black shoulder bag, then pushed her feet into her black shoes with the single straps that she’d left by the door.

Maisie had debated the most appropriate time to arrive for the party, which, according to the invitation, started at seven, with a light supper to be served at nine. She didn’t want to be the first to arrive, but neither did she want to enter late and miss someone with whom it would behoove her to engage in conversation.

It was not possible to travel at more than a crawl along the Embankment, so dense was the ochre smog that enveloped buses, horses and carts and pedestrians alike—not that there were many of the latter out on a murky Sunday night. Parking close to the red-brick mansions, Maisie was grateful to secure a parking spot from which she could see people enter Georgina’s flat, and get her bearings, if only for a moment. It was cold, so she pulled the wrap around her neck and blew across her fingers as she waited for more guests to arrive.

An elegant couple arrived in a chauffeur-driven motor car, the woman—thankfully, observed Maisie—not wearing evening dress but clearly something shorter for what had now become the “cocktail” hour. On her way to Chelsea, it had occurred to Maisie that an evening dress may have been more appropriate, an academic thought, in any case, as she did not own a gown. Another motor car screeched to a halt in front of the wrong mansion, whereupon the driver slammed the vehicle into reverse gear with a grinding crunch, the brakes squealing as he then shuddered to a halt alongside the correct address. Two women and a man alighted, all looking a bit tipsy, whereupon the driver yelled that he was going to find a spot for the motor car, which he drove just another few feet and parked haphazardly before leaving the vehicle with the lights on. Maisie decided that rather than call after him, she would locate the man when she went into the party.

Maisie reached for her bag and was just about to open the door when another motor car pulled up, followed by a second that she recognized immediately. She hoped that her vehicle could not be easily seen from the front of the building. Fortunately, in the darkness, the usually distinctive claret would blend in among other motor cars parked on the street. As she watched, Stratton stepped from the Invicta, whereupon he approached the first motor car just as the man she had seen him speaking to yesterday alighted onto the pavement. They didn’t shake hands, so Maisie assumed they had met earlier, or—and this was a new consideration—that they didn’t particularly care for each other. A young woman, dressed for a party, followed the man from the first motor, and as both Stratton and the man spoke to her, she nodded. Maisie suspected the woman might be one of the new female recruits to detection working with Dorothy Peto at Scotland Yard. She waited. Soon the woman entered Georgina’s building, whereupon the two men returned to their respective vehicles and departed. Maisie ducked as they drove past, hoping, again, that she had not been seen.