• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 564 0

If she could secure a room in a guesthouse, she would stay overnight and return to the college the following morning, in time for her class at eleven o’clock. And if she could at least see one or two of the people on her list, she could come back to Ipswich again towards the end of the week to investigate further. It meant she might not be able to return to London on Friday, so she’d have to review the week with Billy and Sandra in a telephone call. Maisie sighed. She had hoped to spend some more time with Sandra—she was worried about her. And she had left her with some pamphlets on evening classes at Birkbeck College—in the hope that her interest might be sufficiently piqued to consider extending her education, which Maisie thought could help her find a way through her grief. She had been planning to ask Sandra what she thought of the idea. And she also wanted to find out if Billy had made any headway in the search for more information on Eric’s death.

The Lavender Inn was snuggled along a side street within ten minutes’ walking distance of the station, which suited Maisie well; fortunately, there was a vacancy. She left a small bag with the few personal belongings she had traveled with in her room and set off to find the first address, which was in the town—in fact, all of the addresses, bar one, were within a reasonable distance by foot or bus. Walking past buildings through which an architectural history of the town could be traced—from the beamed wattle-and-daub hall-houses of medieval times to the Gothic redbrick Cornhill building and Victorian terraces—she eventually found the home she was looking for in Saltwater Lane. As she knocked on the door, a dog barked from deep within the small terrace house and was reprimanded for causing a noise. Footsteps moved closer towards the door, which opened to reveal a heavyset man with a handlebar mustache and oiled hair parted in the center. His eyes seemed larger than they might have been, due to the thick spectacles on his nose. He held a newspaper in his hand and looked at Maisie over the glasses in order to focus on her face.

“Mr. Linden?”

“Who wants him?”

“My name is Maisie Dobbs, and I have come from a college in Cambridge in search of one of our employees. She left due to family matters without collecting her wages, so I thought I would bring them to her—but we don’t have an address. Her name is Rosemary Linden, and I thought you might know of her.”

“The man shook his head. “Don’t know anyone of that name.”

“Do you know the other Lindens in Ipswich?”

“There’s my boy, Stephen, and his family. And my brother’s widow, Rose. They didn’t have children, so there’s no Lindens on that side—in any case, she passed recently, about a month ago. We hadn’t seen her for years anyway. And if there are other Lindens, they’re not us.”

“I see.” Maisie paused. “So you wouldn’t know a Rosemary Linden, about twenty-eight years of age?”

“No, no Rosemary Linden that I know of.”

A voice came from the back of the house. “Cy-ril! Cyril, your dinner’s getting cold.”

The man began to close the door, but Maisie held out her hand. “Please wait. Let me write down my name and my address in Cambridge. I realize it would be most unlikely, but if you come across the name Rosemary Linden, would you be so kind as to send me a postcard? I would really appreciate it.”

Maisie allowed the man so see the cash in her purse as she looked for a pencil. Though she did not offer money, the glimpse would—she hoped—suggest a monetary reward for information. She thanked him for his help, wished him a good evening, and went on her way. She could leave Stephen Linden and his family for now, though she wondered about the newly deceased Rose, who, according to Linden, had died about one month before. It was now getting on for seven o’clock, so she decided to catch a bus and walk along to Beet Street—and the small cottage that had been the home of Rose Linden.

The cottage and garden seemed to have been well tended, though the grass was high, the shrubs in need of pruning, and the weeds on the cusp of being out