A Lesson in Secrets_ A Maisie Dobbs Novel - Jacqueline Winspear [70]
“It’s not your fault, Priscilla—who would have believed that you might need to chain her to the bed?”
“Let’s have a cup of coffee and talk about what we’ll do next.”
“We’ll have the coffee, but finding Sandra is my job—I’m not entirely sure it’s completely safe for anyone else.”
Priscilla led Maisie to the kitchen, where the cook seemed surprised when the two women walked in and Priscilla went straight to a coffeepot set on the stove. “I’m making coffee, Mrs. Hawkins, not tea. And I need it very French and very, very strong.”
The cook shook her head and turned away to continue preparing vegetables.
Priscilla winked at Maisie and said aloud, “Mrs. Hawkins is convinced that I will take the lining off my stomach with the way I make coffee—aren’t you, Mrs. Hawkins?”
“Not my business to say, Mrs. Partridge.”
Priscilla made two large cups of strong coffee with frothy hot milk, and they went through to the drawing room.
“There, put your feet up while we talk.”
“I really must get going, Priscilla, but I needed this—I haven’t stopped all morning.”
“And you could do without this little spanner in the works.”
“I’m not sure it’s little.” She sipped her coffee, shook her head, and sighed. “Sandra was never like this. When she was at Ebury Place, she was such a diligent girl, very sympathetic to the needs of others. She did things in the way they should be done—you would never imagine her breaking into a building, even in the most pressing circumstances.”
“But the circumstances are probably beyond pressing. She’s like a good many women, Maisie; they toe the line very well until someone they love—a child, a spouse—is threatened or harmed, and then you see a completely different side to them. Had that not been so, then this country would never have come through the war. Wars are fought by men, Maisie—but the winning is down to women who are prepared to break windows for their own.” She paused. “You’ve got that distant look in your eyes—you’re miles away, aren’t you?”
“Just wondering where she might have gone. I doubt she would go to family—no, she wouldn’t want them to see her in such a state. Do you know if she had any money?”
Priscilla flushed. “Well, Douglas paid her just before she got herself into this situation, and I confess that when she came out, I tucked a few pounds into her pocket, just in case.”
“Then she could stay at a hotel, a boarding house; she would be safe for quite a while, because I also paid her last time I was in London, and, knowing Sandra, she has savings; as I said, she’s a diligent girl.”
“Would she have gone to her in-laws?”
“That’s a thought. I’ll get Billy onto it. And I’ll go back to the flat, to see if she has left her belongings in her room.”
“What if the police want to know where she is?”
“I doubt they’ll be contacting you. She’s free with no strings—except the ones attaching her to you and me. But having said that, I may contact them—I know someone who I think might help out without the balloon going up.”
They sat in silence for a moment. “They don’t want Sandra’s actions to get in the way of your work, do they?”
“I really can’t talk about it, Pris. You know that.”
“And the thing is, I have no idea who ‘they’ are, but you are working on something hush-hush, aren’t you?”
Maisie smiled. It was the second time in one day she’d heard the term. “I’m always working on something I have to keep quiet about; it’s the nature of my work. My clients come to me for that very reason—they have a secret and they don’t want anyone to know. So if I go chatting about it, the game’s up—you know rumors spread like wildfire on a hot