A Lesson in Secrets_ A Maisie Dobbs Novel - Jacqueline Winspear [85]
“Could you follow that taxi-cab, please? The lady dropped her purse, and she was walking so quickly, I couldn’t catch up with her—and what with the noise, she didn’t hear me when I called.”
“You’re a right Samaritan, that you are, Miss. Not to worry, I’ll make sure you get off at the same place.”
Maisie soon realized the taxi-cab in front of them was traveling in the direction of Belgravia—she knew it well from her days living at the Comptons’ Ebury Place mansion. With traffic increasing as London’s workers rushed home, the taxi-cab carrying Francesca Thomas vanished from sight.
“Sorry, love, I reckon I lost them. From the turn he took, it looks like he went around that side of Eaton Square.”
“Oh dear.”
“She’s probably a foreigner, anyway.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Well, a fair bit of the street there is taken up with the Belgian Embassy. Consulate, or whatever they call it. It’s all foreigners. Mind you, I’d rather have the Belgians than some of ’em, eh?”
“Could you drive around the square for me?”
“Just in case you see her? Right you are.”
The driver brought the motor car to a crawl as Maisie studied the buildings around the square. Francesca Thomas might have gone into any one of the mansions; she could have a friend with a flat there—indeed, she could have a lover. Perhaps that’s why there was something that Maisie doubted about her; she was a striking woman, the sort who rarely seemed to marry, but also never wanted for male company, though they give the impression of having little time for the rituals of courtship. Thomas was not a woman who one thought might want to be married, or indeed one who was wrapped up in an affair of the heart, though she did seem to be a woman of controlled passions. Maisie wondered about the phrase—it had just slipped into her mind. Controlled passions.
“Look, I don’t mind taking your money, but if you like, I’ll run you back to the station—you can give the purse to the railway police.”
“Very good idea—thank you.” She sighed and leaned back in the taxi-cab. What a waste of time. A wild-goose chase when the last thing she needed was to run around chasing her tail like a demented dog. She couldn’t face going back to Cambridge at that moment, so she leaned forward and tapped on the window.
“Yes, Miss?”
“Could you take me to Limehouse?”
“Limehouse, Miss? With that purse on you, to say nothing of your own belongings and my takings?”
“Don’t worry, we’ll be safe enough. I can go to the station later, but I need to see someone in Limehouse—and perhaps you’d be so kind as to wait for me?”
“If you don’t mind paying, I’ll wait for ten minutes.”
“Right you are. I’ll tell you where to go when we reach Limehouse Causeway.”
Following another stop-start journey, Maisie directed the driver to an address she had remembered from a visit almost twenty years earlier.
“I won’t be long—and don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it looks; I thought a taxi-cab driver would know that half the myths about Limehouse and Chinese slave traders are just that.”
“Never mind the bleedin’ myths, hurry up and do your business or whatever it is you’re doing, and I’ll be waiting here.”
To be sure, Limehouse was a slum, a dark maze of streets and alleys overhung with a listless moldering smog that seemed to lift only slightly in spring and summer. Soon coal fires would seed the yellow pea-soupers that tested the navigation skills of any sailor emerging from one of the bars or opium dens, many of which were suffering the economic depression as much as West End shops. Maisie looked up at the double-fronted warehouse-like building facing the street and knocked at the wooden door. There was a hatch in the door, embellished with the owner’s chop. Within a moment, the hatch was slipped back with a snap, and a pair of dark almond-shaped eyes gazed out at Maisie.
“I’m here to see Mr. Clarence. He may not remember me, but tell him my name is Maisie Dobbs, and that I am a friend of Dr. Maurice Blanche.”
The hatch was closed, and within three or four minutes