Maisie Dobbs Read Free Page B

Square. Once across the square, she entered Guilford Street, where she stopped to look at the mess the powers that be had made of Coram's Fields. The old foundling hospital, built by Sir Thomas Coram almost two hundred years before, had been demolished in 1926, and now it was just an empty space with nothing to speak of happening to it. "Shame," whispered Maisie, as she walked another few yards and entered Mecklenburg Square.
    Named in honor of Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who became queen consort upon her marriage to George III of England, the gracious Georgian houses of the square were set around a garden protected by a wrought-iron fence secured with a locked gate. Doubtless a key to the lock was on a designated hook downstairs at the Davenham residence, in the butler's safekeeping. In common with many London squares, only residents had access to the garden.
    Maisie jotted a few more lines in her notebook, taking care to reflect that she had been to the square once before, accompanying Maurice Blanche during a visit to his colleague, Richard Tawney, the political writer who spoke of social equality in a way that both excited and embarrassed Maisie. At the time it seemed just as well that he and Maurice were deep in lively conversation, so that Maisie's lack of ease could go unnoticed.
    While waiting at the corner and surveying the square, Maisie wondered if Davenham had inherited his property. He seemed quite out of place in Mecklenburg Square, where social reformers lived alongside university professors, poets, and scholars from overseas. She considered his possible discomfort, not only in his marriage but in his home environment. As Maisie set her gaze on one house in particular, a man emerged from a neighboring house and walked in her direction. She quickly feigned interest in a window box filled with crocus buds peeking through moist soil. Their purple shoots seemed to test the air to see if it was conducive to a full-fledged flowering. The man passed. Maisie still had her head inclined toward the flowers when she heard another door close with a thud, and looked up.
    A woman had emerged from the residence she had been observing, and was now depositing a set of keys in her handbag. She adjusted her hat and made her way down the steps and onto the pavement. Christopher Davenham had provided Maisie with an excellent description of his wife, Celia, a petite, fair-complected woman with fine features, no taller than five feet two. Celia Davenham had silky blond hair that tended to unsettle a hat that already required more than one hatpin to render it secure, and hands that seemed constantly to fiddle with bag, gloves, hat, and hair as she walked to the main road.
    Even from a distance of several paces, Maisie noted the quality of the woman's deep burgundy gabardine suit, and the soft leather gloves and felt hat chosen to complement the expensive ensemble precisely. Her shoes had clearly been chosen with care as well, for they were of fine burgundy leather with half straps at each side that met in the center and were secured with a grosgrain ribbon tied in a small bow. Maisie was intrigued by the bow, for it suggested a certain girlishness, as if the woman could not quite accommodate the maturity her age suggested.
    Celia Davenham made her way toward Heathcote Street and turned into Grays Inn Road, where she hailed a taxi-cab outside the Royal Free Hospital. Fortunately Maisie managed to secure a taxi-cab at once, so that she could travel immediately behind Mrs. Davenham. As she sat in the rear seat of the heavy black motorcar, she hoped that the journey would be a short one. For Maisie travel by any means other than her own two feet was nothing but an indulgence. The journey by underground to Warren Street was a treat she allowed herself in the morning only if she considered that she had worked hard enough to warrant the additional expenditure.
    At Charing Cross railway station, Celia Davenham climbed out of the cab,