The american agent, p.5
The American Agent, page 5
[Can imagine it if it were me under there—the Senator pulling mother off the bricks, saying, “Oh come on, Amelia, it’s only Catherine—there’s a cocktail party to go to.”]
And Maisie wondered how many times each day Catherine Saxon’s thoughts had lingered upon her parents, and the reaction of her father, especially, to her work. She slipped the notebook into her bag.
The drawers held various items one might have expected in the rooms of a reporter—blank notebooks, sharpened pencils, erasers, two fountain pens. She closed the drawer, then moved to the wardrobe. Saxon’s clothing suggested a woman who had a garment for every occasion—though it was not an extensive collection. A drawer held several clean blouses, and two pairs of trousers of the type she had worn to accompany the ambulance crew. Several pairs of socks were tucked into a corner, and three brand-new pairs of stockings, unwrapped. There was underwear and two light cardigans, plus one Aran pullover, of the type that a fisherman would wear. Shoes were lined up underneath the hanging clothes; Maisie had to push back a dress to see what Catherine Saxon wore on her feet. There was a pair of heeled shoes of the type that might be worn to a formal event, along with leather walking shoes and a pair of black ballet slippers, plus another pair of plain brown lace-up shoes. The boots that she had worn on the night she died had been cast off alongside the wardrobe—one on its side, as if it had keeled over from the work of scrambling across burning bricks and mortar.
Saxon owned a pair of woolen trousers with a matching jacket and skirt—Maisie suspected the coordinating trio had been tailored to order. A long black dress indicated Saxon liked to have something glamorous in case the occasion arose, and there was a summer dress and two summer skirts. Three silk blouses of the same design but in different pastel colors were hanging in the wardrobe. Maisie thought that at a push, most of the clothing could be squeezed into the suitcase which had been placed above the wardrobe, though she suspected Saxon would think nothing of leaving pieces behind if they did not fit in the case. She thought her books would come first if she had to move on; there was quite a collection shelved on a bookcase on the other side of the desk, next to the window.
Maisie had done her best to ignore the livid red stain on the almost threadbare carpet, but now she stopped to regard it in the way that one might linger to appreciate a work of art one had looked forward to seeing for many a year. She knelt down and touched the stain, then came to her feet and imagined how the attack might have happened. She walked to the window in front of the desk—Saxon was able to look out at the street, perhaps to gaze in search of inspiration if words failed her at any point. Maisie moved the desk so she could view the street, and then opened the window. It was at this point she realized the handle securing the window didn’t work very well—the window was held closed by the pressure of one frame against the other, and she thought that to open the window, Saxon would have had to thump the frame to get it open. To close it she would have had to pull hard, though she was never able to secure it properly.
The blackout curtains would have been drawn when Saxon arrived home—though Maisie would check that point with Mrs. Marsh. She pushed against the window until it opened, and then leaning against the railing that formed a brace to stop someone falling—there was no balcony as such—she stared down at the street and at the railings below, their fierce spear-like points aiming upward. She thought the railings would soon be requisitioned, as had so many in the quest to build a stockpile of metal for military use.
Maisie turned back into the room, but instead of stepping forward, she stood by the window. The blackout curtain brushed against her arm as she looked toward the place where Catherine Saxon was killed. And she suspected that Catherine Saxon might well have been attacked from behind, though she could have turned at the last minute? “No,” she spoke aloud. “You weren’t fast enough. But why the bruises? When did someone put their hands to your throat?”
And at that point she felt a breeze from the space between the window and the frame as it whistled into the room, lifting papers on the desk. She nodded. “I know—I was right—you just weren’t fast enough.”
She stepped across to the corner on the other side of the door, where a small stove sat atop a cupboard with a curtain in front. She inspected the kettle, which remained on the cold gas ring—it was scorched, with burned limescale rattling around inside. Behind the curtains were some Jacobs cream crackers, a small earthenware pot with butter, and a solitary egg. A half empty jar of marmalade stood next to a tin marked Coffee and another labeled Sugar. Maisie lifted the latter—it was about half full. She closed the curtain.
Moving into the bedroom, she noticed a bowl under the sink, and pulled it out to reveal a pair of cups, saucers and plates inside. Along with a collection of cutlery, they had been washed and dried. On the shelf above, a pot of cold cream, lipstick and rouge seemed to lie in wait for a fresh face to color. A hairbrush was balanced on top of the cold cream next to a mirror marked by age, with brown spots that seemed to reflect the skin of an older woman. She thought it interesting, then, that a mirror could age in the same way as the person who checked her hair and skin every morning. Perhaps it was best—the wearying reflection becomes disguised by the cloudy, aging glass. She smiled and looked away, across to the simple counterpane on the double bed, with an eiderdown folded at the foot. A cardigan and blouse had been thrown over the back of the only chair. A pair of black shoes had been pushed underneath. A bedside table held several books and another notebook and a pencil.
She skimmed pages of a notebook devoid of any penciled thoughts. But there might once have been something—she ran her finger down alongside the stitching, and felt the jagged papery teeth of pages torn away. She slipped the notebook in her bag, and took up the nearest book. 101 Things To Do In Wartime. It was brand new, and had not been opened, though there was a small sheet of paper sticking out.
Possible article for women’s page? Wire Jane at McCalls, or Sue at GH. British grit, etc., etc. Should I pass on to Jenny?
“British grit?” Maisie laughed. “Yes, Catherine, the grit you get in your teeth after you’ve ground them down to nothing wondering when a bomb’s going to land on you!” And she wondered who “Jenny” might be.
She was about to return the book to its place, when she stopped and leafed through a few pages, then placed it in her bag with the other items she had taken. Before leaving the bedroom, she felt under the pillows, pressed down on the mattress and lifted it to check underneath. And she knelt down to look under the bed. But it was as she turned around that she noticed two photographs pinned to the wall. Not framed, or properly positioned, but pinned—it was as if Catherine had wanted the images in her room, but did not want to accord them respect. Love, but not regard or admiration. Only love, perhaps, because no more had been earned. She leaned closer. The photographs had been taken a good number of years earlier—perhaps when Catherine Saxon was no more than, say, eleven or twelve. Even then there was a strength to be seen in her stance, and a resolve in her eyes. In one photograph she was standing between a man and a woman, and on either side of the trio, two young men were smiling at the camera. Catherine was offering only a half-smile, as if having this photograph taken was a game she would not play. The woman smiled—and Maisie could see where the girl who became the fearless reporter had garnered her strength of character, for there was something in the way the woman’s gaze met the lens that suggested she too was playing a game. The father’s eyes were disguised by a pair of dark glasses, but there was a smile—though it was directed at the young man next to him, who was of similar height, and wore identical glasses. It was as if he were a more slender version of the older man, whose arm was around his shoulders, and he stood with arms crossed in a way that Maisie thought suggested confidence, as if he were the prince who would succeed the king.
Maisie cautioned herself. Time and again in her work she had embraced the challenge of interpreting a person’s motivations based upon a smile, a lifting of the chin, a brushing back of a stray hair, or that glance away from the camera at the crucial second the scene is captured. Now she must be careful—it was folly to try such a translation when she’d already learned that all was not well between father and daughter, and possibly between husband and wife. And the man was, after all, a person of some importance. Or considered himself so.
The second photograph was more interesting. It was a portrait of Mrs. Amelia Saxon as a younger woman. It might have been a photograph taken at her engagement, because it was clear there was once another person in the shot—a man—but he had been neatly snipped out of the photograph, so all that remained was an elbow.
Having taken one more walk around the rooms, Maisie was about to leave when she did two things. First, having noticed that all Catherine Saxon’s pencils had been whittled to a point with a very sharp blade, she wondered where the reporter had kept her penknife, or whatever tool she’d used for the task. She found nothing—no blade, no knife. Second, she chose the heaviest tome from the bookcase, walked to the center of the room and dropped it on the floor. She picked up the book and put it back on the shelf. Then she made her way downstairs after locking the door.
“Hello! Mrs. Marsh!” She knocked on the parlor door. There was no answer, so she called out again and knocked once more. It took one more call before Mrs. Marsh opened the door.
“I am so sorry—I dropped right off again!”
“Forgive me for waking you—you wanted me to pop in with the keys before I went on my way.”
“Will you be coming back, Miss Dobbs?”
“Yes, I’m sure you’ll see me again, as I want to talk to the other ladies in the house, though I will get in touch with them separately. And I will be giving instructions for nothing to be disturbed in Miss Saxon’s rooms. They must be left as they are for the time being—though there’s one egg left on the shelf under the stove, plus some tea, coffee and sugar. There’s some marmalade too. No point in letting anything go to waste.”
“Right you are,” said Mrs. Marsh. “And I’ve got something for you.” She stepped back into the room and took a sheet of paper from the table. “I wrote down the names of the lodgers, and—as far as I know—where they work. And I’ve added the hours they usually keep—just in case you need it. Mind you, nothing’s been ‘usual’ for days now, what with the air raids.”
“Thank you all the same, Mrs. Marsh. I’m grateful to you.”
“I’ll see you out then.”
“Oh, just one more thing—did you hear anything, while I was upstairs?”
Marsh shook her head. “Quiet as a mouse, you were. I usually hear things, as a rule, but what with all this bombing business, I drop right off again. Happens in the morning—I wake up, and the next thing I know—I’m asleep! I hate to admit it, but I’m so tired.”
“Oh, I know the feeling,” said Maisie. “Me too!”
She left the house and crossed the street to look at the opposite property.
“Looks like I’m just in time.”
“Oh, Mr. Scott—” Maisie glanced at her watch. “In fact, you’re bang on time.”
“Never keep a lady waiting. And you can go back to calling me Mark. Sounds better, because I’m not going to keep shouting ‘Miss Dobbs’ into the distance.”
Maisie was about to respond, but Scott turned and pointed along the street. “I think if we go down there, and then turn right, we can wander over to Marylebone Lane. I know a nice little restaurant along there, so let’s go eat. I’m starving, and you can tell me everything you’ve found out today.”
“You can tell me what you’ve found out too,” said Maisie, falling into step alongside Scott.
“Not everything I’m doing is connected to Catherine Saxon’s death, you know.”
“No, I didn’t for a moment think it was.”
Chapter 4
The small Italian restaurant was busy when they walked in, but Maisie was surprised to see the owner approach Mark Scott with a warm smile.
“Marco! Good to have you back—when was it, last Wednesday?” The man, wearing a white shirt with a bow tie, and black trousers topped with an almost ankle-length apron, slapped the American on the back.
“Pete—got a nice quiet table for the lady and me?”
The man bowed to Maisie. “Madam. It is my pleasure. A friend of Marco’s is a friend of Pete’s.” He turned to Scott. “We’re busier than ever—it’s the bombings. People are leaving the shelters hungry, and they keep coming in—a lot of them don’t even have time to go home to have a wash and change their clothes before they go to work again. So we’re dishing up breakfasts and it has helped us and them—we thought we would lose everything in the summer, when we had bricks thrown through the window. But I am about to clear a table over there, in the corner—usually the last table to go, but today everyone wants just a seat and something hot. Look at the time—it’s the afternoon already, and we haven’t stopped since eight this morning.”
“Wherever you want to put us will do, Pete—thanks.” Mark Scott held out his hand to Maisie, and she followed the owner to the table.
“The usual to drink, Marco?” asked Pete, pulling out a chair for Maisie, then taking up the table napkin and dropping it into her lap.
“Just a glass of water today, thanks—I’m working,” said Scott.
“And you, madam?” Pete turned to Maisie.
“Yes, please—a glass of water.”
“And to eat? We’re short of a few things today—but I can still offer you a wonderful spaghetti with tomato sauce and my home-made bread.”
Maisie felt her stomach rumble, and was grateful when Scott looked at her and raised both eyebrows, querying her preference without speaking. She nodded.
“Then let’s have two of your spaghetti, Pete.”
The man gave a short bow, and stepped away in the direction of the kitchen, stopping to talk to another waiter on the way, whereupon he looked back at Maisie and Mark, pointing to them. In short order, the waiter came to the table with glasses of water.
“Thanks, Ricky,” said Scott.
The waiter smiled. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Scott,” he replied in a rich Cockney accent, before leaving to attend to patrons at another table.
“You know everyone here, Mark—how long have you been in London?”
“Oh, a little while now.” Scott glanced out of the window, then brought his attention back to Maisie. “It’s not far from my flat, so I come in a lot—they’re generally open late, and I keep long hours at the embassy—it’s over at number one Grosvenor Square. You know the one, it’s a fairly new building, courtesy of the Duke of Westminster. The guy owns a lot of land around here, doesn’t he? Anyway, the embassy moved in a couple of years ago. I can just walk to and from work—and I know my way pretty well, which is good because most of the time I’m out in the blackout.”
Maisie was about to ask Scott about his accommodation, when he volunteered the information.
“The embassy found me a flat—around the corner from Manchester Square. I got to London, set down my bags and that was that. Don’t see much of it.”
Maisie nodded, then looked at her watch.
“Need to hurry?”
“Not yet—but I must get back down to Kent later this afternoon, and what with the blitzes, the stations were closed when I last checked—my secretary reminded me I might not be able to get my usual train. So, I’ve been thinking I might try to get the earlier one at twenty past three. I’ll probably just have to go along to one or other station and take my chances.” She reached for her glass and took a sip of water. “But don’t worry about my commitment to the investigation—I’ll be working whilst I’m in Kent. I’ve some notes to read regarding Miss Saxon’s endeavors in London. And on Monday I’ll be interviewing her fellow lodgers—it seems she was very friendly with them.”
“So you lifted a few things in the flat,” said Scott.
“A couple of items—I’ll list them if you wish.”
“I trust you, but I’ll need anything important as soon as you’re finished with it.” He looked up as Pete returned to the table, placing plates of steaming spaghetti with tomato sauce in front of them.
“Ricky is behind me with the bread—just out of the oven. Just as well I have some olive oil—no butter today.” More pleasantries were exchanged, the bread was delivered and the conversation between Mark Scott and Maisie resumed.
“Pete told me that until he brought in some olive oil from Italy, the only place you could get the stuff around here was in a chemist—tiny bottle, and they only kept it for ear pain.”
“He looks like an Italian, but he doesn’t sound like one,” observed Maisie. “Probably to his advantage, otherwise he’d be in an internment camp on the Isle of Man by now.”
“His mother started the restaurant—she was Italian—and his dad is as London as they come. That’s why Pete is still here—London boy with a British name and blue eyes, though where I come from an Italian with blue eyes means the mob. His mother died a few years ago, and Dad is out back, in the kitchen. They had some windows smashed when Il Duce threw in his lot with Hitler, but Pete and his brothers sorted it all out, and they’ve been left alone. And as you heard, they’re scoring points by dishing up food early in the morning for people coming out of the shelters. Pete said it’s costing them, but not as much as it would if they’d had to close. Before he was ‘Pete’ he was ‘Pippo.’ I think his real name is Giuseppe—Joseph—but Pete sounds more like Pippo, so that’s his name now.”
“I’m amazed they’ve remained in business, but good for them—Churchill said he wanted every Italian in Britain rounded up and sent away. Frankly, I think our love of ice cream might overcome our desire for retribution.” She looked around the restaurant, and at the line outside. “But back to Miss Saxon’s death. One thing I am curious about is the way the—” Maisie looked around to ensure no one could hear. She lowered her voice. “How the murderer gained access to the room. It might even have been from the street. It’s perfectly possible for someone to climb up onto the railing below, then the small balcony outside the upper window. It could then be pushed open. Those windows are floor-to-ceiling, so an intruder wouldn’t exactly have to crawl in.” Maisie turned her fork in the long strands of pasta. “And on the other hand, if the killer had already gained entrance to the house, then all he or she would have to do is knock at the door. Which reminds me—where was the key to Miss Saxon’s rooms? The door wasn’t locked when Mrs. Marsh found her, so I’m curious about it.” She lifted a forkful of spaghetti. “Bit sloppy, isn’t it? Trying to eat this and discuss the case.”
