The train had just pulled out of Mataró when Esperanza Claramunt saw the balloon coming toward them from the direction of Barcelona. From a distance it looked like a large yellow ball floating above the sea, but as it came closer she could see the basket beneath it and the tiny heads protruding above the rim. Some of the other passengers had also noticed the balloon. Most of them were peasants, bringing herbs, saffron, oranges to sell, and some of them had even brought live hens and chickens that clucked in the luggage racks above them. Many of them had clearly never seen nor even heard that human beings were now able to fly, and one old woman crossed herself as a man and a woman waved at them from the flying basket.
Some of the passengers waved back, and Esperanza heard cheering from the men and women on the roof of the train. She would have liked to wave herself, but she did not want to appear frivolous in the presence of the Ferrers. It still seemed incredible to her that she was sitting directly opposite Francesc Ferrer I Guardia and his wife Soledad. It was little more than a year since Ferrer had been acquitted of complicity in the attempted assassination of the king during the royal wedding procession in Madrid. Esperanza wondered what the newspapers would say if they could see the nation’s most famous anarchist sitting in a third-class carriage, while his radiant wife sat fanning herself next to him. Apart from the folded copy of Solidaridad Obrera on his lap, Ferrer looked more like a shopkeeper or a farmer than a terrorist with his downturned moustache, linen suit, and straw boater.
“Look Francesc!” Soledad nudged him and pointed her fan at the balloon.
Ferrer looked up and grunted, and returned to his paper.
“Incredible!” Soledad exclaimed. “Wasn’t it last year that those Americans actually flew in a flying machine—with wings?”
“The Wright Brothers,” said Esperanza.
“That’s it!” Soledad exclaimed. “And they say it won’t be long before people can fly to every city in the world.”
“It won’t be long before those machines will be capable of dropping bombs on every city in the world,” Ferrer said.
“Ay, Francesc!” Soledad fluttered her fan. “Not everything has to be serious all the time.”
“It’s an entirely logical development,” Ferrer persisted. “The marriage of technology and militarism. Every new invention sooner or later finds a military purpose. Think what Napoleon would have done if he’d had a flying machine at Zaragoza. It wouldn’t matter how thick the walls were. And I’m going to make a prediction—one day these flying machines will be dropping bombs on Barcelona, unless we win.”
Soledad rolled her eyes and looked at Esperanza, who responded with a faint smile. Once again she was impressed by Ferrer’s knowledge, insight, and erudition. There was really nothing he could not talk about, and if he showed no interest in balloons then she would not show any either, at least in public. But even as the balloon flew by, she could not help feeling excited by it. She imagined herself and Pau floating above the world with the blue sky all around them, in perfect silence, with the fields and ocean stretched out below. She felt thrilled to be young in such a century, when even gravity was no longer an obstacle to human progress, when the future seemed filled with possibilities that previous generations had only imagined. The end of poverty, disease, and superstition; bridges and roads connecting the most far-flung places; flying machines and motorcars; rational education for all; immaculate cities built of towers and glass with parks and sanitation where the workers divided their hours between study and labor—all these things were likely to occur in her lifetime. She and her comrades had spent much of the day discussing the glorious possibilities that awaited Spain and the world, when capitalism was overthrown and the workers took control, and the social revolution brought an end to a society ruled only in the interests of the few. In the mountains that future seemed closer, and the city of slums and policemen seemed to lose its hold on them as they walked through an ancient and more peaceful world inhabited only by shepherds, charcoal burners, and woodcutters.
Even the older members of her affinity group, who had known prison and torture, seemed to walk more lightly as they talked of Tolstoy, Nietzsche, and Malatesta, of rational education, strikes, and the revolution that would soon change everything. Some comrades, like Arnau Busquets, were so poor that they had nowhere to wash in their own homes, and after lunch the men stripped down to their underwear and bathed in a stream. Esperanza had heard of anarchist groups in other countries where men and women took all their clothes off during expeditions to the countryside, and she was relieved when Flor and Soledad contented themselves with dangling their bare ankles in the cool water. Now she felt the warm pressure of Pau’s thigh beside her and she pictured his dripping hair and shoulders and his slim tapered waist, when she saw Ferrer looking at her thoughtfully.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you, Miss Claramunt. I intend to reopen the Modern School, hopefully next year.”
“I’m very glad to hear it.” Esperanza replied. “The city needs it.”
“If I succeed I shall need new staff. And I would like to send some of them to Paris for training—funding permitting. Is that something that might interest you?”
Esperanza was so pleased and so taken aback by this unexpected offer that she could not think what to say. “It would be an honor,” she replied finally.
“Very good.” The train was coming into Badalona now and Ferrer got to his feet and lifted his knapsack from the shelf. “Why don’t you and Pau come and visit us in Montgat? We can discuss it then.”
Pau said they would try to come next week. Once again Esperanza wished Ferrer’s ailing niece a quick recovery, and Ferrer thanked her as he and his wife got down from the train. No sooner had they departed than Ruben Montero and his wife Flor took their vacant seats. Ruben took a swing from a hip flask, and stared at Esperanza with the faintly mocking smile that always irritated her.
“You do know that Ferrer invests in the Stock Exchange?” he said.
“Yes.” Esperanza suppressed her irritation. “And he uses the money to pay for the people’s education. He plays the capitalists at their own game.”
“They say he’s a mason,” Ruben said.
“A progressive mason!”
“If you say so.” Ruben’s hooded eyes gleamed, and once again Esperanza sensed that he was playing some kind of game with her. She turned away and stared out the window as Barcelona appeared up ahead and the familiar stations flashed past. The train stopped at the little station halfway down the Passeig de Gràcia, and she expected Pau to continue down to the Plaza Catalunya with the others. To her surprise and pleasure he said he would walk her home. Once again Ruben looked at her with a smirk, and she was relieved to see the back of him as the others continued onward to the Plaza Catalunya. It was not yet dark, but the new electric lights were already beginning to glow as they walked past the scaffolding that surrounded the new building at the corner of the Calle Provenza, which her father’s old friend Antoni Gaudí had designed.
Even draped in scaffolding, it looked more like a mountain than a building and there was something faintly ominous about it. Further up on their left she saw the Batlló House, another Gaudí building, which had been completed only a few years ago, and which she definitely preferred. In the dusk it looked even more like a fairy palace with its coral-like mosaics, its curved dragon roof, and seashell balconies.
“I don’t like Ruben,” she said suddenly. “I don’t know why he drinks like that.”
“You might drink if you’d spent three years in a penal colony,” Pau replied. “Ruben’s better than you think. When the time comes, he’ll come out alright. Anyway he’s married to my sister so I have to put up with him.”
Esperanza said nothing, as they crossed the Diagonal and turned into the village. Even though Gràcia was now connected to Barcelona by the Passeig de Gràcia, she still thought of it as a village, despite the new workshops and the electric street lights that had been introduced in some of its principal streets. Most of Gràcia was still lit by the old gas lights, and some streets still had no lights at all.
“Did you enjoy today?” Pau asked.
“I did.” She smiled to let him know that he was one of the reasons why she had enjoyed it.
“And now you’re going to go to Paris?”
Esperanza laughed. “Would you miss me if I did?”
Pau did not reply. They had nearly reached her street now, when he stopped to light a cigarette. Esperanza noticed a small carriage coming up the street behind them, and she wondered what her mother would say if she could see her standing in a darkened street with a young man.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something.” Pau shuffled and looked down at his feet. Esperanza looked at him expectantly, and wondered why he suddenly seemed so awkward and uncomfortable. “I—oh never mind, it can wait. Are you coming to the Athenaeum on Wednesday? A professor from the university is coming to give a talk—‘Religion or Science: Which will define our age?’ ”
“That does sound interesting.”
“Good. I’ll see you there then.”
Esperanza was still wondering what he had been about to say to her, when he leaned forward and pecked her lightly on the cheeks. She would have liked him to kiss her on the lips, but that was not the way even anarchist girls behaved, at least not in her neighborhood. She waved at him playfully and walked away. She was just about to turn the corner when she heard a scuffle behind her, and she looked back down the darkened street. The carriage was stationary now, and two men whose faces she could not see appeared to be dragging Pau toward it. Pau’s head was lolling forward and he was not putting up any resistance as they dragged him into the carriage.
Esperanza watched all this with stunned amazement, as if she could not believe it was really happening. “What are you doing?” she called, in a thin, frightened voice that did not sound like her own. “Stop!”
There was no answer. The driver flicked the reins now and the two black horses came trotting toward her. As she backed against the wall she caught a glimpse of angry, hate-filled eyes beneath the floppy hat and the scarf that covered most of the driver’s face, and it was only then that she ran toward it and screamed for help.
Through the open doorway Lawton looked down at the body of Elizabeth Hutten, lying face upward in a pool of blood. Everything was how he remembered it: the red sheets and the bloodstained poker, the blood splashes on the wall just behind the bed. But now the blood was flowing out of the doorway and lapping all around his feet. Even when he backed away it followed him down the stairs and out into the street. It flowed all around the feet of pedestrians and the wheels of carriages and motor cars, though offices and department stores, theaters, and foreign embassies, and down the Strand and the Mall and onward toward Buckingham Palace, Whitehall, Downing Street, and the Ministry of War. Yet no one else but him appeared to see it or react to it. Even when he slipped and fell floundering and sliding in the current, the people in the street continued to walk past, ignoring his cries for help.
He woke up with a start to find the widow Friedman shaking him, and her two youngest children standing at the foot of the bed, their pale faces staring anxiously out of the gloom.
“Harry, vake up. You having a nightmare.”
Lawton sat upright as the widow shooed her children away.
“You alright?” she asked.
“I’m fine.” He lifted back the sheets. “Go back to sleep.”
“It’s early. You don’t vant breakfast?”
Lawton shook his head. He had not even intended to stay the night, and breakfast would only arouse expectations that he could not fulfil, both in his landlady and her children. The widow sighed and laid her head back down on the pillow as he got dressed and walked downstairs through the café and out into the street. Already a thick curtain of smog covered the city and men, women, and even children were slipping out of their mean terraced houses, their clogs and boots clattering on the greasy cobblestones. Lawton passed a cluster of Jews huddled together in conversation outside the makeshift synagogue, speaking in Yiddish, Russian, and Polish. Some of them were wearing prayer shawls, others wore dark jackets and black Homburg hats, and a few had long locks hanging down their pale cheeks. The Aliens Act was four years old now, and all that was left of the British Brothers League was the occasional tattered poster, yet still more Jews continued to make their way to the East End from the edges of Europe, like the relics of some ancient wandering tribe.
John Divine had asked him more than once how he could stand to live in Jewtown, and Lawton usually replied that his room only cost two shillings a week. It was easier than trying to explain that he preferred to live in a place where he was a stranger, surrounded by foreigners who knew no more about his life than he knew of theirs. The boarding house was just around the corner from the café, and he shut the door of his room behind him and looked around at the narrow iron bed, the worn armchair, the little chair and table by the sink, his father’s barbells, and the wardrobe with the broken mirror.
Next to the window stood the table bearing his Victor phonograph machine—his only prized possession—and a handful of twelve-inch records. Some old penny dreadfuls and copies of Illustrated Police News and Reynolds’s Weekly were piled on the floor with a handful of books: Gross’s Criminal Investigation, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Riddle of the Sands, and a few detective memoirs that he still kept. He took off his shoes and jacket and lay on the bed smoking and listening to the warbling pigeons from the roof while he summoned up the energy to perform his morning routine. Once, when he was still on the force, he had gone almost every morning to the gym to lift some weights or do some light sparring, now he preferred to exercise at home. He felt so tired that he was tempted to forego it, but as always the stern voice in his head warned him that any slackening of the will could only lead to further disintegration. Finally he got off the bed and performed his usual set of press-ups, sit-ups, and side bends, finishing off with the barbells for the biceps and some shadowboxing.
Afterward he washed and put on the smarter of his two suits, and went downstairs to the kitchen, where he ate a breakfast of bread, Bovril, and tea. He walked the short distance to the underground, and bought a copy of the Mirror. Even as he waited for the train he checked his body and the world around him for any warning signs that might oblige him to retreat from the day. But there was no numbness or tension, no unwanted sights or smells, and the faces around him seemed clear and distinct as he sat on the train and read the paper from cover to cover, from the advertisement offering treatment for alcoholic excess to the society and sports pages. By the time he reached St Pancras he had learned that Bertie was motoring at the Newmarket races; that Lloyd George’s budget faced another challenge in the Lords; that Hobbs was on his way to another hundred, and that the suffragette prisoners would now be force-fed.
The paper also reported that the army had perfected its military measures against the Somaliland Mullah. Lawton had learned to take such claims with a pinch of salt. From a distance it was always a pleasure to imagine generals effortlessly moving the empire’s armies back and forth like pieces on a board, but he had seen war with his own eyes and so had Maitland. He glanced up at the list of stations and pictured a line of soldiers sweating and cursing their through Somaliland toward some unknown destination in their scratchy uniforms and helmets, weighed down by their knapsacks and rifles. And then he saw himself and his companions standing over the five Boer commandos, who knelt beside their blankets with their hands on their heads. He saw Maitland’s face like a smooth marble statue in the moonlight and heard the horses whinnying just behind him, and the rustle of the wind stroking the trees above their heads.
Even in the darkness he saw the anger and disbelief on the faces of the Boers that they had allowed themselves to be taken by surprise in the bush by the English officer with the plummy accent. They were not the only ones to underestimate Maitland. When the young captain took command of their unit that winter, few people had expected much from him. Maitland came to them fresh off the boat, smelling of cologne and exuding an air of the cricket pitch, country estates, and drawing rooms, but he had proven himself to be a tough, brave, and decisive officer who never asked his men to do anything he would not do himself. He was also ruthless. Where some officers had balked at putting Boer women into camps or burning their farms, Maitland had not shown a moment’s hesitation. Lawton had not fully realized how ruthless until that night on the veld, when Maitland stared down at the five commandos and said, “Corporal, draw up the firing squad.”
Lawton remembered that Maitland had given the order in the same voice that he might have used to give instructions to a servant or the gardener, so that he was not sure if he had heard him correctly.
“Sir?”
“You heard. These men are guerrillas. We aren’t taking prisoners.”
By that time Lawton had already done a lot of things in the war that he had never imagined doing, and he did not question his orders further. No one knew how many of their men the Boers had killed, and even the notion of taking prisoners seemed like a quaint relic of a different kind of war that had neither meaning nor relevance in a situation like this. Out there in the veld, on that calm moonlit evening, Maitland’s order seemed entirely logical, and even the Boers seemed to expect it. They left the five bodies lying in the copse and took their rifles, horses, and ammunition, and it was only afterward when they rode away that Maitland told them that they would be better not to speak about it. And now as the train pulled away from Liverpool Street, it seemed to Lawton that he could still smell the sweet scent of acacia as the oldest of the Boers lay twitching on the ground till Maitland finished him off with the Browning.
In the end they had been forced to speak about it to the military tribunal. At the inquiry, they all told the story they had agreed upon and rehearsed with Maitland, and Lawton had been the first to testify. Once again the scene unfolded before him; the barracks hut where the regimental commander Colonel Phillips sat behind the desk with his two officers, one of whom was taking notes; the wooden chair where Phillips invited him to sit down; the fresh young faces of the newcomers marching up and down the dusty square outside in their khaki uniforms.
“Corporal Lawton, this is not a court-martial. But I would appreciate your frankness. I want you to describe what happened on the night of September 24.”
“Our column was carrying out anti-guerrilla operations in the Lichtenburg sector, sir. We were looking for a Boer commando camp, acting on intelligence information.”
“And did you find it?”
“We did, sir. We left our horses and advanced on foot. But our presence was discovered. There was a firefight sir. All five commandos were killed.”
“But there was a sixth who you didn’t find, wasn’t there?” Phillips looked at him intently. “And he says that Captain Maitland ordered you and your men to execute the prisoners in cold blood. And if that is true, then it is a very serious matter.”
“It isn’t true sir. They were armed guerrillas and they were shooting at us.”
“Well why do you think this Boer is saying something completely different?”
“To discredit His Majesty’s army sir. And make up for the fact that his unit was caught with its pants down.”
Phillips smiled faintly. Even then Lawton sensed that he wanted to believe what he was being told, and that he knew, as all of them did, that bad things happened in war that could not be helped, even if the politicians and the public preferred not to hear of them. In the end there had been no court-martial, and the incident was forgotten because it suited everyone to forget it. He had lied, and lied well, and it was because of his lies that Maitland had not ended up in prison or in front of a firing squad, and left the army as a hero and gone on to become a chief inspector at Limehouse station.
It was Maitland who invited him to join the force and Maitland who encouraged him to become a detective. Lawton did not know whether he had acted out of guilt or gratitude, and until yesterday he had not expected to see him again. Now he found him waiting by the ticket office, wearing the same suit he had worn the previous day, and a newly starched collar. No doubt he had a fragrant wife to do such things for him, Lawton thought, and he wondered whether she had any idea what her husband had once been capable of when he wore a uniform.
“I meant to tell you yesterday,” Maitland said, as they sat down on the train. “There’s an English detective in Barcelona already. Charles Arrow.”
“Arrow of the Yard? I thought he’d retired.”
“He has. But he’s been helping the city with its terrorism problem.”
“And he didn’t want to take this on?”
“He’s not interested. But he might be able to help you if you need it. And one other thing, I’ve told Mrs. Foulkes that you left the force to become a private investigator—for the salary. If she asks just go along with it. We don’t need to give her any more… unnecessary information.”
“Yes sir.” Lawton felt himself reddening.
“No need for sir, Harry. We’re not in the army now. I was very sorry to hear what happened to you. All the things we went through in the war. And then this? Damned bad luck.”
Lawton did not like sympathy, whether it came from the widow Friedman or from Maitland, and he nodded vaguely and looked out the window as the train chugged out through the suburbs. Maitland briefly attempted to make conversation about their Limehouse days, but Lawton’s obvious lack of enthusiasm was such that he soon gave up and retreated behind his newspaper. From time to time he made some comment on what he was reading, as though he were talking to a complete stranger. None of this dispelled the awkwardness between them. Even as Lawton looked out at neat little towns and villages, the soft undulating hills and woodlands, he found himself thinking of the war. He saw his unit riding across the veld in the rain and sun, chasing guerrillas, and blowing up watering holes with dynamite. He saw himself bayoneting sheep and cattle at Boer farms, smashing furniture and setting fire to Boer houses. It seemed incredible to him that he could ever have done such things, but Maitland’s presence was a reminder that he had. He was not sure whether war changed men, or whether it merely brought to the surface things that were normally kept hidden in peacetime, but a part of him now wished that Maitland had not come back to remind him of his own transformation.
On arriving at Hastings, they took a motor-taxi to the village of Graveling, and drove out through a landscape of hedgerows, fields and oast-houses.
Twenty minutes later the taxi drove into a tree-lined drive and pulled up in front of a large redbrick house, with a coat of arms of crossed swords and a shield above the doorways. A servant girl in a black dress, white apron, and bonnet ushered them into a large drawing room covered in a wallpaper design of birds and flowers. Lawton stared at the oriental carpets, the paintings and pictures, the long mirrors on either side of the fireplace, the two sofas that faced each other in front of the French windows, and the freshly mowed lawn that stretched out toward the fields beyond.
He also noticed an unmistakably medicinal smell that seemed out of place in such opulent surroundings, and he soon found the explanation for it in the array of medicines, pills, and powders piled on the table next to one of the sofas. Some of them were familiar to him, from Clarke’s Blood Mixture, Spasmosedine sedative, Bromocarpine nerve tonic, and Eno’s Fruit Salt for the liver, to the strychnine and potassium bromide that he knew only too well. He was still looking through them when Maitland gave a little cough, and a woman in her early sixties appeared in the doorway, holding a stick in one hand and her maid’s arm in the other.
Mrs. Randolph Foulkes was wearing a red satin dressing gown emblazed with damask flowers that reached all the way down to her Moroccan slippers. The richness and playfulness of these colors only accentuated her sharp, bony features and unforgiving demeanor, as she sat down opposite the window and invited them to do the same. The maid drew the curtain and Mrs. Foulkes stared disapprovingly at Lawton as Maitland introduced them.
“Well,” she said, “I wasn’t expecting a half-caste. And what happened to your nose?”
“I used to box in my youth ma’am,” Lawton replied. “It was broken on one occasion.”
“Really Maitland, I asked for a detective not a brawler!”
“I worked alongside Detective-Sergeant Lawton in K-Division,” Maitland replied. “That’s Limehouse, ma’am—one of the roughest districts in London. I can assure you there was no better thief-catcher in the district.”
Mrs. Foulkes looked only partially mollified. “Yet you left the force for private enquiry?”
“I did, ma’am. For financial reasons.”
“And you speak Spanish.”
“My mother was Chilean. My mother was part Mapuche.”
“What an exotic combination! I’m sure Randolph would have found you fascinating. Amelia, it’s time to feed the rabbits.”
The maid nodded and left the room. Lawton’s face was expressionless, but the widow was not endearing herself to him. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.
Mrs. Foulkes waved her hand as though a fly had just entered the room. “We all die, Mr. Lawton. But this affair requires further investigation. I assume the chief inspector has explained why?”
“I understand that your husband left money to an unknown beneficiary.”
“He did—to a woman.” Mrs. Foulkes grimaced. “I didn’t even know Randolph was in Barcelona.”
“He didn’t know anybody there?”
“Only Señor Ferrer. He was in London in April. He came to see me with his wife. But Randolph wouldn’t have visited him.”
“Why not?”
“Ferrer is an anarchist,” Mrs. Foulkes explained. “But he’s also an educationalist. I write children’s books for the Moral Education League and Señor Ferrer wanted to publish one of them. He and Randolph spent an hour yapping in his study. When they’d gone Randolph told me he never wanted to see him in his house again. He certainly wouldn’t have gone to see him in Barcelona. As far as I knew he was in Vernet writing a book.”
“Vernet?” Lawton said.
“Vernet-les-Bains. In the French Pyrenees. Randolph rents a house there. He goes there every year to write and walk in the mountains. Sometimes he spends the whole summer there when he’s writing a book. I’ve never seen the house, but I used to go to Vernet to take the waters. We stayed in a hotel then. Now I don’t go anywhere. I suffer from neurasthenia, you see.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Lawton replied.
“The disease of the century!” she exclaimed wearily. “My doctor says it’s because the world is moving too fast. Newspapers, steamships, and trains, and now the automobile. The brain can’t cope, he says. Well I don’t know why this should affect me. I only take the Times and I’ve never even been in an automobile. Yet some days I can’t even get out of bed. You’d never believe I used to be on the stage.”
“Oh I can very well believe it,” said Maitland.
Mrs. Foulkes acknowledged the flattery with the faintest of smiles. “Before your time perhaps. I was at the Lyceum when Mr. Stoker was manager.”
“The Bram Stoker?” said Lawton.
She looked at him in surprise. “Well, well. You didn’t strike me as a literary man.”
“I don’t read much,” Lawton said. “But I have read Dracula. A strange tale.”
“I knew Mr. Stoker before he wrote it. He used to say my Ophelia was one of the greatest performances he had ever seen. I made grown men and women cry, Mr. Lawton! Now I merely waste away.”
She gave them a pained look. It was no wonder she had been on the stage, Lawton thought. “So your husband was writing a book in Vernet?” he asked.
“So he said.” Mrs. Foulkes opened a drawer in the medicine cabinet and handed him a postcard of a large pink building with tall white arches and cream façades with the word CASINO emblazoned above the doorway. Lawton read the message dated June 11: Thought this would bring back memories. Weather marvelous as always. Writing going well. Plenty of walks and good conversation. Keep well, Randolph.
“My solicitor told me about the payment last week,” Mrs. Foulkes said. “The money was requested from Barcelona two days after that postcard was sent, at the Bank of Sabadell. The payee’s name was Marie Babineaux.”
“Do you know this woman?”
“Never heard of her. That’s why I want you to go to Barcelona and find out who she is. After you’ve confirmed whether Randolph is actually dead.”
“I should point out ma’am, that it isn’t always easy to identify a body after a bomb blast,” Lawton said.
“That won’t be a problem. Randolph was one of the pioneers of fingerprinting. He has many copies of his own at his laboratory. My secretary will supply you with them. Randolph was also missing two toes on his left foot—from frostbite. There are also photographs—Bertillonage photographs. Another of my husband’s interests. Will that be sufficient?”
“I’m sure it will,” Lawton replied.
“Good. I want you to leave as soon as possible. Your pay will be £5 a day plus traveling expenses—the first month payable in advance. There will be a bonus of £30 if you find this… trollop. I assume that’s acceptable to you?”
Lawton suppressed his astonishment. These rates were more than his detective’s salary, and nearly twice as much as he received from Divine & Laws. “Very much so,” he replied.
“Good. Is there anything else you need?”
“Does your husband have a workplace or study here in the house?”
“He does.” She looked at him suspiciously. “Why do you ask?”
“I’d like to look around it,” Lawton said. “If there’s a possibility of deception it’s always good to know something about the person who may have been deceived.”
Mrs. Foulkes did not look pleased. “I assure you there’s no other possibility, Mr. Lawton. My husband would not have had an extramarital affair. He wasn’t the type.”
Lawton had heard too many similar claims to take her insistence for granted, but he said nothing as Maitland gave her a reassuring smile.
“As I told you, Mr. Lawton is very thorough. But I must get back to the Yard. I’ve asked the taxi to wait.”
Mrs. Foulkes was about to call for the maid to show Maitland out, but Lawton offered to do it himself and accompanied him to the door.
“Thank you, sir,” he said, almost in a whisper. “Appreciate it.”
Maitland looked pleased. “Not at all. Glad to be able to help. And this is easy money Harry. If you need anything from me when you’re over there, let me know. Good luck.”
Once again they shook hands, and as Lawton watched him walk back to the taxi, it occurred to him that for the first time in two very dismal years his luck might have finally changed.