Leaving Everything Most Loved (25 page)

Sandra returned to the room bearing a tray set for tea just as the telephone began to ring.

“I'll answer, Miss Dobbs,” she said, placing the tray on her desk. She picked up the telephone, gave the exchange and number, then turned to Maisie. “It's Mr. Paige, from the ayah's hostel. He said he remembered why that name you gave him yesterday rang a bell.”

Maisie reached for the telephone. “At last. A bell has rung and woken up a memory. I was beginning to lose faith.”

“Miss Dobbs.” Pramal came to his feet. “You should speak to your caller in private, and I am in need of a brisk walk and some fresh air.” He turned to Sandra. “Mrs. Tapley, thank you for making tea, but I should take my leave. And Miss Dobbs, I will telephone to make arrangements to collect Usha's money before I depart for India. I thank you very much for your assistance in the matter of investigating my sister's death—I am most grateful for your help.” Pramal bowed again, then stepped towards the door, where Sandra stood ready to accompany him downstairs.

Maisie frowned, her eyes on the doorway, before bringing her attention back to Paige and the bell that had rung in his mind.

Chapter Nineteen

“M
iss Dobbs?”

“Yes, Mr. Paige. Good of you to telephone. Do you have some news for me?”

“Yes, I do— I knew the name Payton was familiar, though it's not as someone I knew, and I've never come across a Captain Arthur Payton. But I think he might be related to one of the lads who belongs to Reverend Griffith's boys club.” He coughed, apologized for the interruption, then went on. “Reverend Griffith is very good with the youngsters, and could see that it's easy for them to get into trouble, especially the ones who're not working, but even those who are in the factory all day—well, they're mixing with men, and some of them learn cheating ways, don't they?”

Maisie did not want to tar every boy with the same brush, but she was anxious to hear what Paige had to say, so she agreed, then tried to chivvy the conversation along.

“Yes, I'm sure—but what of the club? And this lad?”

“He takes the boys along to that bit of meadow over the back and they have treasure hunts, and do running—all to use up the energy that might get them into trouble. He gives them elephant hair bracelets when they've completed ten tasks—climbing a tall tree, map reading, that sort of thing.”

“Like Scouts, then.”

“But none of these lads would join the Scouts, so it takes the place of that, really.”

“Of course, I understand. But what do you know of Arthur Payton—you said you thought he might be related to one of the boys?”

“I went around to see the Reverend one day, as the boys were leaving, and I saw one of the boys carrying a knapsack with Captain Arthur Payton marked on it—the flap was open. I said, ‘Bit young to be a captain, eh, lad?' He was a sullen sort and just said it was his father, and shoved his way past me.”

“Did Reverend Griffith witness this incident?”

“Yes, he did, and said to me that it was best to ignore it, that the boy was experiencing difficulties at home, that his mother was very ill.”

“I see.” Maisie felt at once downcast. A new thread seemed to be slipping through her fingers—the only morsel of useful information that mirrored her investigation was the mention of the sick mother. But a lot of boys had sick parents, especially when a woman had gone through multiple childbirths—the streets were full of poorly women; female mortality was high in the working-class areas of London.

“But it was funny, because after the boy walked past me, to join his friends outside the house, I heard one of the boys say, ‘Robertson, you coming with us, then?' I knew I heard right, but I didn't think any more of it—after all, he was just another boy being fished out of trouble by the good Reverend, may the Lord bless him for his generosity towards these young villains, because that's what some of them are on the road to being.”

“Robertson? Nothing more? Did you hear another name, perhaps?”

“No, Miss Dobbs. I found it incongruous that it was not Payton, that's all. And I'm telling you this hoping you won't be back. In any case, my wife and I are considering taking up missionary work again—you get more thanks for it, and that's the truth.”

“One more question, Mr. Paige—did you think this boy might be older than the others?”

“Well, he was a fair bit taller. His hair needed a good cut as well, but you can't expect the Reverend Griffith to do everything, can you?”

“No, not at all. He does enough as it is. Thank you for your telephone call, Mr. Paige. I appreciate that you had a bit of a walk to the telephone kiosk.”

“Like I said, we just want to be left alone now.”

“I'll do my best, Mr. Paige. My regards to Mrs. Paige.”

A sound amounting to a “hmmmph” was Paige's parting comment.

“M
iss? Miss, is everything all right?”

Maisie looked towards Sandra, the secretary's furrowed brow testament to her concern.

“Yes, sorry, Sandra. I was just thinking.” She realized she was still holding the receiver. “Look, I want to go back to Addington Square, to see the Reverend Griffith. Also—” Maisie clicked the bar on the top of the telephone to clear the line. “I'd better place a call to Caldwell.” She dialed Scotland Yard but put down the receiver before it was answered.

“Sandra, here's what I would like you to do, as I need to have some evidence to support my train of thought—and I'm hoping the Reverend Griffith can throw light on my suspicions. I want you to go along to Somerset House.”

“What shall I search for?”

“A birth, approximately fourteen years ago—and I pray it wasn't in India, or it might not be registered here. Try the name Robert Payton. And a marriage—Jesmond Martin.”

“Robert Payton?”

“Yes.” Maisie scribbled a note on a piece of paper. “If you find any connection between these names, please telephone Caldwell at Scotland Yard, tell him what I asked of you, and then tell him where I've gone. I don't want to call in the troops, so to speak, unless there is good cause. So help me, if I'm wrong anyway, I will never hear the last of it, but it's a chance I'm willing to take.”

Sandra left her desk and reached for her coat. “Very well, Miss Dobbs. I'll go straightaway. I shan't take long. You can depend on me.”

“I know I can.”

M
aisie left the distinctive MG motor car parked on a road several streets away from the home of the Reverend Griffith. At the front door of the terraced house, she looked both ways, then knocked. There was no answer, so she knocked again, but this time, in the distance, she could hear the Reverend Griffith shouting, “All right, all right, I'm on my way.”

The door opened, and the vicar—of a church that seemed to be of his own creation—stood in front of Maisie. His eyes seemed to register both shock and dismay at seeing Maisie.

“Oh, it's you.”

“That's more or less what your devoted parishioner, Mr. Paige, said when he last saw me darken his doorstep. Reverend Griffith, I believe we must speak as a matter of some urgency.”

Griffith sighed. “Come in. You know where my rooms are.”

He allowed Maisie to lead the way to the room that doubled as a sitting room and study, where she took a seat without invitation.

Griffith sat in the chair in front of her, swiveled it back and forth, and sighed. “What do you want to know?”

“I think you know very well what I want to know. I'd like you to start at the beginning, so I might get a measure of exactly how volatile a certain Robert Payton is. I have a feeling that I could already make an educated guess regarding the young man's state of mind, and how it might have become so unbalanced—but I want to hear it from you. Because you know, don't you?”

Griffith held his hands to his face, as if to shut out the truth, then drew them down across his cheeks and rested them on his knees. “Oh, God, I have been blind and stupid.”

“You thought you could control the outcome, didn't you? And you thought you could protect a boy you believe to be blameless—and he is an innocent in so many ways, isn't he? If I have guessed correctly, he might be what is termed an innocent victim.”

“Of war, Miss Dobbs. An innocent victim of war.”

“You'd better explain. Now. Before I go in search of him.”

“You?”

“Yes. Tell me when this all began.”

Griffith began to speak slowly, stuttering at first. “I knew Arthur Payton and family—his wife and baby son—just before they went to India; this must have been in 1921, I believe. I met them at a function for staff and their families going out to India. Arthur had been wounded in the war and was desperately shell-shocked—I recognized it straightaway, because of my work at the hospital in Richmond. He tried his best, but it was as if he had sustained a violence that lingered within him, and it had to come out—it was a demon that sucked on his soul.”

Maisie saw Griffith falter, and urged him on in his recounting of the life of Arthur Payton. It was as if the bare outline of a person was beginning to take shape and form before her, and she felt a terrible dread as she anticipated the outcome of the vicar's story.

“Go on, please.”

“In India we saw each other occasionally, and I was invited to supper, that sort of thing. I realized soon enough that he was miserably cruel to his wife. On the face of it, he put on a good show, and his wife hid her distress. But the boy was only a toddler when they arrived in the country, yet as he grew his behavior demonstrated a deep disturbance. If his father had to go up to one of the hill towns, he calmed down, became lighter and cheery. But when his father was at home, he was morose, fearful—and both mother and son had unaccountable bruising. The boy took off his shirt once—all the young boys were playing on the lawns of the club and rolling around, and they'd decided to remove their shirts and run into an ornamental pond, much to their mothers' consternation. But Mrs. Payton was horrified, because at once everyone saw the bruising to the boy's arms and back. I am sure they both suffered physically. Mrs. Payton, especially, experienced dreadful headaches, and would languish in the house for hours and hours, and the boy would have no one. I understand he would be found by his ayah weeping outside his mother's door, afraid she might leave him.”

“But she didn't, did she? It was the father who left.”

Griffith nodded. “Those dark demons ate his soul, and it all became too much for him. He took his own life.”

“And then Jesmond Martin came along.”

“He was a man thwarted in love, and—”

“Usha Pramal. He had fallen in love with Usha Pramal,” said Maisie. “He was the newcomer to India who had made a foolish error in making known his love for her before she could ever explain to her family.”

“Ah, so you know,” said Griffith.

“I guessed it might be him,” said Maisie. “But go on.”

“After a brief courtship, he married Payton's widow and took her son as his own. He immersed himself into being a good father to his stepson, and in an endeavor to extinguish the past—the loss of his great love—he gave the boy his name, so they were a family complete. The boy became more settled, and it seemed as if the darkness had lifted.”

“Then they came home, to England,” offered Maisie.

“Yes. I understand Jesmond's adoption of Robert was registered soon after their arrival on British soil. In any case, we lost touch. I believe the return was in an effort to find doctors who might treat the dreadful headaches that tormented his wife. There were those who thought her former husband's brutality might have contributed to an injury in the brain.”

“It's entirely possible, if there were repeated concussions,” said Maisie. “In any case, it seems that by chance Usha Pramal—who had already traveled to England in a bid to forget Jesmond Martin—crossed paths with the family while she was living in St. John's Wood.”

“Yes. That's right.”

“She and Jesmond both felt the spark that had ignited their love, and Usha left her employers, to avoid further chance meetings. But I believe it was you who unwittingly helped Martin find Usha again—rather like the prince finding his Cinderella,” said Maisie.

Griffith nodded. “We met again, at a sort of gathering for men who had worked in India during the years I happened to be there, and he came to my house here—obviously, my circumstances were very different from his at that point. He was having some difficulty with his son and called upon me for advice. He passed Usha as she was leaving after Bible study. He visited me again and said he needed someone to help with his wife, so I put forward Usha's name.”

“Yet you knew how they had once loved each other?”

“He was a broken man, and Usha was such a light soul, and a helpful woman, I thought that their time of love had passed and that she would be a support to his ill wife.” He put his hands together in front of his lips and drew them away again. “Of course, I knew he wanted to see Usha, he wanted to have her close to him, if only in his house doing menial work.”

“But they fell in love all over again—was that it?”

Griffith sighed. “How could they not fall in love?”

“And how could Usha not fail to help his wife, and how could the son not fail to be at once in thrall to Usha and yet at the same time feel hatred of her, for what his father saw in her,” added Maisie.

“The son—Robert—came home for school holidays and occasional exeats, and it seemed that he fell under Usha's spell—and she helped his mother, whom he loved.” Griffith pressed his hands to his eyes. “Oh dear Lord, forgive me. I was so unthinking.”

“No, you were not unthinking, but you were thinking only of the man, of Jesmond Martin.”

He nodded. “I suppose I was. I don't know how I could not have seen the outcome.”

“And what was the outcome?” asked Maisie.

Griffith looked at her. “Oh, please, Miss Dobbs—you know very well what it was.”