A Dangerous Place Read Online Free PDF Page A

woman was scared, and she had every right to be: she knew something that others wanted kept silent. The trouble was, as far as Maisie understood it, Miriam Babayoff had no idea what that something might be. And Maisie could not protect the woman unless she, too, had such knowledge at her fingertips.
    She continued on her way toward a cluster of houses where Gibraltar’s Sephardim lived. Maisie reached into her satchel for a packet of cigarettes, lit one, and drew upon it as if she had been smoking her entire life. Now she knew why Priscilla smoked. It calmed her. Holding a cigarette was something to do with her hands when she beganshaking. It sharpened her mind while dulling her emotions. And at least it wasn’t morphia.
    A s she walked back along Main Street away from Grand Casemates Square, with its Moorish buildings and their ornate arches built by Moroccan invaders centuries past, Maisie considered, again, the evening she’d discovered the body of Sebastian Babayoff. She’d been staying at the Ridge Hotel at the time, where she’d remained longer than anticipated, given the difficulty in finding simpler accommodation. Earlier in the day she’d noticed Babayoff in the hotel, taking photographs of the interior and then moving out into the gardens. Was he recording a wedding party? She hadn’t really paid much attention, though by instinct she avoided anyone with a camera. Later—after what might have been suppertime had she felt like eating—she’d wanted to walk, to be outdoors in the dark. There was something comforting to her about darkness, about being shrouded only by that which she could smell, touch, and hear. Without light her eyes became accustomed to shapes, sounds became more acute, and as she ambled along some distance from the hotel, she became aware of an unfamiliar noise. Was it a curious, treat-seeking monkey? She’d been told about the Barbary macaques that infested Gibraltar, making a nuisance of themselves. Or perhaps a stray dog, or a cat? Then another noise, and footsteps receding along a narrow alley—human footsteps in heavy boots, running away. After a moment she continued, but took only a few steps before she tripped over something. Her heart leaped, for even before she knelt down to touch the thing in her path, she knew it was flesh and bone.
    In the dark, by feel, Maisie distinguished an arm, and then the wrist, searching for a pulse. She reached toward the man’s chest—bythe size of the wrist, it must be a man—and then his neck. She fingered his skin for the carotid pulse, but there was none.
    M iriam Babayoff lived along a narrow cobbled street that resembled so many other streets in Gibraltar. The terrace houses on either side were like ill-kempt teeth, their roofs uneven, their foundations having shifted with the years. The whitewash was dingy, though window boxes planted with summer blooms demonstrated evidence of care by a few of the residents. Maisie Dobbs came alongside the house—it was not numbered—that she knew to be the home of Miriam Babayoff, her sister and, until recent weeks, her now deceased brother. Maisie had met Miriam once before, at a time when the woman was still so shocked she could barely speak. It was a meeting during which she sat on the very edge of a chair at the kitchen table—the front door opened into the small square kitchen, the only room downstairs—her eyes darting to the bolt drawn across to lock the door, as if it might fly back at any moment and the house be invaded. Maisie had offered her condolences, a basket of fruit, and some flowers. She had remained with the dead man’s sister for some ten minutes—long enough to sense the woman’s unease, to observe her movements, and to know by the cast of her eyes that there was cellarage below the house, and that something of importance was held there.
    Now Maisie was visiting again, by invitation, having sent a note to request