Among the Mad Read Online Free PDF Page B

fair, speaks his mind, and
gives his people the leeway they need to get the job done. Mind you, at the
same time, he expects every ounce of you on the case.”
    “Well, I look forward to meeting him again. I wonder
if he remembers me.”
    “Yes, he remembers you, Miss Dobbs. That’s another
reason why you were summoned at an unearthly hour on Boxing Day morning.”
     
     
    MAISIE’S FIRST VISIT to New Scotland Yard, on the
Embankment, had taken place when she was working with Maurice Blanche as his assistant.
She found the grand red-brick building intimidating, with its ornate chimneys,
projecting gables and turrets at each corner. In the intervening years, she had
come to take visits to “the Yard” in her stride. Today, though, she was
escorted to the area of Scotland Yard occupied by Special Branch, and led into
a sparsely decorated room, where she waited while Stratton left to inform
others involved in the investigation that they had arrived. Soon she heard a
voice booming down the corridor, but when Robert MacFarlane walked into the
room with Stratton, the timbre was lower, with a soft Scottish burr belying his
position, and the situation. Maisie rose from her chair and extended her hand
in greeting.
    “Miss Dobbs, thank you for coming.” The Detective Chief
Superintendent shook her hand, then nodded toward the chair. “Sit down, lass,
sit down. I trust your father was not too upset by your sudden departure from
the family hearth.”
    “He understands the nature of my work.”
    “Good, I’m glad one of us does.” Taking his seat
behind a wooden desk that seemed too small to accommodate his height—MacFarlane
was well over six feet tall and, thought Maisie, had the frame of a docker. He
was about fifty-five years of age, light of foot and precise in his movements.
A track of baldness revealed a scar where a stray bullet had nicked him in the
war—the fact that he had simply wiped blood away and sworn at the enemy for
putting a hole in his tam o’shanter was the stuff of legend—and the cropped
hair that flanked his shining pate was gunmetal gray and controlled with a
whisper of oil.
    “Stratton, bring in Darby, if you wouldn’t mind.”
    Soon the four were seated: Maisie, MacFarlane,
Stratton and Colm Darby, a man who had worked alongside MacFarlane since before
the war and, when the policeman returned from France, joined him once more.
Darby was probably a good five years older than his superior. Maisie knew him
to be an expert in the analysis of personal markers left behind by the
perpetrator of a crime. The nature of one’s handwriting was an area in which he
was said to have great insight. He had been with MacFarlane since the days when
the main roles of the department encompassed intelligence and security to
protect the country from extremist activity known as the “Irish problem.” Now
Special Branch had a broader role, and it seemed as if Colm Darby might never
retire. MacFarlane introduced Maisie, then leaned forward so that his forearms
rested on the desk.
    “Miss Dobbs, I am dispensing with protocol
here—because I can, and because I believe we have no time to lose.” He sighed,
looking directly into Maisie’s eyes. “I know Maurice Blanche, I’ve worked with
him in the past, and I remember you from Edinburgh—Blanche sent you there, I
understand.”
    “Yes, that’s correct, in preparation for my work with
him, when I was his assistant.”
    MacFarlane looked down at an open manila folder,
flipped over a page of notes, then closed the folder before resuming eye
contact with Maisie. “Now, first of all, in your own words, describe the events
of Christmas Eve.”
    Maisie drew breath and, as she had for Stratton
before, described approaching the man on Charlotte Street, and witnessing him
take his life with a Mills Bomb.
    “Not a pretty sight, I’m sure.”
    “I’ve seen some ugly sights in my time, Chief Inspector.”
    “I bet you have, Miss Dobbs. And we don’t, any of