They had made it possible for the former tweeny maid to gain admission to Girton College, Cambridge. It was Maurice and Lady Rowan who had noted Maisie's intellect and ensured that she had every opportunity to pursue her hunger for education.

Looking at the room reflected in the mirror, Maisie considered how far she had come-not only from the dark dingy office in Warren Street that was all she had been able to afford just over a year ago, but from that first meeting with Maurice Blanche, her mentor and teacher, when she had been a maid in the household of Lord Julian Compton and his wife, Lady Rowan. Was the scar visible? Would shorter hair fall in such a way as to reveal the purple weal that etched a line from her neck into the sensitive flesh of her scalp? If her hair was cut, would she lean forward over her notes one day and unwittingly allow a client to see the damage inflicted by the German shell that had ripped into the casualty clearing station where she was working, in France, in 1917? Shorter hair might save a few minutes of precious time each morning, and it would no longer come free of the chignon and fall into her eyes. She turned from side to side several times, and lifted her hair just slightly. 'Perhaps Lady Rowan is right,' said Maisie to her reflection in the mirror. She unpinned her long hair and tucked it inside the collar of her white silk blouse, pulling out just an inch or so around her chin-line. Suddenly, Maisie set her pen on the blotting pad, pulled the troublesome wisp of hair free so that it hung down again, and walked to the large mirror hanging on the wall above the fireplace. Sighing, she quickly pushed it back into the chignon at the nape of her neck.

As she wrote, a tendril of jet black hair tumbled down into her eyes. But for Maisie the case notes would not be filed away until those whose lives were touched by her investigation had reached a certain peace with her findings, with themselves, and with one another - as far as that might be possible.

It was the sort of case that was easily attended to, that would provide a useful reference, and that could be closed with presentation of a timely report and accompanying account for her services. Herbert Johnson, who were concerned that their son's fiancée might have misled them regarding her past. Smith fountain pen and inscribed the cover with the name of her new clients: Mr. Maisie Dobbs shuffled the papers on her desk into a neat pile and placed them in a plain manila folder.

Birds of a feather maisie dobbs