Pardonable Lie by Jacqueline Winspear Page A

and mousy brown hair recently treated to a permanent wave that had resulted in frizz rather than a smooth curling of her locks. Her plain pale-green dress seemed a little tight across the middle, indicating, perhaps, that Mrs. Browning had enjoyed a slender figure in girlhood but had reached an age when some restraint in food consumption might be advised.
    “Yes?” Browning squinted as she smiled at Maisie, then took out a pair of wire spectacles from the pocket of a black cardigan, placed them on her nose, and scrutinized her visitor.
    “Mrs. Browning?”
    “Yes. How can I help you?”
    “My name’s Maisie Dobbs. I wonder if you might be able to spare me a moment or two?” Maisie smiled and inclined her head, a seemingly insignificant move that she used to great effect.
    “Here for a reading, are you?”
    “Well, I am intrigued by your line of work, Mrs. Browning. May I come in?”
    The woman nodded and stepped aside, directing Maisie along the narrow passage and into the parlor to the right. “Recommended by a friend, were you?”
    “Yes, sort of.” Waiting for an invitation to be seated, she looked around the small room. A Victorian anaglypta decorating paper adorned the walls, overpainted in a deep creamy gloss that had become stained across the ridges of the pattern. The faded velvet curtains were edged with a fraying silk fringe, but though the room revealed additional evidence of rather worn gentility, it was comfortable and clean, if musty.
    “Please do sit down, Miss Dobbs.” Browning nodded toward an armchair with threadbare cushions. “May I offer you a cup of tea?”
    “No, thank you.” Maisie smiled again. She was actually somewhat relieved, for she knew she had nothing to fear or shield herself against in this house. No otherworldly spirit had ever entered the room. Browning was nothing more than a fake trying to make ends meet. But she might yet be useful.
    “What can I do for you, Miss Dobbs?” Browning reached toward a wooden box on the top of the sideboard and took out a pack of tarot cards. “I charge one-and-sixpence for the cards. More if I have to summon the spirits.”
    “No, there will be no need, Mrs. Browning. I should have told you immediately that I am here to ask you about one of your former clients, Lady Agnes Lawton.”
    Browning stood up quickly, replaced the cards, and folded her arms. “Well, like you said, you should have mentioned it at first, I could’ve told you on the step that I have nothing to say. You from the authorities?”
    Maisie leaned back in her chair. “No, I’m not from the authorities, but I am trying to…” Maisie paused. “I’m trying to assist Agnes Lawton’s husband in putting the memory of his son and wife to rest. I understand that she came to you for help.”
    The woman sat down again and pursed her lips before speaking. “I knew she’d passed on. I go down to the library once a week to read the obituaries, and I saw that she’d shaken off this mortal coil.”
    Maisie looked down at her hands. There was something sadly amusing about this woman, who spoke again after giving the matter a little thought.
    “Well, as long as you’re not here to close me down, I s’pose it’s all right. I can hardly get by as it is, being a war widow. Of course, that’s why she came to me, having been through losing someone. I have a very highly respected clientele, I’ll have you know, and they trust me.”
    Maisie nodded.
    “Of course, I couldn’t forget that one, even though it was years ago that I saw her. Very posh, she was. Very well heeled, though she never called herself Lady at the time, said she was Mrs . Lawton. Poor woman thought her son was alive.”
    “And what did you tell her?” Maisie leaned forward.
    Browning avoided meeting Maisie’s eyes as she answered. “Well, I told her that he hadn’t come to me, you know, in spirit.”
    “And you led her to believe he wasn’t dead?”
    “I never said any such thing, not exactly. Now