Deadly Travel Read online

  Without looking up, she added, “He wasn’t Alice’s type.”

  “What was Alice’s type?” Was the key to her murder the way she saw people? Did her killer get to her because she saw him as beneath notice?

  Chapter Two

  “Someone from our class. Alice wasn’t a delicate debutante. She could never have done the work needed on the Kindertransport if she was afraid to get her hands dirty. But the children on the Kindertransport weren’t likely to become her friends.” Lady Waterson gave me a smile. “Her friends not only had to be of our class, they had to have drive.”

  “Alice liked people with the drive to get ahead?”

  “Only people with drive could keep up with Alice.” She sounded proud of her daughter. She walked back to where I sat and handed me a paper with a dozen names on it. “I’ve put a check by the names of those who will be traveling on the Kindertransport with you.”

  I glanced down the list. Johann Klingler made the list, but without a checkmark. Thomas Canterbury didn’t make Lady Waterson’s list.

  “How did Alice spend her time when she wasn’t working on the Kindertransport?”

  “She read, she went to parties with her friends, she played the piano, she played tennis, she helped with projects led by our Meeting. She led a very normal life.” She scowled at me then. “She wasn’t wild. She didn’t have scandalous friends. This shouldn’t have happened to her. She should have had a long, happy life.”

  I put a self-deprecating smile on my face, hoping to disarm her. “If I’m going to have any chance of helping to find out who killed your daughter, I have to ask a lot of frustrating, needless questions. I never know where the information may come from that will lead me to the murderer.”

  She took a deep breath, trying to regain control of her emotions. After letting out a deep sigh, she said, “Look at Johann. I think he killed her. I have no evidence. Just a feeling deep inside that he didn’t love Alice. That he didn’t want to be around any of us. But I want you to go on the Kindertransport and learn what you can.”

  * * *

  The Refugee Children’s Movement had an office in Bloomsbury for the Kindertransport. When I left the Watersons’ house, the weather was still nasty. A half hour later, I had to fight a strong wind and a wintry mist catching at my umbrella to reach the outside door of their building.

  Once I made it inside and repaired the wind damage to my hair and hat, I began a search for the office. It was on the ground floor in the back. I tapped on the door and walked in.

  A young woman sat stuffing envelopes at a desk near the door. She looked up with a smile and said, “May I help you?”

  “Yes. I’m Olivia Denis and I was told to see the person in charge.”

  She looked me up and down. “We were expecting the newspaper to send someone a little older. Oh, well, I’m sure you’ll do fine.” Her expression said she didn’t believe it. “Hang your coat there. Tom!”

  A man in his mid-thirties, his pale hair already thinning, straightened from a search in the lowest drawer of a file cabinet across the room. “Yes?”

  “Olivia Denis,” the woman at the desk said. “The woman we were told would write the newspaper articles on the Kindertransports that would bring us funding.”

  Tom strode forward, his thin frame already beginning to display stooped shoulders. He stuck out one hand as he reached me. “Mrs. Denis? I’m Thomas Canterbury. We’ve been expecting you. Come into my office.”

  I followed him through a doorway into a small office crowded with a large desk, a few wooden chairs, and several file cabinets with two drawers half open and crammed with forms. Canterbury shut the door behind us before lifting a stack of papers off one of the chairs and motioning me to sit.

  He squeezed around the end of his desk and sat. “Now, Mrs. Denis. Olivia, if I may?”

  This appeared to be an informal organization. “Livvy, please.”

  “I’m Tom. Oh, I guess you knew that. I suppose you’ve been told what is expected?” He shifted a stack of papers, shifted it back, and then knocked the top sheets off.

  As he grabbed for them, obviously nervous, I said, “To write a terrific article for the newspaper gaining you support for the Kindertransports. I’ll be replacing Alice Waterson.”

  “A terrible tragedy. Alice will be sorely missed.” He took off his glasses and polished them on his tie.

  I decided to copy some of Sir Henry’s news reporters. “Who do you think killed her?”

  Tom jumped and nearly toppled over in his swivel chair. He put his glasses back on before he said, “I—I don’t know. Some thief.”

  “You know that I’m a reporter. And the Kindertransport isn’t the only story here.”

  He shook his head with a shudder. “No one here would have hurt her. It had to be a robbery gone wrong.”

  I needed to put him at his ease, or we’d never get anywhere. “Tell me about the people I’ll be working with on this story. Who will be helpful in giving me details? My editor loves details.”

  “Well, you just met Mary. Mary Wallace. She’s in charge of our volunteer clerks. She’s the daughter of one of the leading families in our Meeting.”

  Who thinks I’m too young. “Is she going on this trip?”

  “Oh, no, she never goes on the Kindertransports. Her father won’t allow it. Johann—Johann Klingler, Alice’s fiancé—doesn’t go to Germany either. They wouldn’t let him out again.”

  “He’s in trouble with the Nazis?”

  Tom’s head bobbed up and down. “They don’t like people with religious principles.”

  “Who else is going on this trip?”

  He handed me a typewritten list, with Alice’s name scratched out and mine penciled in at the bottom. “You’ll meet them all when we leave for Berlin. Be at Liverpool Street station at six-thirty the morning after next.”

  I nodded.

  He rose.

  I looked up at him and said, “Alice is still a story all the papers are carrying. Do you know why she was in the East End the night she was killed?”

  He dropped back into his chair hard enough that it wobbled and squealed. “Yes. Well, we all were. Everyone on the list. It could have been any of us.”

  “How awful for you.” Any mention of her death seemed to rattle him.

  He took a deep breath and continued. “We were checking on the homes of the families who will be taking in some of the children. Their relatives. Seeing if they had someplace to sleep. If they had room at their table.”

  “Were you all together?”

  “Originally.” He hesitated. “We did the actual visits in pairs.”

  “Who went with Alice?”

  Tom started to shake. In a weak voice, he said, “I did.”

  Could the solution be this simple? Did Thomas Canterbury kill Alice Waterson? Would I be able to go back to work, unimpeded by Sir Malcolm’s plots and plans? “What happened?”

  “We were on our way to a German-Jewish family’s flat when Alice said, ‘You go ahead. I’ll meet you at the Underground stop.’ When I asked her why, she said something had come up.”

  “Did she give any hint as to why she was going off on her own at night in the East End? Did she have friends in the area?”

  “No friends, no hints, nothing she said, but I saw a figure at a distance. I know she had seen the person, too.”

  “Could you tell who it was?”

  “I’m not even certain it was male.” He took off his glasses and polished them. When he put them back on, he said, “My eyesight is badly defective, particularly at a distance.”

  “So, you went off on your own to visit the family?”

  “Yes. When Alice told me to do something, I did it. Disagreeing with her got you nowhere.”

  “Did you see which direction she went?”

  He nodded. “She walked toward the figure. She didn’t say anything and neither did the person who walked toward her. At least not that I could hear. I went around the corner and down the street to the flat where they were waiting for me.”

  “How long were you there?”

  “Five or ten minutes.” He cleared his throat. “It seemed a bit snug, but the family said they could take in the two little boys from the woman’s sister. They’re coming on the next Kindertransport, and we try to keep families together if at all possible.”

  “What did you do when you left the flat?”

  “Do?” His elbow hit a stack of papers and he had to shove them back onto his desktop before they slid to the floor. “I went to the Underground station where we were all supposed to meet. We waited a quarter of an hour for Alice to appear, but she never showed up. Some of the people in our group, some of the women, were getting annoyed with Alice, and others wanted to go out looking for her.”

  “The men?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  It seemed to be a strange divide. Alice was not a femme fatale that I had ever noticed. “Had she wandered off on her own before?”

  “Yes, twice. Once here, once in Berlin.”

  That sounded like it could have been by prearrangement. “Did she give any explanation as to why she left you waiting for her the other times?”

  “None.”

  “Did anyone go looking for her after she was so late?”

  “Yes, Charles and I split up and spent a quarter of an hour looking, starting at the point where I’d last seen her. We met up at our starting point when we had no luck and went back to the station, thinking she’d already traveled home.”

  “Did you check with her family to see if she’d returned?”

  “No.” He shook his head, widening his eyes slightly. “Alice would not have appreciated that. She believed in keeping her private life private.”

  “Even from her f
amily?”

  “Especially from her family.” He gave me an earnest gaze. “Alice was determined to do everything her way, and she didn’t want people to try to dissuade her. That annoyed her.”

  A telephone rang. Tom ignored it and outside the closed door, I heard Mary murmur something into the receiver. “You never found out what she wanted to do that she had to keep secret?”

  “Gosh, no. I gave up trying to figure out what Alice was up to a long time ago.”

  This was getting me nowhere. “How long have you known Alice?”

  “Since university. We both went here in London. Her family was against her attending at first, but Alice was determined. Eventually, they gave in, just as everyone does sooner or later.” The smile slid off his face. “Did. Everyone did sooner or later.” The air seemed to leave his body. “I’m going to miss her.”

  Tom gave me the information I needed about our trip to Berlin and the Kindertransport on our return leg. He then excused himself, saying he had a meeting to attend, but told me that Mary could help me.

  I lingered in the main office and watched Mary Wallace watch Tom with hunger in her dark eyes. While I felt sure he was at least thirty-five, she was probably several years younger. Her lack of ornamentation or cosmetics gave her an older, grayer appearance. She wore her dark hair in a bun at the nape of her neck and her dress was unfashionably long and plain.

  A moment after the door shut behind him, I said, “Have you known Mr. Canterbury long?”

  She jumped. Apparently, she had forgotten I was still in the office. Smoothing her skirts, she said, “I’ve known him most of my life. We attend the same Meeting.”

  “He’s very good looking. Is he married? Engaged?”

  “No.” A glare accompanied her brief answer.

  “He doesn’t like girls?”

  “No!” Shock showed in her voice. “He—he’s just shy.”

  “And you. Are you married? Engaged?”

  She didn’t look me in the eye. “No. My parents feel I’m too young.”

  “But if you weren’t, Tom would be courting you?”

  At this point, she looked ready to explode, with a red face and I could imagine steam rising from her ears. “Why don’t you mind your own business and write a good story about our work? That’s the only reason you’re here.”

  I wish you were right. I shrugged into my coat and walked out the door.

  * * *

  Next, I planned to question Johann, the suspicious fiancé. Lady Waterson had given me both his home and work addresses. Since it was during the work-day, I tried the solicitor’s firm near the Inns of Court.

  After climbing up from the Underground at the Chancery Lane station, I found my way to the offices where he worked. By now the rain had slacked off, making my journey slightly better. I didn’t drip all over the wooden floors as I entered the front office of the law firm.

  The clerk behind the desk asked me to state my name and business. I gave my name, but I only mentioned that I wanted to speak to Johann Klingler.

  “I’m sorry,” the man with gray liberally threaded through his brown hair told me. “Mr. Klingler has taken the afternoon off.”

  “Does this have anything to do with the death of his fiancée?”

  He flinched as if I’d shown him her corpse. “I’m afraid so.”

  “Funeral arrangements? Interview with Scotland Yard?”

  He snorted. “Nothing so useful. He’s gone to pray for her.”

  I had a feeling the clerk was not a friend of Johann Klingler. “Where?” I expected to hear some Quaker meetinghouse or in a quiet stretch of parkland.

  He raised his eyebrows practically to his hairline. “On the spot where they found his fiancée’s body.”

  “Thank you.”

  As I turned to go, the man said, “You know where that is?” He sounded shocked that I would know something so unladylike.

  “Yes.” Then I decided to follow up, as long as I was here. “Have you found anything else he’s done to be strange?”

  He pursed his lips together. “Practically everything. His choice of foods, his unfamiliarity with our legal system, his running off in the middle of the day. We’re used to our junior solicitors meeting a certain standard, and Mr. Klingler doesn’t. And now his fiancée has been murdered. Scandalous.”

  The office clerk was against Mr. Klingler, his fiancé’s family was against him, and the Nazis probably wanted to put him in prison. I couldn’t wait to speak to Johann Klingler.

  Anyone who had managed to make himself so unpopular should have a lot to tell me. If he was willing to speak.

  Chapter Three

  Fortunately, Sir Malcolm had given me the details of where Alice’s body had been found by a constable long after midnight.

  I took the Underground to Canning Town station, amazed when I reached street level at how different everything around me was from where I’d entered the system at Chancery Lane. Instead of formal stone and brick buildings with large windows and barristers dressed in black gowns and white wigs, these buildings looked as though they leaned on each other as they peered out through small windows along alleys, while the people who walked on the pavement looked frayed and scruffy.

  A five-minute walk brought me to the entrance of an alley. A man stood a few buildings down the narrow space, his hands folded in front of him and his head bent. Guessing this was Johann Klingler, I walked down and silently joined him.

  No wonder Canterbury couldn’t find Alice. This area would have been very dark and desolate, and the alley would have been impenetrable at night without a torch. Had anyone in the group brought one?

  We stood together in silence for perhaps five minutes before Johann glanced over at me. “Did you know her?” he asked with a noticeable German accent.

  “No. I—”

  “Then why are you here?” he snapped at me and bowed his head again.

  “I’ve been tasked with finding Alice’s killer. Opinion seems to be divided between those who think you’ll hang for her murder and those who think you’ve suffered a great loss.”

  “Which side are you on?” His tone was aggressive.

  I tried to match him. “The truth.”

  We stared at each other, neither breaking eye contact. Finally, he said in a calmer tone, “I didn’t kill Alice. I had no reason to. If nothing else, she was my ticket to a new life in England, safe from the Nazis.”

  “Was that the only reason?”

  “The only one that might convince you and the police.”

  I shook my head. “Did you love her?”

  He glared at me. “Of course I loved her. What do you take me for?”

  I made a decision to believe him until I had reason not to. “Someone who may suffer an even greater wrong.” Curious, I asked, “Why do you pray here?”

  “This is where her body was found.” He looked down and sighed. Then he looked at me with great sadness in his eyes. “I didn’t protect her. I offered to join her in meeting the families, but she said no. I let her have her way, and she died. I failed her. I need to ask her forgiveness.”

  One reason he might be carrying around guilt. Another was her murder. Either way, he looked ready to drop. “Let’s head toward the City and find a tea shop. You look like you haven’t eaten in days.”

  I gave him a rueful smile and he nodded. “I have no appetite.”

  I gave him my arm and we left the alley. A few minutes later we found a coffee shop and went in to get a table near the back. He kept staring at the tabletop in silence, so I started asking questions. “How did you meet?”

  “At the meetinghouse by Trafalgar Square. I was new to London then, and she was very helpful in introducing me to people who were able to find me employment and a place to live among our brethren. Whenever I went there, I always made it a point to speak to her. We became friends almost immediately.”

  “How long ago did you come to England?”

  “It’s been four years now.” He tried to smile but his lips drooped immediately. “I can’t even return with the Kindertransport. There is still a warrant out for my arrest and incarceration.”

  Our order, coffee for him, tea for me, and a couple of scones, arrived then, and he fell on the food eagerly. When he finished the scones, including mine, he thanked me.