A Bitter Truth

Chapter Thirteen

I reached Calais in time to meet the Major as he came out of the port and strode down the busy street, looking this way and that. He smiled as he saw me, and hurried over to where I’d put the motorcar.

“On time,” he said approvingly. “Thank you, Sister.” He ran his eye over the bonnet and the wings, as if searching for dents or scrapes. Then he laughed as he saw me watching him. “I brought this motorcar over to France in the summer of 1914, and I was in Paris when the war began. I stored her in a house in Neuilly, and came home to enlist. She was still there when I got back three months later. I’d heard that the French Army used even the Paris taxis to ferry men to the Marne, when the Germans first broke through. God knows they could have used her too.”

I laughed too, and thanked him as well. We drove back through the shattered landscape and the rutted, rain-soaked roads to report to my sector. As Roger Ellis had predicted and the shelling had foretold, they needed me desperately.

After quickly changing into a fresh uniform, I hurried to take my place, sorting the long line of wounded into manageable units-the walking wounded, the seriously wounded, those needing immediate attention, and those who were dying, for whom nothing could be done. The sounds of machine-gun fire, rifles, and the booms of the shells were deafening.

Yet from the surgical ward behind me I heard a burst of the same maniacal laughter I’d heard once before, only this time cut short with a curse.

Ten minutes later, directing the stretcher bearers, stalwart Scots with grim faces, to follow me with the chest wound they’d brought in, I saw another stretcher being brought out of the surgical ward. Even though he was pale and groggy, I recognized the Australian Sergeant.

He saw me as well, blinking to clear his vision as he peered in my direction. The morphine was taking effect. He grinned and did a very poor imitation of that same laugh.

He must have noticed the surprise on my face.

“Kookaburra,” he said. “It’s a bird, love.” And then he closed his eyes and lay back.

I took his hand. “I found her,” I said, leaning down to whisper in his ear. “Thank you. You made it possible.”

I couldn’t be sure whether he’d heard me or not. And my chest wound was in need of urgent care. I walked away from the Sergeant and found the tired, overworked doctor waiting for me.

My chest wound survived and was sent down the line for further treatment. I had very little time to think about anything after that as the level of severe wounds rose. It was another ten hours before I was relieved, and I walked wearily back to my quarters, falling into my cot to sleep heavily.

The next morning I was back at work, and the next. And finally, as the flow of wounded slowed with the desultory sounds of firing from the Front, I could take a deep breath and massage my aching shoulders and the small of my back.

I found one of the ambulance drivers who had taken patients back to the main dressing station. He smiled, his eyes bloodshot and strained, as weary as I was.

I asked if my chest wound and several other very difficult cases had survived, and he told me they had reached the next station alive. That spoke well for the immediate care they had received here. “And the Aussie Sergeant?”

“He wasn’t doing well. I’m sorry, Sister, we did our best. But his breathing was ragged when we got him there.”

I thanked him and let him go to a well-deserved rest.

A day later when I ran into an Australian officer in consultation with an English Major as they stood in the entrance of a tent out of the fierce wind that had begun to blow across the flat, decimated landscape of war, I walked up and begged their pardon for the interruption. Then I turned to the Australian officer and asked, “Sir, what is a kookaburra?”

He glanced at the English Major and smiled. “It’s a very large kingfisher. Very striking bird. When half a dozen of them gather in the trees, you can’t hear yourself think. Its call is something you won’t forget, once you’ve heard it.” The smile faded. “You haven’t treated Sergeant Larimore, have you? It’s his signature, so to speak.”

“Yes, sir, I have. He was brought in a few days ago. I was just speaking to the ambulance driver. He said the Sergeant wasn’t doing well when he arrived at the main dressing station.”

“A pity, that. He’s a good man, one of the best.”

I thanked him and walked on.

There was no time to return to Rouen. The next fortnight was busy, and besides, I’d just been given leave. I couldn’t ask for more so soon.

I found three soldiers from my father’s old regiment and put out the word that I was concerned about an Australian Sergeant named Larimore who had been under my care.

Word came back that he’d been taken to Rouen and sent on to Boulogne for transport to England. And then someone else reported that he had died before he reached Rouen.

I could feel the tears in the back of my eyes. Such a waste, I thought.

I was still feeling low from the shock of that, when I received a visit from Matron. She came in with a frown between her gray eyes, and I did a hasty review of my sins, for I thought she was angry about something.

Instead she asked, almost with distaste, “Sister Crawford, have you been involved in a murder inquiry in Sussex?”

“Yes. Before Christmas. A guest in the house where I was staying was found dead.”

“I see. It appears that your presence is required at an inquest being held next week. We’ve been asked to approve leave for you to give testimony.”

“I was with Mrs. Ellis when we were searching for the missing man, and we were the ones who found his body.”

“Yes, I see. Then I shall approve this request for leave. Five days should be sufficient? We’re really short staffed, and you are one of our most experienced nurses.”

“I don’t know what is sufficient, Matron. I’ve had no news since the first inquest was adjourned while the police proceeded with their inquiries.”

“Very well. I shall ask for five days, with the understanding that if more time is required, the police can give you a chit explaining why it was necessary to remain longer than that.”

“Thank you, Matron.”

And she was gone. Official word of my leave came down the next day, and I asked if I could be sent home via Rouen, as I’d like to look in on patients there.

To my surprise, the request was granted. And then I learned why when I was given orders to accompany a train of severely wounded men to Rouen for further care.

It proved to be an arduous journey, and I lost one patient before we pulled into the station in Rouen. Stretcher bearers and orderlies and ambulance drivers helped us take the wounded out of the train and ferry them to the race course.

There I found a very orderly receiving station, although what had been a five-hundred-bed hospital had soon expanded to thirteen hundred or more. The American nurses were quiet and efficient, and soon my charges were dealt with.

I had just signed the paperwork when I heard off in the distance that wild laughter. Cracked and weak, but undeniably Sergeant Larimore’s kookaburra.

I said, “I know that sound.”

An American nurse rolled her eyes. “I declare, he’s the most impossible man.” She wore pince-nez glasses and had a soft voice that reminded me a little of Devon.

“It’s a bird. Like a kingfisher. An Australian bird.”

She considered me, doubt clear in her face. “I live by a river. I’ve seen kingfishers most of my life. They don’t make any sounds like that.”

“No. May I see him? I’m so glad to know the Sergeant is still alive.”

She weighed the possibility that I had a romantic interest in an attractive man. I could see the thought passing through her mind as she debated whether to allow a visit.

“I was the sister who took the shrapnel out of his shoulder the first time he was wounded,” I added helpfully.

“Ah. Sister Crawford. He’s done nothing but compare everything we do to your skill and dedication. I’m delighted to meet this paragon at long last.”

I could feel the warm blood rush into my face. “I’m so sorry! I expect he was being cheeky.”

“Indeed.” She looked in the direction the sound had come from. “I must tell you, he’s not out of the woods yet. He had such a fever when he was brought to us-that was almost three weeks ago-and he was out of his mind the first few days. You will find him much changed. There’s still the possibility of pneumonia. But he insists on getting out of bed and walking about. He even disappeared into Rouen two days ago. When he was brought back, he claimed he’d been delirious and didn’t know what he was going. It’s difficult to keep him quiet. Perhaps you can persuade him to be more sensible.”

She pointed to a tent in the third row, the first one in the tidy white line. The contrast with the forward dressing station where I’d been working was very evident. And I even caught a glimpse of the X-ray machine that had saved so many lives.

I went down to the race course and located the tent in which Sergeant Larimore was once more making his raucous call.

Walking through the flap, I said in my best imitation of Matron’s voice, “That will do, young man. There are other wounded in this Base Hospital, you know. Show a little consideration for them.”

He turned his head to argue with me, recognized me, and grinned. “So they finally brought you here,” he said. “I was on them about you often enough.”

“So I heard,” I said. “Nurse Barlow was disappointed that I didn’t walk on water.” I nodded to the nurse who had just completed his bath and waited while she took the used water out to dump. It also gave me an opportunity to come to terms with the change in the man I remembered as tall, vigorous, and healthy.

His face had been pared down to the bone, and his body seemed thinner under the sheet and blanket. A ravaging fever could do that. He was wearing the blue hospital suit the Americans issued to all patients, and it appeared to fit well enough. I thought perhaps his own determination was healing him faster than medical care at this stage.

The Sergeant tried to stand up, and I pushed him back down again. “I shall be sent home in disgrace if you take a turn for the worse on my account,” I told him firmly.

“Yes, well, I’d heal faster if I could move about. Lying here day after day, I can’t regain my strength. I walk when they aren’t looking, and that’s helping. I thought in the beginning they were sending me home-I heard them talking about Boulogne when I was awake enough to understand what was going on. That’s where the ships leave for Down Under. I’m damned if I’ll let them do that. My men need me more than Australia does.”

I thought perhaps that was where his determination sprang from. And I’d seen, more than once, how the resolve to go back into the line had worked miraculous cures.

“Have you been assigned here?” he asked hopefully, changing the subject.

“No, actually I have a brief leave coming to me. I asked to be sent home by way of Rouen because of the child.”

“I didn’t dream it then. Your voice, thanking me.”

“Your list helped enormously, and the house is here, in Rouen. It’s an almost unbelievable stroke of good luck.” I told him how I’d found Sophie and what I’d learned from Sister Marie Joseph. “I intended to speak to the solicitor here in Rouen to learn what was necessary to take her to England, but I ran into her real father-almost literally ran into him. And I had to put it off, for fear he might try to follow me. Besides, Sophie had just broken out with chicken pox, and she shouldn’t have been moved.”

“Do you want me to pose as her real father? If that would help?”

I smiled. “You don’t sound much like a British officer.”

“But I can do just that, my dear,” he retorted in perfect imitation of one.

I should have realized that if he could imitate the bird’s call so well he was a natural mimic.

The nurse returned to retrieve her towels, soaps, shaving gear, and scissors, telling Sergeant Larimore not to tire himself. Turning to me, she said, “A torn lung.”

“A torn lung,” he mimicked as soon as the tent flap fell behind her, then in his normal baritone voice, he added, “As if I didn’t know. The surgery nearly killed me. It was a close-run thing. But I’m mending now. Tell me more about the child. I need something to think about besides the Base Hospital’s bloody routine. Sorry, Sister.”

And so I related the entire story. “My ship leaves at three o’clock this afternoon. I just have time to go back to the house and see how she is.”

“I hope you find her recovering. She’s young for that, isn’t she?”

“Not really. Chicken pox can sweep through an entire family in a matter of days, from the youngest to the eldest. In fact, the earlier you have it, the better. Older children often have more trouble, and scarring can be a problem. Although those scars often fade with the years.”

“If I’m ever allowed to leave this place, I’ll go along to this Rue St. Catherine and see her for myself.”

“You must be very careful,” I warned. “The nuns are not very happy with visitors.”

“I understand that. A great lug of a soldier frightening the little ones won’t do. I won’t go empty-handed. I’ve been collecting what I could. Soap, a little sugar and some coffee.” He smiled. “Will you be coming back through Rouen, then?”

“I hope to. I don’t know.”

“Don’t forget to look me up.” We were interrupted by a thermometer put in his mouth by an older woman with a severe face. When she had gone, he asked me about myself. “My neighbor for the first week was an English Corporal. I must have been calling for you when I was off my head. He told me about your father. They’re rather proud of you, you know-his old regiment. Word got around you were out here.”

I didn’t know, and was rather pleased. And so I told him about growing up in India and other corners of the Empire, and about Somerset and even about Mrs. Hennessey.

He laughed at that. “You’re better than a tonic,” he told me when I’d finished. “Stay in Rouen, and I’ll be back on my feet before the week’s out.”

Smiling, I said, “Nurse Barlow means well. I think you gave her a fright when you went missing.”

“I told her I was on walkabout. It’s what the Aborigines do when they get tired of one place. She thought I’d gone off my head again. I’m used to the spaces of the Out Back. I can’t bear being cooped up here like a fish in a bowl.”

“If you want to rejoin your men, try showing her you’re healing.”

I left a few minutes after that, mindful not to tire him. He took my hand and thanked me for coming.

I turned as I was leaving and asked, “What did you do in civilian life?”

“My father owns a large sheep station. I breed dogs for herding sheep. There’s a large market for them in New Zealand. I never cared for sheep, much to my father’s chagrin.”

I left him then and made my way out of the race course. Outside in the street I found a man willing to drive me to the Rue St. Catherine, and then take me to the port.

No one came to the door of the house where I’d left Sophie. My spirits plummeted at the thought of missing this opportunity to see her. But where were they?

I stepped away from the door to the edge of the street and looked up. The nuns could be in the kitchen-upstairs-somewhere that the sound of the knocker couldn’t reach.

But I could see nothing, no light on this gray, grim afternoon, no small faces at the windows looking down on the street. Nothing.

I was about to turn away when the woman in the neighboring house came out her door with a market basket over her arm. I turned to her and asked in French, “Is anyone at home? Where are the nuns?”

Her accent was very heavy, but I thought she said, “ Elles sont va au cimetière .”

They have gone to the cemetery.

As if she saw my confusion she added, “St. Sever.”

“Who is dead?” I asked. “Un enfant? Une soeur?” A child? A nun?

She shrugged. “I don’t know who is dead.”

“But someone must have stayed behind to watch the children.”

“I do not know,” she repeated, and with a nod, she walked on toward the shops some streets away.

I went back to the door and banged the knocker vigorously, and in the end I was rewarded. The door opened a crack and a middle-aged nun peered through it at me. “We have no one ill at this house,” she said, looking at my uniform. “You must be mistaken in your directions.”

“Please. I have come to see if Sophie is well again. When I saw her last, she had chicken pox and was very feverish.”

“No one visits the children except for the doctor in the next street. We have no need for the care of an English nursing sister.”

“But Sister Marie Joseph allowed me to see her. I am leaving for England today, and I would like very much to know that all was well with Sophie. I-I know her father. The English officer. He would like to be sure, since he sends money, that it is properly used.”

“He has sent no money for a very long time.”

“Because he couldn’t find you. Please, let me be certain she is alive and well, and he will begin to pay again for her care.” I did a swift inventory of the money I had with me, remembering how Roger Ellis had had to borrow sums from George Hughes. There was no one I could borrow money from-unless it was Sergeant Larimore. “I have some money with me. I can leave it with you to show his good faith.”

She relented finally. “Very well. But you will not speak to her. Only observe. This is the only home she has known. Do not alter that in any way.”

“I promise.”

I was taken to a small parlor heated by a coal fire in the grate. The rest of the house was damp and cold. The children were sitting on the floor, and I could see that the nun had been reading to them from a French children’s book. They looked up as I entered, their faces bright with curiosity. Visitors were a rarity.

I greeted them, and my gaze swept the circle, stopping on the fair, blue-eyed child nearest the hearth. Although pale from her recent illness, I could see that the remaining scabs were dry and healing.

She smiled at me in that way that some children have when meeting a stranger, and now I could see what George Hughes had seen, a likeness perhaps not as strong as he had wished to believe it was, but so pronounced that this child and Juliana could have been sisters. I wanted very much to speak to her, to hear her voice, to hold her on my lap and watch the play of emotions on her face.

I’d never known Juliana, but now I understood why she had left such a void in her family. The portrait had done her justice, and even the memorial stone had captured something of the living child. But here was the warmth and the smile and the tilt of the head and the lovely blue eyes under fair lashes that gave life to the static reflections of her.

I couldn’t understand how Roger Ellis could abandon her.

And would Lydia be able to love her, when she was the image of Juliana?

The nun touched my elbow, reminding me that I had had my brief glimpse and must be satisfied. I allowed her to escort me from the room, and I gave her what money I could, not nearly enough, but I needed sufficient funds to reach England and travel on to Ashdown Forest.

“When I return,” I said, “there will be more. Keep her safe.”

She thanked me gravely, and I could tell that even that meager amount was appreciated.

Just as I was about to walk out the door, I asked, “What will become of her, if there is no family to take her and educate her?”

“We have already spoken of this, Sister Marie Joseph and I. We will find her work out in the world, if that is what she chooses. Our girls learn to sew beautifully. They will be in demand for fine work. If she has a vocation, and we shall pray that God will be so kind,” she said, “we will welcome her into our house. Surely when the Germans have gone, we will be able to rebuild.”

It was a very different point of view from Sister Marie Joseph’s, that Sophie’s beauty could be a curse. What’s more, I couldn’t imagine Sophie as a seamstress at someone else’s beck and call, or a nun, shut away from the world for the rest of her life. I wanted to argue vehemently against either possibility. But I had to remember that without the care of the nuns, Sophie might not have survived at all.

I left then, and went back to my waiting taxi. We reached the harbor to find my ship already at the quay. I waited for the wounded to be taken aboard and then followed them.

“There is no cabin for you, Sister,” one of the officers told me. “But there’s a chair in what used to be the lounge, if you care to sit there.”

“That will do very well,” I said and went to the rail to watch our departure. The gangway was brought in, the ropes cast off, and we were free of the land, swinging with the tide, the engines rumbling under my feet.

I was about to walk on to the lounge, when across the water soared the call of that Australian kingfisher. Loud and clear, heads turning to see what it was and where it was coming from.

And there, behind the barriers on the quay was a tall man waving his distinctive hat, his face a blur, but I thought it was surely split from ear to ear by that cocky grin.

He’d escaped Nurse Barlow again and come down to see me off. She would be exasperated with him, and he would blandly tell her he was feverish again and off his head.

Still, I waved back, distinctly cheered.

It wasn’t until the ship moved slowly out into the current, heading downstream toward the sea, that I finally went below.

My orders were to report directly to Inspector Rother in Wych Gate. But they didn’t forbid finding a telephone as soon as we landed in Portsmouth, before I went on to meet my train.

I put in a call to my parents.

They were delighted to hear my voice and know that I was in England. But I had to tell them the reason why I wouldn’t be coming home.

My father said, “I must be away tomorrow morning. But Simon is in London. Shall I send him to Sussex?”

“Please, would you? I shall need a means of getting about.” And it would be a touch of home for me.

We talked for a few minutes more, as I assured my mother that I was well and hoped to have leave again soon. A little white lie for her comfort, I told myself.

The train to London met with the usual delays, and when I arrived at Waterloo Station, I collected my things and prepared to go in search of the next available connection to Hartfield.

Instead I found Simon Brandon waiting to help me descend from the carriage, and then he reached inside to take up my valise.

“The motorcar is this way.”

A cold rain was falling, but as we handed in my ticket and went out into the fading light, he studied my face and said, “Your mother wished to know how you looked. Tired, but well enough. That sums it up, I should think.”

I smiled. “Yes, very well. Simon, I’ve seen the little French child. Her name is Sophie.” And I went on to tell him how I’d managed to find her, and what I’d discovered.

We had reached the outskirts of London as I finished the account. Simon nodded, “I was fairly sure you would search. Against all advice.”

“There was so little opportunity to look for her. I despaired of finding her. But an Australian sergeant, his name is Larimore, put the word out, compiled a list of convents from the responses he received, and had it delivered to me by way of a wounded Scot. It made all the difference.”

“And you say Ellis knows nothing about this?”

“I don’t think he does. But running into him prevented me from speaking to the solicitor to ask how the child might be returned to her natural father.”

“Hardly your place, Bess.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that. But I’d have liked to know if it was even possible. That would guide me in deciding what to do about telling Roger Ellis-or Lydia, for that matter-that I know where Sophie is. Which reminds me, I shall need some money before I return to France. I gave the sister at the orphanage all that I could spare. They have so little, and the children need so much. French law may be very different from English law in these matters. And there’s the fact that Roger was never officially registered at Sophie’s father.”

“Leave it, Bess. You’re unwise to grow attached to this child.”

“I’m not attached. But I have become aware of another side of this war, Simon. It’s difficult enough for us to make sense of it. Think what a child who has lost everything must feel, when the future appears to be so bleak and comfortless.”

We drove on in silence, covering the miles of winter-bare England, and I wished we were heading in the direction of Somerset, on the other side of London.

We stopped briefly for tea and sandwiches in a small shop in Sevenoaks, then drove on to Ashdown Forest. This time as we approached, I recognized the first signs of it now.

“I don’t think I shall be invited to stay with the Ellis family this time,” I said ruefully.

“No. I expect not.”

“I can’t think of why I should be summoned from France for the inquest. After all, the police have my statement. Have you heard anything about the case since we left?”

“Only what you already know, that the inquest was adjourned.”

We drove through Hartfield, the street deserted, the houses already dark. I glanced toward Bluebell Cottage and saw that it looked closed and somehow forlorn. I was suddenly reminded of the cat I’d seen on a blue cushion asleep in the window.

“Simon. What’s become of Davis Merrit’s cat? Surely it wasn’t abandoned, when he didn’t come back!”

“You must ask the police.”

We left Hartfield behind and soon came to the turning where the left-hand track went to Wych Cross and the right to Wych Gate.

In the far distance, across the barren landscape, I could just see the lights of Vixen Hill as we passed the place where the lane ran into the darkness under the trees where Simon had left his horse one night.

I’d been to St. Mary’s Church, but not into the village of Wych Gate itself. It lay on the far side of the trees that stood to the west of the church, over an ancient bridge that crossed the little stream where George Hughes had died. There was a cluster of houses that clung to the road in defiance of the heath that all but surrounded them. Half the size of Hartfield, it was neither bustling nor busy, and most of the inhabitants worked elsewhere in the Forest or just outside it. But once it had been a very wealthy village based on the wool trade, when sheep had replaced the deer and other game that had drawn kings and their courts to hunt. The church was a mark of its past, and of a time when a village could afford to build it.

Inspector Rother lived on the corner of one of the two side streets in Wych Gate. We found him there after going to the police station, once a gaol for poachers and other village miscreants, that stood foursquare between the bakery and a solicitor’s chambers. He had left a note on the door directing me to his house.

He must have been watching for me. He came out of his door almost as soon as we pulled up, and said, peering into the vehicle, “Sister Crawford?”

“Yes, Inspector?”

Reaching for the handle to the rear door, he said, “I’d rather speak to you in the police station, so as not to wake my family.”

He wasn’t the sort of man I’d associated with having a family, a home life. He had seemed to be wedded to his work. I’d never quite pictured him at the breakfast table, his children around him, as I could Inspector Herbert, whom I’d known in London.

Simon turned the motorcar and drove back to the station. We hurried through the rain in Inspector Rother’s wake and waited for him to light a lamp.

In his office the furnishings were plain, with a narrow desk, a chair, and two others in front of it. Over Inspector Rother’s head as he took his seat was a photograph of the King in his naval uniform, staring at the opposite wall.

I made the introductions.

“I expected the station carriage,” he said sourly, “from Hartfield.”

“My family sent Mr. Brandon to see me safely here,” I answered. “It’s rather late, after all.”

“Yes, yes, I recall seeing Mr. Brandon in Hartfield before Christmas. You must be tired, Miss Crawford. I’ve taken a room for you at The King’s Head.”

“Thank you.” I hesitated. It seemed very odd to have made the long trip here only to be told that he’d taken a room for me. Was there more? I added, “Have you found Lieutenant Merrit? The last news I had was that the inquest had been adjourned while the police continued to look for him.”

He considered me, then glanced at Simon, standing behind my chair, leaning his shoulders against the corner of a tall bookcase. “There were questions that only the Lieutenant could answer. For example, why was a watch removed from the body of the deceased when other valuable items were not taken? What became of the murder weapon?”

“You haven’t found it?” I asked, feeling a frisson of guilt when I remembered the marble kitten slightly out of its accustomed place.

Although I had listened, I hadn’t heard the slightest sound from behind the cell door I’d glimpsed at the end of the passage some ten feet beyond Inspector Rother’s office. If Lieutenant Merrit had been taken into custody, he must not be held here.

“So far we’ve been unable to account for it.”

When he didn’t immediately go on, I asked, “When I was at The King’s Head using the telephone-this was before Lieutenant Hughes was murdered-I noticed a cat asleep in the window of Bluebell Cottage. Has anything been done about it?”

“We brought Mrs. Roger Ellis to Hartfield and asked her to look through Bluebell Cottage. She was there very early on the morning of the murder, and we wished to know if the cottage appeared to be the same as when she saw it then. She found the cat and insisted on taking charge of it. We had no objection to that.”

Lydia hadn’t told me that in her letter. “This was before the inquest?”

“Yes, in fact, later in the afternoon of the day you left for London.”

“And was the cottage the same?” Simon asked.

“It was, as far as she could tell. There was no sign of a hasty departure. Lieutenant Merrit had changed into his riding clothes and gone out. He had a habit of riding out early in the morning. We believe that he had either intentionally gone in search of George Hughes or encountered him by accident. Constable Bates found signs of someone standing by a horse for several minutes. And then the two went on together. Where they went from there was lost when a flock of sheep moved through the same ground. A clever piece of police work, that. It placed Lieutenant Merrit not far from Wych Gate Church.”

Suddenly I knew why I had been sent for. “I was told in France,” I began, “that I was required to testify at an inquest. But you haven’t caught Lieutenant Merrit, have you? And you haven’t taken anyone else into custody. Does this mean that Davis Merrit is dead?”

I felt Simon stir behind my chair.

Inspector Rother held my gaze for a long moment, then said, “Either you are quite perceptive or you have heard something in spite of our efforts to keep the discovery from the public.” He went on slowly. “Five days ago, we found the remains of Davis Merrit’s body. On the heath, in a dell that the locals call The Pitch. It appears that he died by his own hand, after returning to Hartfield long enough to pass the watch to the man we call Willy. He had taken great care to make us believe that he had then left the Forest.”

I was shocked, in spite of my premonition. “But if he’s dead, why is it necessary for me to come back from France to give evidence? Surely my statement would be sufficient, if the case is already closed?”

“I don’t care for loose ends, Miss Crawford. Why did Merrit feel it necessary to come back to Hartfield long enough to give that watch to Willy, when no one suspected him at that time and probably would not have done. If he intended to tell us that he was the killer, then why do away with himself here in the Forest? It would be more useful if he went to Devon, or Northumberland, where he could conceivably remain unidentified.”

“I don’t know. Described that way, it seems rather odd.”

“Yes. And so we find ourselves back to the beginning of the case. It’s late, and you must be tired. I hadn’t intended to speak of this tonight.”

But I thought he had. Otherwise, instead of coming to the police station, he would have sent me directly back to Hartfield and asked me to return tomorrow. Today, it was now.

And then he said meditatively, “Four men. Davis Merrit, George Hughes, Roger Ellis, and William Pryor. And now two of them are dead.”

“Who is William Pryor?”

“I don’t like murder on my patch, Miss Crawford. That’s why I have to wonder why you never told me about the quarrel Roger Ellis had with George Hughes the night before he was killed. Or the jealousy that Ellis had expressed concerning his wife’s volunteering to read to the blind man. Oh, yes, the doctor has suddenly become very eager to help us in our inquiries. As has his wife. Now I think it’s time we all went to bed, and continued this discussion tomorrow.”

With that he rose and ushered us out the door, bidding us a good night as he walked through the driving rain back to his house.

S imon and I began the long dark drive back to The King’s Head. I was grateful for his quiet presence in the motorcar beside me. I didn’t believe in ghosts, I never had, but two deaths in this Forest had somehow left a haunting presence behind.

I said, after we’d passed St. Mary’s Church, “An unexpected turn of events.”

“I told you in the beginning, Bess, that I had a bad feeling about this business. From the start. From the time you found Lydia Ellis outside your door that December night and took her in.”

“I could hardly have turned her away. But who is William Pryor? The Inspector never answered me when I asked.”

“I should think it’s the man you know as Willy.”

“Yes, of course.” I shook my head. “I must be more tired than I thought. But how did the police find out his real name? I was given the impression that no one knew who he was. And now Inspector Rother is adding Captain Ellis to his list of suspects.”

“Or he wants you to believe he has.”

“It would make sense. A clever way to rid himself of both men. Even Lydia wondered about that.” I considered what I had just said. “Simon, if that is true-and I’m not convinced that it is, mind you-why is Roger Ellis searching for Sophie? Is she in peril too?”

We drove on in silence. And then the track through the Forest ended in what would shortly become the High Street of Hartfield. Ahead of us, the inn loomed out of the dark, and across from it Bluebell Cottage, standing empty.

“I’m glad Lydia took the cat,” I said as we turned into the yard beside The King’s Head. “I wouldn’t have liked for it to be turned out into the winter cold. It had a cushion the same color as the cottage was painted. He liked that cat, Simon, and it was cosseted.”

We hurried out of the rain into The King’s Head to hear snoring coming from the small room behind Reception. Simon went to tap on the door, and a very sleepy man came out to greet us, smoothing his hair as he asked our business.

Ten minutes later we were climbing the stairs to our rooms, and Simon saw me to my door.

After he’d gone to his own room, I went to sit by the window and look out into the night, unwilling to undress and go to bed. My mind was too busy, and as I looked across the street toward Bluebell Cottage, I felt discouraged.

I’d been sitting there ten minutes, possibly fifteen, when I saw someone coming down the street, a shambling walk that made me think at once of the man Willy.

And as he drew nearer, I saw that it was indeed he. I watched him come through the shadows cast on the road by the houses across the way, and stop near Bluebell Cottage’s door.

I drew back a little from the window. I didn’t think he could see me sitting there. But I wanted very much to know what he intended to do next.

After hesitating, as if waiting to see who might be about, he finally crossed the road and came into the yard of the inn.

I could just see where he was going, and I thought at first he was hoping to find somewhere dry to sleep. Instead he walked up to Simon Brandon’s motorcar and looked it over, as if it could tell him who owned the vehicle. Or perhaps he’d seen it before and was making sure that it was the same motorcar.

I was reminded of a fox, sniffing for danger.

Finally, satisfied, he turned and walked quietly back the way he’d come.

I sat there by the window for almost another hour, but he never came back, and the road in front of the inn remained deserted, only the rain whipping through the village disturbing the peace of the night.

The next morning at breakfast, I told Simon what I’d seen.

“He didn’t interfere in any way with the motorcar, did he?” he asked sharply.

“No. He never lifted the bonnet nor touched the tires. He must have felt he recognized the motorcar from your last stay here but wasn’t quite sure it was the same. Once he was satisfied, he went on his way.”

“Hmmmm” was all Simon had to say in response. Still, I could tell the incident had made him uncomfortable. I remembered that his years in the Army had given him a finely tuned sense of danger.

“Why should he worry you?”

“Because Rother is of two minds. Either Ellis is the murderer, or Willy killed both Hughes and Merrit.”

“Davis Merrit was very generous with Willy. It’s rather terrible, to think Willy turned on him.”

After breakfast we drove back to Wych Gate. We had just reached the turning to Vixen Hill when a motorcar came down the drive and stopped to let us pass. I was surprised to see that it was Mrs. Ellis at the wheel. I waved in greeting when I saw that she had recognized me.

“Bess,” she called, and then frowned. “Has that Inspector sent for you as well? I’m just off to the railway station to meet Roger. He’s been called home too.”

“I know you’ll be happy to see him,” I said. But would Lydia feel the same?

“Yes, but what is this about? Do you know? We’ve been waiting for weeks to learn what’s happening. Have the police found Davis, do you think?”

I wanted to warn her, to tell her that Roger was now a suspect-we all were-but I hadn’t the heart.

“I expect he’ll tell us soon enough,” I replied, then before I could think it through, I said, “Did you know that Dr. Tilton and his wife have told the police about the quarrel between George and Roger?”

“It was hardly a quarrel,” she said tartly. “Poor George was drunk, and his mind was wandering. But it’s just like Dr. Tilton to make more of it than it was. He’s a very good doctor, but I sometimes think he enjoys making trouble.”

Leaving it at that, I asked, “How is Lydia? And Gran?”

“Very well. Lydia is nervous about Roger coming home, but I told her there was nothing to fear. Will you come and see her? I know she’d like that.”

“Yes, I’ll try.”

“Good. Now I must hurry. I have a list of things I must buy before the train arrives. Good-bye, Bess, Mr. Brandon.”

And she was gone.

“Why did you tell her about the doctor?” Simon asked as we drove on.

“I thought she ought to be warned. None of the family had said anything. But it was bound to come out. And now that it has, it makes us look as if we were concealing something.”

“But aren’t you?” Simon asked.

I had no answer for that. I still believed it wasn’t my place to reveal the family’s secrets. I had left it to Dr. Tilton… had that been cowardly of me?

“Nor have you told them about the message you found in that umbrella.”

“That was different. It’s not the sort of thing a man would do-to leave a message like that in an umbrella, on the off chance it would reach the right person. It’s too uncertain. But I thought perhaps Davis Merrit might have hoped Lydia would find it and come to Hartfield. Then I discovered that she’d already been to Bluebell Cottage the morning of the murder. But perhaps it had never been left in the umbrella. Perhaps someone put it there to throw the police off the scent.”

“That’s an interesting theory.”

At first I thought Simon was being facetious, but when I glanced up at his face, I saw that he was in fact agreeing with me.

“Since we’re confessing, there’s the marble kitten as well.”

Inspector Rother was expecting us. He said as we walked into the police station, “Thank you for coming so early. I’d like you to tell me again about finding the body of Lieutenant Hughes,” he said. “I know what’s in your statement, but perhaps you’ve forgot a detail.”

I didn’t think I had. But I repeated my account of our search for George, and how I’d come to follow Mrs. Ellis into the church and then down the overgrown path.

He listened, then asked me, “You heard nothing-rooks calling? Birds flying up?-to indicate that someone else was nearby, while you were searching for the Lieutenant?”

“No, the wood around us was quiet. Besides, I touched the Lieutenant’s hand. He had been killed some time before we found his body. Even accounting for the cold morning and the cold water in the stream.”

“You weren’t aware that there’s a shortcut from St. Mary’s Church to Vixen Hill?”

Surprised, I said, “No. I didn’t know that.”

“It isn’t suitable for motorcars, of course. But anyone from Vixen Hill could walk to Wych Gate and back again inside half an hour. Less, on horseback.” He drew a rough map on the sheet of paper in front of him, and I could see that he was right. The house was set to connect with the track from Hartfield, but if one knew the way, from the knot garden there was another, smaller track that cut cross-country. Had George taken it? Had his killer?

“We can turn it another way,” the Inspector went on, holding up his hand, ticking off the points on his fingers.

“Mrs. Roger Ellis is struck by someone, and has already run away once to London-the stationmaster and the woman who gave her a lift there have confirmed this. She returns home with a friend, and shortly afterward, her husband has words with the victim about a child he fathered while in France, and early the next morning, Mrs. Roger Ellis goes into Hartfield to speak to Davis Merrit. Afterward she packs her cases and prepares to leave again. According to the driver of the station carriage, she was very anxious not to miss that train. So much so that she was short with her mother-in-law. And with you. Was she expecting to meet Lieutenant Merrit at the station? After he’d killed George Hughes? Why didn’t she want you to go down that narrow path to the stream? Did she already know that a dead man lay at the end of it?”

“If she had intended to run away with Lieutenant Merrit, why had she asked me to accompany her to London?”

“For the sake of propriety, I should think,” he countered.

“I can’t think why Lydia Ellis would wish to kill George Hughes.”

“In the expectation that her husband would be blamed, and she would be free to remarry.”

“Yes, well, Davis Merrit should have thought of that before he handed Lieutenant Hughes’s watch to that man Willy.”

“I expect our friend Willy was supposed to tell the police that Roger Ellis had given him the watch.”

That was an interesting supposition. It was clear that the police had put the last five days to good use, coming up with the ramifications of finding Davis Merrit’s body.

Simon had put two and two together as well. “Are you saying that Merrit killed himself when everything went wrong?”

Distracted, I was thinking of the message in the umbrella. Meet me…

Perhaps I’d been wrong. Perhaps it had been a last desperate attempt by the Lieutenant to reach Lydia. Only I found it instead, and then the Inspector was waiting in the churchyard when services ended. And Merrit had to leave quickly.

I nearly shook my head, answering my own question. I hadn’t been wrong. But who had sent it?

Inspector Rother was already replying to Simon. “It’s likely.”

All his conclusions had a ring of truth-but I knew Mrs. Ellis and Lydia and even Davis Merrit better than the Inspector could do. Why would Mrs. Ellis put her own son in jeopardy by killing George Hughes less than twelve hours from the time he’d confronted Roger in the drawing room? Wouldn’t she have been glad of the child, rather than angry? And Lydia was too impulsive to be included in any convoluted plot to make the police believe her husband had killed his friend. Even the little I’d seen and heard about Davis Merrit didn’t match the picture of an obsessed lover who killed himself when his plans went awry. But that left Roger himself, didn’t it?

I was trying to order my thoughts, to make certain that what I was about to say made sense.

“Inspector, I don’t think you’ve brought me here to speculate about the Ellis family’s motives for murder. I think what you really want to know is if you can clear them, and open the inquiry in an entirely different direction. For instance, in the direction of William Pryor-Willy.”

“There’s still Roger Ellis. Who could have killed both men, to rid himself of the erstwhile friend who knew too much about his affair in France and the blind man his wife had been seeing too much of in his absence.”

“But George had already told everyone about the affair. Captain Ellis had no right to be jealous, did he?”

He gave me a sour smile. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”

“Was the body of Davis Merrit too decomposed for you to be completely satisfied that he’d killed himself?” Simon asked.

He looked up at Simon. “You have a most inconvenient mind,” he said. “I have a dead man with a spent bullet under his remains, his service revolver in what is left of his hand, but no marks on the skeleton to tell me where the bullet entered, and where it came out. I can find no one who has heard a single gunshot out on the heath. And there is some small indication that the man was throttled, but we can’t be certain of that because foxes and rooks were at the body.”

“And no way of knowing precisely when the Lieutenant died,” I added to the list.

“You and Captain Ellis left the Forest on the same day. Merrit must have been dead by then.”

And Mrs. Ellis was already on her way to the station to meet her returning son.

“So it isn’t Willy you’re looking at, but Roger Ellis,” I said. “You used us.”

He could hear the disgust in my voice, and answered coldly, “I have a murder case to solve, Sister Crawford, and my best suspect is dead. If he killed himself, all well and good, but if he did not, then our murderer has two deaths on his conscience.”

“If he has a conscience,” I replied. “Have you finished with me? Am I allowed to return to France? I’m needed there.”

“You are needed here as well. Would you be willing to return to Vixen Hill?”

“No,” Simon answered for me. “The Colonel would be furious if you put his daughter in harm’s way.”

“Besides which,” I added, “Roger Ellis may not want me there.” In spite of the time we had spent together in that little bistro in Rouen, he wouldn’t want me to tell Lydia he was also searching for Sophie.

“I think,” Inspector Rother said dryly, “the person who would most dislike having you there is the senior Mrs. Ellis.”

“Gran?” I repeated.

“Quite,” he answered. “She has been throwing sand in my eyes since the moment I arrived at Vixen Hill, busily protecting her grandson. And you see far too clearly for her comfort. I have just verified that myself.”

I remembered Lydia’s letter to me in France. Everyone had sent me Christmas wishes-except for Gran.