An Impartial Witness

An Impartial Witness

Charles Todd

In remembrance…

Samantha

June 1995 to September 2007

and

Crystal

November 1995 to March 2008

who gave so much to those who loved them

CHAPTER ONE

Early Summer, 1917

AS MY TRAIN pulled into London, I looked out at the early summer rain and was glad to see the dreary day had followed me from Hampshire. It suited my mood.

I had only thirty-six hours here. And I intended to spend them in bed, catching up on lost sleep. The journey from France with the latest convoy of wounded had been trying. Six of us had brought home seventeen gas cases and one severe burn victim, a pilot. They required constant care, and two were at a critical stage where their lungs filled with fluid and sent them into paroxysms of coughing that left them too weak to struggle for the next breath. My hands ached from pounding them on the back, forcing them to spit up the fluid and draw in the air they so desperately needed. The burn victim, swathed in bandages that had to be changed almost every hour, was frightful to see, his skin still raw and weeping, his eyes his only recognizable feature. I knew and he knew that in spite of all his doctors could do, it would never be enough. The face he’d once had was gone, and in its place would be something that frightened children and made women flinch. I’d been warned to keep a suicide watch, but he had a framed photograph of his wife pinned to his tunic, and it was what kept him alive, not our care.

It had been a relief to turn our patients over to the efficient clinic staff, who swept them into fresh beds and took over their care in our place. The other nurses were already on their way back to Portsmouth while I, as sister in charge, signed the papers noting eighteen patients delivered still living, none delivered dead, and went to find a cup of tea in the kitchen before the next train left for London. The kitchen was busy and so I stood looking out the windows of the staff sitting room as I drank my tea. The green lawns of the country-house-turned-clinic led the eye to the rolling Hampshire landscape beyond, misty with the rain. So different from the black, battle-scarred French countryside I’d just left. Here it was peaceful, and disturbed by nothing louder than birdsong or the lowing of cattle. It had been hard to tear myself away when the driver arrived to convey me to the railway station.

Now as the train came to a smooth stop and the man sitting opposite me opened our compartment door, I smelled London, that acrid mixture of wet clothing, coal smoke, and damp that I had come to know so well. My fellow passenger smiled as he handed down my valise, and I thanked him before setting out across the crowded platform.

As I threaded my way through throngs of families seeing their loved ones off to God knew where, I caught snatches of hurried, last-minute conversations.

“You will be careful, won’t you?”

“Mother will expect you to write every day—”

“I love you, my boy. You’re in my heart always.”

“Did you remember to pack your books?”

“I’m so proud of you, son. So proud—”

A pair of Highland officers stepped aside to allow me to pass, and I found myself facing a couple who were oblivious to my approach and blocking my way to the exit.

She was standing with her head bent and slightly turned toward her companion, her hat brim shielding her face. But even at a distance of several yards, I could tell that she was crying, her shoulders shaking with the force of her sobs. The man, an officer in a Wiltshire regiment, seemed not to know how to console her. He stood with his hands at his sides, clenching and unclenching them, an expression of long-suffering on his face. I thought he must be returning to the Front and had lived through this scene before. She clutched an umbrella under her right arm while her left was holding to his as if it were a lifeline.

Her distress stopped me in my tracks for a moment. Watching them, I wondered at his reluctance to touch her and at the same time I was struck by the air of desperation about her. I’d seen this same desperation in men who had lost limbs or were blinded, a refusal to accept a bitter truth that was destroying them emotionally.

But there was nothing I could do. Rescuing kittens and dogs was one thing, marching up to complete strangers and asking what was wrong was something else.

Still, I felt a surge of pity, and my training was to comfort, not ignore, as her companion was doing.

I was about to walk around them when a whistle blew and she lifted her head to cast an anguished glance at the train, as if afraid it was on the point of departing.

I had the shock of my life.

I’d seen her before. There was no doubt about it.

Hers was the face in the photograph that the pilot, Lieutenant Evanson, had kept by his side like a talisman during his treatment in France and in all the long journey home. His wife, he’d said. There was no doubt about that either.

I couldn’t be mistaken. I’d seen that photograph too many times as I worked with him, I’d seen it that very morning, in fact, when I’d changed his bandages one last time. She was looking up at the officer now, her eyes pleading with him. I couldn’t be sure who was leaving whom. But just then the engine’s wheels began to move and the officer—I couldn’t see his rank, he was wearing a trench coat against the rain—bent swiftly to say something to her, kissed her briefly, and then hurried toward the train.

She lifted a hand as if to stop him then let it drop. He swung himself into the nearest compartment, shut the door, and didn’t look back. She stood there, forlornly watching him until he was out of sight.

It had all happened rather quickly, and I had no idea who this man might be, but I had the distinct impression that she never expected to see him again. Women sometimes had dreams or premonitions about loved ones, more a reflection of their own fears than true foreboding. They usually hid these well as they sent their men off to fight. But perhaps hers had been particularly vivid and she couldn’t help herself. It would explain his restraint and her desolation.

Before I could move on, she turned and literally dashed toward the exit. I tried to follow, but I lost her in the crush. By the time I reached the street, she was in a sea of black umbrellas as people made their way toward the line of cabs waiting there.

I gave up my search after several minutes, and found a cab of my own to take me to the flat. I wasn’t sure what I’d have done if I’d caught up with Mrs. Evanson, but I’d have felt better knowing she’d taken a cab rather than tried to walk off her low spirits in this chill rain.

Mrs. Hennessey opened her door as I came into the hall, smiling up at me in welcome. From her own ground-floor flat she watched us come and go, took in our mail when we weren’t there, brought us soup when we were ill, and generally kept an eye on us without in any way intruding.

“Bess, my dear! And just look how wet you are.”

She embraced me with warmth, then added, “You’ve just missed Elayne. She left this morning. Mary is in London, but staying with her brother’s family, and there’s been no word from Diana since she went back last week. Is there anything you need? I must say, you do look tired. How long will you be here?”

I laughed. “Thirty-six hours. Thirty-five now. And yes, I’m tired. And I’m glad to have the flat to myself. I want only to sleep.”

“And you must do just that. I’ll see that you have a nice tea. You look thin to me, Bess Crawford, and what would your mother say to that?”

“We sometimes miss meals,” I admitted. “You won’t tell Mama, will you?”

For some time I’d had a sneaking suspicion that my mother and Mrs. Hennessey had entered into a conspiracy to keep me safe. Choosing nursing as my contribution to the war effort hadn’t been met with the greatest enthusiasm at home. The Colonel Sahib, my father, had no sons to follow in his footsteps, and while I believed he was secretly quite proud of me, he was also well aware that war had an ugly face, and nursing sisters saw the worst of what war cost.

Mrs. Hennessey said, “Which reminds me, Sergeant-Major Brandon stopped here last week. He took Diana to dinner before she left.”

I felt a flicker of jealousy. Simon usually came to dine with me when he was in London. He’d served with my father in all our postings around the Empire, and now lived near us in Somerset when he wasn’t doing whatever hush-hush work he and my father never talked about. No longer in active service, their experience was still invaluable, and the War Office sent for them often, sometimes for weeks at a time. My mother and I had tried to guess what they were doing, but I had a feeling we were well off the mark.

Simon had always been a part of my life. He’d picked me up at six when I fell off my first pony, he’d taught me tactics when I was tired of being a girl and bored with petticoats, he’d interceded with the Colonel Sahib when I was in disgrace. He’d listened to my secrets and comforted me when I was in the throes of first love and couldn’t tell Mama, and he’d stood on the dock when my packet had sailed for England that last time and promised me I’d return to India some day, when the time was right. Half confessor, half godfather, half friend, half elder brother—Simon had no business taking my flatmates to dinner. Besides, Diana was in love with someone else.

Mrs. Hennessey finally let me go, and I went up the stairs. I was just plumping my pillow when she came in with a cup of tea. I think I was asleep before I’d finished half of it.

Twenty-four hours later, I was back in France. The next two weeks were a blur, broken bodies and long hours. Then one afternoon Sister James came in with a box that had just arrived from her family. Martha was two years my senior, plump, levelheaded, and a very experienced nursing sister. I’d learned a great deal from her, and we had become close friends as well as colleagues.

We had just finished an extra shift, and were tired and on edge from the German shelling that had gone on for hours. Although we were out of range, here behind the lines, the ground shook with the pounding until our heads were aching and our nerves frayed. It was usually a sign of an attack to come, and an ambulance had been sent back to the depot for fresh supplies to see us through. Harry, the driver, had also found time to walk across the camp to ask if there was any mail for our sector. Arriving at the hospital, he’d looked up Sister James and presented her with her package before unloading his cargo.

“I think Harry is half in love with you,” I said as she let me feel the weight of the box. Hefty enough for sharing. I smiled, looking forward to seeing what was inside. It was a much needed distraction. “You seem to receive your post before anyone else.”

Sister James laughed, then winced as another miniature earthquake shook the beds we were sitting on. Our only lamp had fallen over earlier in the day when the shelling began, but blessedly was still intact. A jar of tea hadn’t fared as well. There was a crack down one side. And my mirror had come off the wall, fortunately landing on my spare pair of boots before tumbling to the floor.

The beds danced again, and Sister James said, “If this doesn’t stop, we’ll get no rest this night.”

“Never mind the guns,” I said, handing her my scissors to cut the string. “Open the box. There may be something perishable in it that we ought to eat at once.”

“Chocolate,” she said, “if it hasn’t melted in this heat.”

She managed to get the box open, and the first thing we saw was a small jug of honey from the hives on the James’s home farm, swathed in a scarf her little sister had knitted, never mind that it was summer. Under that was a tin of fruit and another of milk for our tea. I wondered how her family could bear to part with such treasures, knowing as I did how scarce these were at home.

Around the whole was a folded newspaper, and Sister James gently pulled it out with a cry of delight. Just then the beds shook once more, and we both reached for the jug of honey, bumping heads as we caught it right on the brink of going over.

“Blast them!” she said, and then began to unfold the pages. It was a London newspaper, and in it was the engagement announcement of her middle sister. She read it hungrily, having missed the excitement of the proposal. Sitting back, she said, “Oh, how I wish I could be there for the wedding!”

We munched on stale biscuits that we’d found tucked in the scarf, and speculated on the chances of the marriage taking place in early autumn as planned.

I coughed as the next shell landed, catching me with a mouthful of biscuit crumbs. “If I were her,” I said, clearing my throat, “I’d want to be married as soon as may be. Still, a Christmas wedding would be nice.”

“If Henry can manage leave…”

We fell silent. Henry had proposed on his last leave. There might not be another.

Sister James said, “Well. We can hope.” She took the engagement notice out of the newspaper and folded it carefully, stowing it in her trunk. I picked up the rest of the pages to search for the obituaries.

Instead I found myself staring at a pen-and-ink drawing of a woman’s face. Beneath it was the caption: Police Ask for Witnesses—Evanson Murder Still Unsolved.

Startled—for I recognized the face—I read on.

The murder of Mrs. Marjorie Evanson, wife of Lieutenant Meriwether Evanson, presently in hospital in Hampshire, remains a mystery. Police are asking any witnesses who may have seen her to step forward. Mrs. Evanson left her residence shortly after noon on 15 May and was never seen alive again. Tracing her movements that fateful day has proved difficult, and Scotland Yard has now turned to the public for assistance in learning where she might have gone and whom she may have seen…

I put the newspaper down. Sister James, shoving her trunk back under her bed, said, “What is it? You look as if someone has walked over your grave.”

It was just an expression, one I’d heard many times, but I said without thinking, “Not mine—but someone I may have seen. Look, read this.”

Sister James took the newspaper from me and scanned the column. “I don’t know her. Do you?”

“Her husband was among that group of wounded I escorted to Hampshire. The badly burned pilot. Remember? He kept his wife’s photograph by him—and that’s his wife. I can’t bear to think how he must have felt when he was told.”

“But, Bess, murdered? That’s awful.”

“Yes, but what’s more important is that I saw her late that very afternoon. She was at the railway station, seeing off an officer in a Wiltshire regiment. She was crying. Terribly upset. I’m afraid I stood there staring. I was so surprised to recognize her.” I winced as the next shell landed. They seemed to be coming closer together now.

“Who was the man with her?”

“I’ve no idea.” I shook my head, trying to come to terms with the fact that she’d been murdered that very same day. “That poor man—her husband—was counting the hours until he saw her again. It was what kept him fighting to live. I wonder who had to break the news to him. I can’t imagine having to do it.”

“Bess, if you saw her that day, you must tell the Yard.”

“But I don’t know who she was with, or where she went after she left the station. Only that she was there for a few minutes, seeing someone off, and that’s not terribly useful. It’s been a week since this request came out in the newspaper—surely someone else has come forward. A waiter in a restaurant, a cabbie, a friend who ran into her somewhere.” But what if they were saying the same thing: someone else will do it.

“If he’s at the Front, this Wiltshire officer hasn’t spoken to the police,” she pointed out. “And just now, what Lieutenant Evanson probably wants more than anything else is for the police to find her killer.”

“Does it say there how she died? I didn’t read the rest of the article.”

She went back to the newspaper, scanning down the column of close print. “Here it is. She was stabbed and then thrown in the river. They say that she was still alive when she went into the water, but was most likely unconscious.”

“How awful.” I tried to bring up the image of the woman I’d seen in London, her face streaked with tears. Yes, it was the same person. I’d have no problem swearing to that. And the man? Could I remember him as clearly? Dark hair, blue eyes, a rather weak chin…

More to the point, would I know him again?

“What if this officer hasn’t seen the newspapers? Or been told yet that she’s dead? If the police find him, it’s possible he could tell them where she was going after she left the station. There’s no way of knowing where that might lead,” Martha James persisted.

“Yes,” I said slowly. “You’re right. I really should report what I saw, and let the Yard decide whether it’s helpful information or not.”

“They don’t mention what time she died or when her body was found. More’s the pity,” she added, finishing the article. “You may have been the last person to see her alive, except for her killer. Now there’s an unsettling thought. If he was looking for a likely victim, he might have followed you home instead. You were a woman alone too.”

“You have a ghoulish imagination,” I told her. “I’ll write the letter now.”

My voice suddenly seemed overloud.

We looked at each other. Silence had fallen, the earth was still. I felt almost dizzy with relief, my ears still ringing, my nerves still jangled, my teeth on edge.

“Oh, dear,” Sister James said. “I have a feeling they’ll be sending for us soon.”

“Very likely. It shouldn’t take long to put down what I saw. Could you make us a cup of tea meanwhile?”

But it proved unexpectedly difficult to compose that letter. I kept seeing Lieutenant Evanson’s eyes peering through his heavy bandages, tenaciously holding on to hope even as time was running out for hope, trusting to his wife’s love for him to help him survive and unaware that she would be dead before morning. And so I weighed each word, to make certain that I reported events accurately, uncolored by my own imagination.

After three tries, I was finally satisfied. I was just on the point of sealing the envelope when we could hear the first of the ambulances rumbling toward the wards, bringing in new casualties. I hastily finished my tea, put on a fresh uniform, and by the time Sister James and I were ready, there was a knock on the door and an orderly’s voice summoning us to duty.

CHAPTER TWO

I EXPECTED THAT the police would thank me for my information. And that would be the end of it. I wrote to Mrs. Hennessey, asking her to save the London papers, in the event there was any more news.

What I was not prepared for was a summons through channels to speak to someone at the Yard, an Inspector Herbert. I was given leave to travel to London for that purpose and two days later I was sitting in a grim little office at Scotland Yard, having been escorted there by a constable with a limp and lines of pain in his face.

After several minutes, a harried, balding man stepped into the room, introduced himself, asked me how my journey from France had been, and then lifted a sheet of paper from his desk and frowned at it. I recognized it.

“The Evanson case. We’ve had precious little help from the public, sad to say. I was on the point of giving up hope when your letter came.” He lifted his gaze to my face, the frown deepening.

“You write that you recognized Mrs. Evanson from a photograph that her husband kept by his side. How long before encountering Mrs. Evanson at the railway station had you seen this photograph?”

“A matter of hours? That morning I’d transported her husband and other patients to a clinic in Hampshire and turned them over to the staff there. It was a little past five o’clock when my train pulled into London—I wasn’t required to return to France for another day.”

“Tell me again exactly what you saw.”

“As I left the train and was walking toward the exit, Mrs. Evanson was literally in my path, and it was obvious that she had broken down. Her shoulders were shaking with her sobs. Of course, at that point I couldn’t see her face because she was turned toward the officer standing beside her. Just then she looked up, and I realized I knew who she was.”

“You also state in your letter that you recognized the cap badge but couldn’t see the man’s rank because of the trench coat he was wearing. But he was an officer in a Wiltshire regiment. Can you be quite certain about such details?”

“My father was in the Army for most of his adult life,” I replied. “I know how to judge what rank a man holds and what regiment he serves with.”

“And you are satisfied that he did take the train just as it was pulling away? He didn’t pretend to board and then return to the platform?”

“I saw him take his seat. He didn’t look back toward Mrs. Evanson. That distressed her, and she watched the train until it was out of sight. I don’t know how he could have managed leaving without being seen. She turned then and left in a rush. I couldn’t tell which way she went after that. It was raining, I had to hand in my ticket, and I was carrying my valise.”

He nodded. “To be sure. And she was in great distress, you said.”

“Yes. That’s what drew my attention to her in the first place.”

“What made her distress different from that of other women seeing off friends or loved ones?”

I frowned. “I thought at the time that perhaps she’d had a premonition or a dream that he wouldn’t be coming back. She wasn’t putting on a brave front, you see, as so many women do. She appeared to be giving in to her feelings.”

“As you observed the two of them together—Mrs. Evanson and the officer—could you form an opinion of the relationship between them?”

“She clung to him. He hardly looked at her or touched her.”

Inspector Herbert raised his eyebrows. “He didn’t comfort her? Was he perhaps embarrassed by her behavior?”

“I—that’s one possible interpretation. But he stayed there with her, he didn’t walk away until the train began to move.” It occurred to me then that by standing with her until the last minute, he’d kept her from following him to his carriage.

After a moment’s thought, Inspector Herbert went on. “I am about to confide to you information that we haven’t made public, Miss Crawford. And I hope you’ll not repeat it. But I think it’s necessary if we’re to understand the facts you’ve placed before us. The coroner has informed us that Mrs. Evanson was nearly three months’ pregnant. I must assume, from my exchange of letters with his commanding officer, that her husband, Lieutenant Evanson, couldn’t have been the father of this child. By any chance, are you able to verify his medical history?”

I tried not to show my shock. “I know from his medical records that Lieutenant Evanson has been in hospital in France for two months. Before that, his aircraft had been shot down over German lines and it was at least two weeks before he made his way back to British lines. He wasn’t hurt in that crash, at least not seriously, although he was sent to hospital for observation because of a blow to the head. There was no concussion, and he was released to his unit. But a few weeks later he wasn’t so lucky—his aircraft caught fire and he was fortunate to survive at all. It must be four months or more since he was in England. At the very least.”

I had heard one of the doctors say that Lieutenant Evanson had been returned to duty too soon, before the psychological effects of his first crash had worn off. But they were desperate for experienced pilots and he’d been eager to rejoin his flight.

“As we’d thought. The Army has supplied the particulars, but not in such detail. To the next question. You only saw Mrs. Evanson and the officer together for a brief moment. Do you think that this man might be the father of her child?”

I knew what he was asking: if not, did she have other lovers? I didn’t want to believe that of her. But then I really knew nothing about her.

I pictured her again in my mind’s eye. If I’d been touched by her anguish, why hadn’t he? How had he managed to remain indifferent? Could that mean she’d only just told him her news? There at the station, where they were surrounded by strangers? She might have lost her nerve earlier, or been afraid that he wouldn’t allow her to come to see him off.

I remembered a detail that I hadn’t put in my letter. When he bent to kiss her on the cheek, she hadn’t responded. She hadn’t put her hand up to his face or turned to kiss him. It was as if he hadn’t quite known how to walk away from her. And she had been numb, the perfunctory kiss a gesture on his part that she barely felt. That could mean he’d just made it clear that for him the affair was over. What if her distress was her bitter realization that he would do nothing to help her now, even if he knew about the child?

I took a deep breath. “It would be easy to read into what I saw all sorts of explanations that very likely weren’t there. At a guess, there was more estrangement between them than passion. That’s why I felt at the time that she never expected to see him again.”

Inspector Herbert nodded. “I’ve drawn much the same conclusion. Still, there’s always the possibility that he left the train at the next stop because he knew where to find her. I must keep an open mind there.”

“If he was rejoining his regiment, he might not have had the option of waiting for a later train.”

“Then we must find the man, if only to clarify that point. To be honest, we’re no closer to discovering our murderer now than we were when our plea for information was published in the newspapers.” Which I interpreted to mean that he was in some way disappointed in my evidence.

“If you’d told me she was a suicide, I would have found that believable, given her state of mind. Or even if he’d been found dead instead of Mrs. Evanson. Not to suggest that she could have killed anyone. It’s just that her death seems so—inexplicable.”

Inspector Herbert smiled. “You have been very helpful, Miss Crawford. Thank you for coming forward.”

I was being dismissed.

I rose to take my leave.

But at the door, I turned, my training reminding me. “Do you know—had she seen a doctor, to confirm her suspicion that she was pregnant?” She must have guessed by the third month.

“We’ve had no luck there either. I sent my men out with photographs of Mrs. Evanson, in the event she had used a false name. They spoke to doctors and their staffs all across London, and to midwives as well as—er—less savory practitioners in the poorer neighborhoods of the city. So far it would appear that she hasn’t been to anyone. We had hoped that the father was decent enough to accompany her and someone remembered him.”

Scotland Yard had been thorough.

“Surely her family must have some idea who her friends were. There must have been someone she’d seen more of than was proper.”

“Neither her sister nor her sister-in-law had any inkling that there was someone. And the friends we’ve spoken to tell us the same thing,” Inspector Herbert replied. “On the other hand, it’s more than likely that when she was with this man, she’d avoid places where she might be recognized. Otherwise there could have been gossip, which might even reach her husband’s ears in time.” He paused. “You’re a woman. Where would you look for help if you were in Mrs. Evanson’s shoes?”

“I can’t imagine that I’d turn to the man’s family. I’m sure they were kept in the dark as well. I’m not sure about friends either. I’d be afraid they would stand in judgment of me. I expect I’d go somewhere I wasn’t known, and pose as a war widow. People might be more kind in such circumstances. I’d be frightened about doing anything until I’d told my lover. And perhaps even after I’d told him.”

“Frightened of him?” Inspector Herbert asked sharply.

“Frightened for myself and what was to come. I couldn’t count on him, could I? He might be married. And even if he were not, I couldn’t be sure he’d stand by me and marry me when—if—my husband divorced me. I’d have to face everything alone—my family, my husband, my friends. There’s nowhere else to turn, then. And there’s the child to think about. I wish now I’d caught up with her outside the station. But that’s hindsight, of course. She wouldn’t have confided in her husband’s nurse, would she?”

“Quite. At least, thanks to you, we’ve discovered she was with someone later that day. That leaves only five or six more hours to account for. It had been ten, in the beginning. And in ten hours, she might have gone anywhere and still returned to London in time to be murdered. A needle in the proverbial haystack.”

I remembered Sister James’s comment. “I don’t like to suggest—but there are men who prey on women, and if she had nowhere to turn, literally, if she sat crying on a bench along the Thames, or walked in Green Park—”

“We’ve had no problems of that sort—thank God—these past twelve months. But yes, we’ve taken that into account. Far-fetched, perhaps, but we haven’t shut our eyes to the possibility. And her husband’s family is pushing for an early conclusion. We have none to offer at present.”

I thanked him and left. The patient constable led me down the stairs and out to the street. He asked as I stepped out onto the pavement, “Shall I find a cab for you, Miss?”

“I’d like to walk a bit first. Thank you, Constable.”

He smiled. “Safe journey home, Miss.”

Little did he know that I’d be in France in another four and twenty hours.

I’d come nearly as far as Buckingham Palace, going over what I’d learned from Inspector Herbert. This meeting at Scotland Yard had been distressing. Both because of what I’d seen at the railway station and because I’d had Lieutenant Evanson in my care long enough to be concerned for him and his welfare. Yes, Marjorie Evanson had transgressed in the eyes of society. Sadly, such affairs were more common in the disruption of war. I’d heard patients worry about their wives when letters were slow in arriving, long silences that were never fully explained. They would ask me if I thought there was someone else, and always I’d tried to be reassuring, for fear of a relapse. And I’d had patients confess to me that they’d been unfaithful to wives or sweethearts, afraid to die with that on their conscience.

“Sister, I have to tell someone…”

But I couldn’t judge Marjorie Evanson. I knew nothing about her, about what or who had tempted her, how she had come to do what she did. Whether it had anything to do with her death was something Scotland Yard must discover.

I found myself looking at the watch pinned at my shoulder. There was time—just—to find a telephone and put in a call to my parents, to say hello. And then I could take the early train to Portsmouth and stop at Laurel House on my way there.

I could see for myself how Lieutenant Evanson was faring, and it would help me put all this behind me. There was probably very little I could do for him, but perhaps a familiar face would cheer him, and we needn’t mention his wife at all.

I felt a little better as I turned to hail a cab.

This was a lovely summer’s day to be traveling, the roadsides and meadows rampant with wildflowers, villages quiet under the afternoon sun. A herd of sheep, recently shorn, ambled down a lane on their way back to pasture as we waited half an hour at a crossing to give a troop train priority. Lambs frolicked about the ewes, and robins were nesting in the hedgerow beyond. Birds had all but vanished in France, even the carrion crows.

I was looking forward to seeing Lieutenant Evanson, but I was beginning to wonder what I was to say to him. I needn’t explain precisely why I was in England. He would take it for granted that I’d brought other patients back. And I wouldn’t speak of his wife unless he brought up her death. Least said, soonest mended, my mother had often warned me. There was no need to mention my encounter with Marjorie at the railway station either. And if there were other visitors, my stay could be brief. I’d know, after five minutes in his company, how he was coping.

At Marlyn Station, I found a man who could carry me on to my destination. And he promised to wait, because I dared not miss the next train south to Portsmouth. I’d have to stay the night, and my orders didn’t leave me that option.

I had had other things on my mind the last time I was here, and it had been raining. Today as we came through the gates and up the drive, I could see that Laurel House was a handsome brick edifice in the Georgian style, with white stone trim and two broad half-moon steps leading up to the main doors. They stood open to the warm day, and I walked in, stopping at the small table that served as Reception.

I didn’t recognize the middle-aged woman sitting there.

“Nursing Sister Crawford to see Lieutenant Evanson. He was my patient on his journey back to England, and I’ve stopped in to see him.”

She gave me a strange look. I suddenly felt like an interloper, with no business here.

“Lieutenant Evanson?” I repeated.

“Perhaps you ought to speak to Matron, first,” the woman said finally.

“Yes, that’s fine,” I answered. We walked down a passage between the graceful staircase and the doors to rooms that had once been fashionably decorated for social calls and parties and family evenings at home. Now they were bare wards for those who couldn’t mount the stairs.

Matron had established herself in what had been a small morning room, and I remembered the pale lavender walls and a white coffered ceiling. Filing boxes still occupied all the free space, and the breeze from the open windows stirred papers on the desk. Matron looked as harried as she had on my last visit.

“Miss Crawford. How nice to see you again. Do sit down. May I offer you tea?”

“Thank you, no. I must make the next train to Portsmouth. I’ve come to speak to Lieutenant Evanson.”

I realized suddenly that something was wrong. She had turned her head to look out the window as I was speaking, her gaze on the small gazebo in the garden. Then she turned back to me with an expression I instantly recognized.

“I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you—we lost Lieutenant Evanson six days ago.”

I started to speak, but she held up her hand.

“He’d been very depressed since the death of his wife. Despondent might be the better word. We did all we could. And then on Tuesday night, we found him in his bed, dead. Somehow he’d managed to purloin a scalpel, we don’t know exactly where or how. And he’d cut his own throat. It was the only death he could manage with his bandaged hands. Even so, it couldn’t have been easy. But he was determined, you see.”

I knew my face must be mirroring the expression on hers. Horror. Loss. Grief. And there was something more in her eyes, a sense of guilt, as if somehow she should have prevented his death. I sat there, stunned, and after a moment, she nodded, as if she understood what I was feeling.

I managed to say the proper things even as my mind struggled to accept what had happened. It was inevitable, given how much he loved his wife. What else was there to live for, without her, without a face or hands that resembled human features and fingers? And yet it was sad beyond words.

Why hadn’t Inspector Herbert told me? But then he couldn’t have known I was coming here. Still—

A brief silence fell. Then I asked the difficult question. “Who told him that his wife was dead?”

“His sister came down. It had to be done, of course. We couldn’t have kept it from him. He’d been asking for her, you see. But we thought—he seemed to take the news as well as could be expected. He just stared at the wall and said nothing. He was very quiet for the next week, although he asked on two occasions if the police had made any progress in their search for her killer. Afterward, we realized he was simply biding his time. We kept an eye on him, well aware of how much—how important she was to his recovery. As soon as he’d arrived at Laurel House, he’d asked one of the staff to write to his wife, to tell her that he was back in England and how much he looked forward to seeing her. When she didn’t come, he wrote to his sister asking if Mrs. Evanson were ill. His sister had hoped to spare him the news until he was stronger, but that was not to be. Mrs. Melton had no choice but to tell her brother the truth.”

Even as he was dictating his first letter, it was too late. According to the police, Marjorie Evanson had left her house early to set out on the journey that would take her to the railway station and then to her death.

“He did inquire of the doctor if it would be possible for him to attend the funeral service. I needn’t tell you it was out of the question. We asked our chaplain, Mr. Davies, to sit with him that day, and offer what comfort he could. I spoke to Mr. Davies that evening as he was leaving, and he felt that Lieutenant Evanson seemed reconciled to his loss. I wasn’t convinced, however, and kept an eye on the lieutenant anyway.”

So much for Mr. Davies’s powers of observation. Still, he was undoubtedly the village priest, and had very little experience in suicide watches. There was something else to be considered. Lieutenant Evanson was trained as a pilot, taught to bury everything that might distract him from the intense concentration required to handle his aircraft and face a very aggressive enemy. He could well have concealed his intentions by drawing on that same training.

Remembering, I said, “What became of the photograph he carried with him?”

“The one of his wife? That was odd, you know. We had suggested that it be buried with him. It had meant so much to him. But his sister wouldn’t hear of that. She left it on his bed when she came to collect his few belongings. That seemed so—so cruel to me, somehow.”

I interpreted his sister’s decision to mean that she had learned about the pregnancy, even if she hadn’t told her brother or anyone else here at Laurel House.

Matron opened her desk drawer and took out an envelope. She passed it to me. “I kept it. I really couldn’t bring myself to throw it away.”

I took the envelope, but didn’t open it. I could feel the edges of the thin silver frame through the brown paper. “I understand. I’d have felt the same. I nursed him for days. This was his anchor. Perhaps someone in Mrs. Evanson’s family might care to have it later. What a pity.”

“Yes, in spite of his burns, he was doing quite well. And he was a lovely man. You must have seen that too. Never complaining, never thinking of himself. No trouble…”

She took a deep breath, a middle-aged woman who had seen so much suffering, and yet still felt the tragedy of this one man’s death. Her hair was turning gray, and there were dark circles under her brown eyes. I thought she had lost weight since I’d seen her last.

“Well. You have made this journey for nothing. But I can tell you that the other patients you brought us have done better than expected. Still, when the winter rains begin—” She shook her head. I knew what she was dreading, the stress of days of dampness on damaged lungs.

“Thank you so much for seeing me, Matron. It must have been difficult.”

“Yes, well. Sometimes talking about things helps. And you knew Lieutenant Evanson too.”

She rose to walk with me to the door. “You are looking tired,” she commented. “How long have you been in France?”

“Since late January. Before that I was on Britannic when she went down.”

“Ah, yes, I recall. And you’re going back to France now?”

“I’m told to report to a small hospital just outside St. Jacques.” Which sounded more grand than it was. St. Jacques had all but ceased to exist, muddy ruins in the midst of fields that no longer grew anything, even weeds. “A forward dressing station,” I added. “Though it calls itself a hospital.”

She nodded. “Two of my nursing sisters have spent some time in France. They are very good at improvising.”

We had reached the main door. I smiled. “We often have no choice.”

“This is your driver?” she asked, looking out at the motorcar by the door. “I wish you a safe journey, my dear. If you—should you find that Mrs. Evanson’s family would like to have that photograph, do let me know. It will set my mind at ease. I believe the obituary listed Little Sefton as their address. Sadly, that’s not all that far from here, but it might as well be on the moon. They never came to visit, you see.”

And then I was on my way to the train, my leave nearly up, and France waiting for me across the Channel.

At the railing of the ship, staring out at the water as we passed out of The Solent and into the Channel, I found myself thinking that whoever had murdered Mrs. Evanson had killed her husband as well, just as surely as if he’d held that scalpel to the lieutenant’s throat. Two victims—three if one counted the unborn child.

I found it hard to put Marjorie Evanson out of my mind. Perhaps because I’d first seen her through her husband’s eyes as he held on to life amid great pain so that he could come home to her. Not to her as a murder victim or disgraced wife but as his anchor.

I had kept the photograph with me. Of course there was no time to find the direction of Mrs. Evanson’s family and post it to them, but remembering her sister-in-law’s emotional response as well as Matron’s comment that they had never visited, I felt I ought to ask their wishes before sending it to them.

And in the weeks ahead I often caught myself looking for a face I was certain I would recognize, every time I saw an officer wearing the uniform of the Wiltshire regiment.

It had become a habit.

CHAPTER THREE

I WAS HARDLY back in France—a matter of a fortnight—before we were given leave. It was unexpected, but the little dressing station in St. Jacques was too exposed and was being moved to another village. A fresh contingent of nursing sisters was assigned to take over there.

First, however, we were to escort a hundred wounded back to England. It was never easy, and on this occasion, even though our convoy moved at night, we were strafed by a German aircraft, racing down our lines with guns blazing and then swinging around behind the lines to find other targets of opportunity. Ambulances were clearly marked, so there was no excuse for the attack. The wonder was, only three people were wounded and no one died. I couldn’t help but think the pilot had intended to frighten us rather than kill us. If that were true, he’d succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

The weather had changed by the time we reached the coast, and on our crossing there was a storm that turned the rough Channel into bedlam. We were all seasick, patients, nurses, orderlies, and doctors, and probably half the crew if they were honest about it. I’d sailed from India to England and never met a storm like this.

My stomach agreed with me as I ran to the railing for the third time.

Then it was back below, cleaning sheets as best I could, washing faces, swabbing the decks. By the time we reached Dover, I could have kissed the quay from the sheer joy of having dry land under my feet once more.

Dover Castle was a familiar sight looming above us, half hidden in the clouds, its walls dark with rain. A friend was on duty there, but I didn’t catch a glimpse of him. We were pressing on, for the sake of the worst cases, and pulled into London late in the afternoon. A watery sun greeted us, the worst of the storm well behind us.

I was relieved of my duties there, and after seeing the train on its way again, I took the omnibus to the corner of our street and walked down to the flat I shared with friends.

None of them was at home, but there were signs that Mary might be on leave again as well, and I left her a note before taking a leisurely bath and falling into bed. It was Thursday evening, and I’d have enjoyed dining out if I hadn’t been so tired.

Mary came in later, bringing me a cup of tea and a plate of cheeses and biscuits that she’d just received from home. She was small, British fair, with rosy cheeks and dimples. The soldiers adored her, wrote poems to her blue eyes and curls, and flirted outrageously with her, but her heart was in the Navy, the first officer on a cruiser.

“You can’t sleep away your leave,” she said cheerfully. “How long do you have?”

“Ten days,” I said, stretching and yawning. “I thought I might go home for the last half of it.”

“Your parents will be delighted.” She paused, then said, “I’ve heard stories. Was it a bad crossing?”

“Very bad. I thought I would never be able to swallow food again. Now I’m ravenous. Tell your father how grateful I am that he is in the cheese business. I haven’t had a Stilton this good since the war began.”

“And these are the leftover bits. Think what it would be like to have half a wheel to ourselves.”

Laughing, we caught up on news, chatting among the biscuit crumbs, and then Mary said something that nearly caused me to choke on my tea.

“I’ve an invitation to spend the weekend with friends. A house party in the country. Would you like to come?”

“It would make a nice change. Do I know them?”

“I don’t believe you do. It’s the Melton family. But I think you convoyed Serena’s brother home from France. Lieutenant Evanson. He killed himself not long ago, had you heard? Serena’s husband will be coming home after a fortnight somewhere he can’t talk about; it’s his birthday, and she wants to do something nice to celebrate—here!” She reached out to pound me on the back as I turned red from coughing.

I cleared my throat and said politely, “Surely this is a family occasion—she wouldn’t care to have strangers hanging about.”

“The truth is, nearly everyone they know is somewhere else—in France, at sea, in the Middle East. She told me I could bring one of my flatmates with me, if I cared to. She wants it to be a gay weekend, no sadness to mar it.”

I thought of the envelope with Marjorie Evanson’s photograph still sealed in it. I’d carried it through France and now it lay in the top drawer of the small chest under my window, where I’d put it when I unpacked. It was Mrs. Melton who had decided that it shouldn’t be buried with her brother. I thought I’d guessed why, but both Matron and I had felt it was—wrong. I really shouldn’t go to this house party.

On the other hand, I hadn’t had any news about the search for the killer. Perhaps I could satisfy my curiosity without causing any trouble.

“Yes, all right. If she’ll have me. But it might be best if we don’t say anything about my having nursed her brother. It could bring up—painful memories.”

“If you don’t mind, then I won’t.”

Which is how I found myself on a crowded train to Oxford-shire, with malice aforethought.

The house where the Meltons lived was within walking distance of the station. We arranged to have our valises brought there by trap and set out on foot. It was a lovely day, and the dusty scents of summer wafted from the front gardens of the small village of Diddlestoke, and then from the pastures and fields that surrounded us as we reached the outskirts. Another quarter mile, and we could see the gates of our destination.

Melton Hall was a charming old brick house with a central block, spacious wings to either side, and a small park through which the drive meandered on its way to the handsome Pedimented front door. Two small children ran out to greet us, the girl taking my hand and the little boy clinging to Mary’s.

“Niece and nephew,” she said over their heads, and I nodded. “On Jack Melton’s side. Serena told me they’d be leaving before dinner.”

We were greeted in the marble foyer by Serena Melton herself, and I was most interested in my first impression of her. Tall, dark, and rather elegant, she embraced the shorter, fairer Mary, then held out her hand to me. “Elizabeth! I may call you Elizabeth, may I not? We are so pleased you could come.”

I hadn’t met Lieutenant Evanson before he was burned, and so I couldn’t judge the likeness between brother and sister.

And then she was leading the way up the stairs to our room, which overlooked the east gardens. Over her shoulder, she was telling us about her plans for the grand celebration and then, while we washed away the dust of travel, she was asking me about my family, expressing interest in the exotic places where my father had served, and then wanting to know about my work in France.

“I hear it’s frightful to be the first to deal with the severest wounds. My brother was badly burned. I was never so shocked as I was when I saw him the first time. They were changing his bandages, and his skin was raw and weeping. It was all I could do to keep myself from showing what I was feeling, that he could have been a complete stranger.”

“I hope he’s continuing to heal,” I said, though Mary cast me a sharp glance.

“Alas, he didn’t survive,” Serena Melton answered, her eyes filling, and I made appropriate noises of sympathy. I could see how much she cared for her brother. In her shoes I might have felt the same about Marjorie Evanson. After all, it was Marjorie’s betrayal of her husband that had led to his suicide. Sometimes in cases of sudden death, people needed someone to blame. Or blamed God.

Taking a deep breath, Serena added, “I was never so grateful than when they found that Jack was good at numbers, and assigned him to break codes instead of carrying a rifle. He was furious, but as I told him, one martyr to the cause in a family is enough. If he can protect a convoy or warn of an attack, he saves hundreds of lives. Surely that’s more useful than slogging through France in the hope of killing a few Germans. I don’t know why men think that they aren’t doing their part if they aren’t up to their knees in mud and frightfully cold and hungry and tired.”

We followed Serena down the stairs. She and Mary were having a conversation about a mutual friend serving in the Navy, and exchanging news about him. Then we were in the kitchen, where she was supervising the main course for dinner. Serena said proudly, “I got my hands on a roast. Don’t ask how! It nearly cost me my virtue and my firstborn. But it’s Jack’s favorite.”

From the oven came the most tantalizing aromas—beef, I was sure of it. After a quick look at her prize, and a few instructions for the cook, a Mrs. Dunner, Serena whisked us out to the north terrace where her husband was sitting with several other guests. There she made the introductions.

Captain Truscott, Lieutenant Gilbert, and Major Dunlop were Army of course, while Jack wore his naval uniform with panache. I thought perhaps that he was making up, a little, for not having war stories to tell, for he worked in the Admiralty in Signals. He looked particularly handsome, regular features, his hair only lightly touched with gray, and his eyes without that haunted look one so often sees among men who’ve served at the Front. Still, there were lines in his face, and I had the feeling that he knew more about the war than most, and carried different burdens because of it.

I realized very quickly that everything happening outside this household had been set aside for the weekend. Talk ranged from past shooting parties in Scotland to the Thames regatta. Any topic would do that didn’t remind us of war and death and destruction. We laughed at stories that weren’t really funny, made no mention of absent friends, and pretended to be happy and lighthearted. Other guests arrived in the next hour, but none of them was a certain officer in a Wiltshire regiment. Not that I’d expected him to be here, he was no doubt still in France. But Marjorie Evanson must have met him somewhere, in just such a social setting. It was entirely possible that someone would mention him. Remember Fred? Serving with the Wiltshires? We had a letter from him last week…

Of course he could be a complete stranger. Someone Marjorie met in London and never introduced to anyone she knew. That was surely the safest way to conduct an affair. But people don’t fall in love with safety in mind. Sometimes risk must be half the excitement of a secret affair.

Neither Mary nor I wore our uniforms to dinner. Nurses at a dinner table tend to cast a pall over conversation. Men in uniform on the other hand tend to look dashing, whether they are or not.

The roast was indeed heavenly. There was even horseradish sauce, and Yorkshire pudding. For an hour the war faded into the background and it was 1914 again, when food was plentiful and parties like this frequent and fun.

That evening we played croquet on the lawn in the long summer twilight, a ruthless game with no holds barred. The next morning, Saturday, we played tennis and were silly over the litter of pups that one of the English setters had produced in the stable-cum-garage instead of the box carefully prepared in the house for her accouchement.

As we admired the little family, under cover of the ohs and ahs someone behind me commented quietly, “That was Evanson’s bitch, you know. He’d arranged to breed her to FitzGerald’s dog, the one the King admired. He’d hoped to give HM the pick of the litter.”

“Pity about all that,” the other voice said. “His wife. I mean to say, murder.”

But before I could turn and see the speakers, we were being handed pups and I couldn’t be sure who had been just behind me.

The warm, furry little bodies, wriggling and squirming in our arms, licking our faces, kept us occupied for another half an hour, and then it was time for our luncheon.

We trooped out of the stables in good spirits, and I listened for the same voices as people laughed and congratulated Serena on the litter. Still, the two men had been nearly whispering, so it was harder to identify them with a normal voice.

Serena said nothing about the mother of the pups being her brother’s dog.

Not an hour later, I overheard her speaking to Jack as I passed the study.

She was saying, “I don’t believe any of them could have been Marjorie’s lover. It was sheer foolishness to think we could find out this way.”

Her husband answered quietly, “You were desperate. It was the best I could do on short notice. So many of the people we know are in France, or God knows where. The man may even be dead, as far as that goes.”

“By his own hand, I hope,” she retorted viciously. “After all he’s done to us.”

Jack said nothing.

“It’s not your family,” she went on into the silence, answering it as if her husband had spoken aloud. “I’m the one who has to live with the whispers and the shame. I can read pity in my friends’ eyes. That is, when they can’t avoid me. And wherever I go I can feel the stares behind my back. ‘Did you know? Her sister-in-law was murdered, and then her brother killed himself.’ As if I’ve done something wrong. No one asks how I’m coping, for fear I might embarrass them by telling them and expecting a little comfort in return. What if they knew the rest of it? I’d never dare show my face in public again.” Her voice broke, but not with tears. “I should have had that damned bitch put down!”

“I understand,” her husband answered her. “But you’re tormenting yourself as well, you know. As for the poor dog, find her another home if you feel that way. Don’t blame her.”

“I’m not blaming her. I see her looking up at the door sometimes, as if she’s waiting for Merry to come through it any minute. She loved him. Probably more than Marjorie did, if you ask me. And how do you tell a dumb brute that her master is dead?”

“I think she knows Meriwether is dead. I think she also hopes it isn’t true.”

“This is the third time we’ve had one of these parties. I don’t know if I can face another one, Jack. But I can’t think of a better way to question someone about Marjorie’s friends than inviting them here under false pretenses. And the women come out of curiosity, hoping I’ll drop some crumb of gossip that they can take home with them. The men come because they like you, but I watch their faces when I mention Marjorie, to see if she meant more to them than she should have. Surely whoever that man is, he still feels something. He’s bound to give himself away. A shift in the way he looks at me, a tightness in the mouth. I want to know who it is. I won’t have any peace until I do and can put the blame where it belongs.”

“You may be right, my dear, but the truth is, I don’t hold out much hope.”

I walked on down the carpeted passage for fear one of them might come out and find me there, eavesdropping.

But I carried with me food for thought.

For one thing, Inspector Herbert hadn’t told Serena about the man at the railway station. And probably wouldn’t until he knew whether or not it was pertinent to his investigation.

For another, it appeared I wasn’t the only one searching for Marjorie Evanson’s lover. Even here. And I had the very strong feeling that if Serena found the man before I did, she would take savage pleasure in exposing him to the world.

Before she killed him…

The thought occurred to me out of the blue. I didn’t know whether she was capable of such a thing or not, but her brother’s death had affected her deeply, and sometimes people who turned to anger as they grieved acted rashly, in the heat of the moment, wanting to hurt the person who had hurt them.

Still, now I knew the purpose of this wartime birthday party and why it hadn’t mattered if Mary had brought a friend. Serena Melton saw me as a smoke screen, added to make up the party’s numbers and conceal her true purpose in inviting certain guests. Well, I needn’t feel quite so guilty now about coming here under false pretenses, out of curiosity.

Last evening during croquet and again during the tennis match this morning, I’d seen Serena casually drawing aside first one guest and then another. She and Captain Truscott had had a long conversation, and soon after that, Lieutenant Gilbert. I’d thought she was making them feel at home, just as she’d chatted to me about my father and my duties.

And that reminded me of the naval commander she and Mary had discussed. Had Marjorie known him as well? I’d tried, politely, not to listen at the time. Now I made an effort to bring the exchange back. I didn’t want to mention it to Mary.

“When was his last leave, do you remember?” she’d asked. “Was he in London then?” And when Mary told her he’d taken the train directly to Scotland, to see his parents, she’d replied, “No wonder Marjorie had missed seeing him. I must say, Jack was wondering about him too.”

Serena must not have been very close to her sister-in-law or she wouldn’t be fishing among Marjorie’s friends for answers.

And that brought to mind another question.

Was there jealousy between Marjorie and Serena? Had Meriwether Evanson’s marriage caused a rift with his sister?

CHAPTER FOUR

I’D TAKEN REFUGE in the Meltons’ dining room from a storm that had suddenly blown up, sending us all dashing for the house. As I stood there looking out at the rain sweeping across the lawns, I heard someone come in the door behind me, and turned.

It was Lieutenant Bellis, one of the late arrivals last night. He’d missed the tennis match, pleading fatigue, and I hadn’t seen much of him at lunch. He was drenched, his hair plastered to his skull, and he said lightly, “Is there nowhere in this house that a man can find a drink?”

I laughed. “I suspect Jack keeps what’s left of his precious stock under lock and key.”

“I’m beginning to think you’re right. Known him long, have you?”

“Actually, not very.” I took a chance. “I met his brother-in-law once, I think.”

“Meriwether? A good man. He didn’t deserve what happened to him.” He’d found a table napkin in one of the drawers of the sideboard and was busy toweling his head. Pausing, he looked at me from between the folds. “I thought I remembered you. A nursing sister, aren’t you? From Britannic, I think. I was in Mesopotamia.”

I fished quickly for a face in a hospital bed, then smiled as I remembered. “George Bellis! The leg’s healed, I see.” I didn’t add that the thin, sun-baked man with a broken leg and cracked ribs, a fractured skull and the bites of myriad insects looked nothing like the tall, muscular officer standing before me now. His brother was a captain in one of the county regiments. I tried to recall which. Wiltshire?

“Indeed it has,” he said as we shook hands like lost friends. “I was sent to France after I recovered. Were you still with Britannic when she sank? I’d wondered.”

“I was,” I told him, “and escaped with a broken arm.”

“Harrowing experience, I should think.”

“I still dream of it sometimes.”

He nodded, folded the napkin, and put it aside. “Not surprising. My dreams aren’t what they once were.” He made a gesture intended to lighten his next words. “My favorite is finding myself flying through a hail of bullets, diving headfirst into the nearest trench, only to find it crowded with the most despicable collection of Turkish soldiers you can imagine. Bazaar thieves, guttersnipes, and murderers all. Better than any rooster for a fast wake up.”

But the lines around his mouth as he spoke told me that it had really happened, only to be repeated over and over again in his dreams.

I smiled, as I was expected to do, and then said, “Who wins?”

“I never find out. Since I’m still here, I expect it was me.”

We laughed together, then I quickly changed the subject. “Wasn’t there a girl? I seem to remember writing a letter for you. You could have written your own, but you were malingering.”

“So I was. A few minutes with the pretty ward sister, and I was envied by every man present. Yes, there was—is—a girl. She’s in Norfolk, helping her family grow whatever it is they grow in Norfolk. Worse luck, she couldn’t meet me in London. It was harvest-time for something.”

I could hear the disappointment in his voice. “Why didn’t you go to her?”

He grimaced. “Apparently marrows or parsnips or whatever they are rank higher than a mere lieutenant.” And then he brightened. “But I’m taking the train from here to London, meeting my brother, and we’re driving on to Gloucestershire.”

“How nice!” I was trying to think how to bring Meriwether Evanson back into the conversation when George did it himself.

“When did you know Merry? After his first crash or his second?”

“The second.”

“Ah. The burns.” He stared out the window, watching the rain. “I’ve always had a horror of fire. I can’t imagine finding myself aflame. How bad were they?”

“Head. Hands and feet. Part of his torso. Infection is the greatest danger.”

“Bloody hell,” he said, shuddering as he considered that. Then he realized he’d sworn aloud and was busy apologizing.

“Did you know his wife?” I asked.

He smiled. “If you knew Merry, you knew Marjorie. She’s all he ever talked about. I’m surprised he didn’t name that bitch in the stables for her.” And once more he realized he’d put foot in mouth. “Sorry—I didn’t mean it the way it came out.”

“I’d seen her photograph. She seemed to be such a lovely woman. In every sense.”

“Yes, well, she most certainly was pretty.” He smiled, remembering. “But it hadn’t turned her head. Do you know what I mean? She was a thoroughly nice person. That’s what makes it so hard to believe she was murdered. I mean to say,” he went on, frowning now, “one doesn’t think of murder touching nice people.”

Before I could stop myself, I spoke in defense of Marjorie Evanson. “I don’t think murderers care if one is nice or not.”

“Oddly enough, Serena asked me yesterday if I thought Marjorie had fallen in with the wrong sort of people. I couldn’t imagine what she was getting at. Marjorie wasn’t like that.” He took a deep breath. “Is there something worrying her?”

“I expect she’s also having trouble understanding murder,” I said. “Grasping at straws—the wrong sort of people, money, debts, secrets—anything to explain what happened.”

“I doubt if it was money or debts. Marjorie was comfortably off in her own right, but not rich. As I remember, she and her sister shared the inheritance from their father.”

Someone—Inspector Herbert?—had mentioned a sister.

“As for secrets,” he went on, “Marjorie was hopeless there. Merry told me she couldn’t wait for an anniversary or a birthday, and was forever asking if he wanted to know straightaway what she was giving him.”

And yet she had kept a very different secret from her husband and everyone else.

Lieutenant Bellis began to pace restlessly. “How did we get on such a morbid subject? The weather is wretched enough.”

Taking the hint, I said, “It does seem a little lighter in the west.”

“Your imagination,” he replied, grinning, coming to stand by me at the windows. “It’s still as black as the bottom of a witch’s kettle out there. This could go on for hours.”

But it didn’t. A tiny square of blue grew to the size of a counterpane, and then spread quickly, offering us the spectacle of a rainbow as the sun finally burst through.

The grass was too wet for sport, and so we collected in the study for our tea.

Jack was looking tired, as if he rather regretted inviting so many guests for the weekend. Watching him, I thought perhaps he was feeling the strain of his duties. It must be a burden to know the truth about what was happening in France or the North Atlantic and say nothing. I’d noticed several times that when he was asked for his views on the course of the war or the prospect for the Americans to come in, he evaded a direct answer, giving instead the public view we could read for ourselves in any newspaper.

My own father had told me privately that if the Americans didn’t commit themselves soon, we would run short of men. I’d asked him if the Germans were in the same state, and he’d answered gravely, “We’d better start praying they are.” It was a worrying possibility that we could lose the war. That so many might have died in vain.

The men drifted off to the billiard room, and the women settled down to read or knit. We were all expected to do our share with our needles, and most of us were thoroughly tired of the drab khaki wool intended for stockings, scarves, gloves, hoods, and even waistcoats to keep men warm in the trenches.

Serena came to join us after seeing to matters in the kitchen, and I noticed the shadows on her face as she sat by one of the lamps, rolling yarn into a ball.

Cynthia Newley said, “Serena, is there any news regarding Marjorie? Has the Yard learned anything more?”

“Apparently not,” she answered coldly. “At least we haven’t been told.”

“It seems so—odd. You would think Marjorie’s death would receive top priority.”

“Indeed.”

I glimpsed Serena’s eyes as she looked up briefly at her friend. There was angry denial there. It was a pity the police had had to tell her about the unborn child. It had only added to her distress. Any indiscretion on Marjorie’s part should have died quietly with her. But this was murder, and there were no secrets in cases of murder.

And then Serena was saying, as if unable to stop herself, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I can’t seem to concentrate on anything. You knew Marjorie, Cynthia. So did you, Patricia. Those last months in London—what did she do? Where did she go? I wasn’t in London often, I seldom saw her. When the police asked me if she had met any new friends, I had no idea. Or if she was worried about something. I was so out of touch, I couldn’t give them an answer.”

Patricia, a quiet woman with dark hair, said, “These past few months—well, since late winter for that matter—I saw her hardly at all. A few memorial services, and once at a morning church service. I asked Helen Calder if Marjorie was all right. Helen replied that she was probably worried sick about Meriwether. Let’s face it, pilots don’t have very long lives, do they?”

Juliana said, “Well, I can vouch for the fact that she didn’t spend much time with her usual friends. I invited her to several parties, and she declined.”

“Which could mean,” Cynthia commented dryly, “she must have made new friends.”

“Still, you must have seen her somewhere. Dining out, volunteering somewhere, the theater.” Serena looked around the room, inviting comment.

Cynthia, sitting by the window, peered over her glasses. “Well. Since you ask. There must have been a man.”

Serena bristled. “That’s disgusting!”

“Is it?” She ran her fingers through her fair hair. “Look, we’re not the innocent lambs we were in 1914, are we? If Marjorie stopped seeing her friends and family, there’s probably a good reason. She had new friends—or she had something to hide. And what would she have to hide, if it wasn’t a man?” Cynthia added bitterly, “She’s not the first, Serena, and nor will she be the last. You’re fortunate, you know where Jack is, even if he’s not at home. He isn’t off in France or God knows where, being shot at, and his letters coming in bunches or not at all, and you’re left wondering if he’s dead or wounded or missing. You can’t stand in judgment of Marjorie, you haven’t lived with her fears.”

Serena said, “She never said anything to me about any fears.”

“No, I’m sorry. But you’re Meriwether’s sister, you had your own worries there. I expect she didn’t want to add to them.”

Mary said, trying to pour oil on troubled waters, “There’s been nothing more in the newspapers. Have the police made any progress at all?”

Serena gave her a cold, hard look. “The inquest was adjourned at the request of the police, citing the ongoing inquiry into her murder by person or persons unknown.”

Mary answered mildly, “I was in France, Serena. I didn’t know.”

Nor did I.

Cynthia held her ground. “There’s no use asking us about Marjorie. Talk to her sister. It’s possible she knew more about what was going on. Marjorie may have confided in her.”

“I doubt it,” Patricia interjected. “My impression was that they didn’t get on.”

Serena turned to Cynthia. “You seem to feel there was something to hide. No one else does. It must mean that you know something you aren’t willing to tell me.”

“If you’re asking if I know who murdered her, I don’t. She avoided all of us these past few months. Even you, if you think about it. One doesn’t advertise adultery, Serena, but the signs are there. If you haven’t noticed them, I’m sure the police have. If the man she was seeing killed her, then she threatened him somehow. But I hardly think, knowing Marjorie, that she would do such a thing. So who else could it be? That’s a matter for the police. But you won’t get anywhere unless you look the truth in the face.”

Patricia winced. We were all feeling decidedly uncomfortable. One didn’t discuss such things openly, and yet Cynthia had.

Juliana was bent over her ball of yarn, rewinding it after dropping it, avoiding looking at any of us.

I shot a quick glance at Serena’s face. I don’t think she’d bargained for someone as strong willed as Cynthia.

And then Serena surprised me. She said, “I don’t want to believe there was someone else. After all, Marjorie was married to my brother. But I’m grateful for your honesty. I’ll speak to the police. I wasn’t supposed to mention it, but they’re of the opinion now that someone noticed the rather fine lozenge brooch she was wearing when she was killed. It’s missing, of course. Along with her purse. These new friends she possibly made—the police ought to be aware of them. Surely it won’t hurt to look into who they are.” She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece and set aside her knitting. “I think the gentlemen have had long enough to bore themselves to death. Let’s rout them out and have our tea brought in.”

She turned away to ring for tea, but her shoulders were stiff, and I thought she wouldn’t soon forgive Cynthia for being outspoken and voicing what Serena already knew to be true.

As for a missing brooch, Inspector Herbert hadn’t asked if she was wearing it at the railway station.

Serena had just lied to distract Cynthia and the rest of us from any thought of a lover.

She went in search of her husband and his guests.

A silence filled the room after she’d gone. I realized the sun now coming through the window was warm on my feet. I shifted a little in my chair.

Everyone looked at me as if I were about to speak.

Finally Mary said, “I didn’t know where to look when she was talking about Marjorie.”

Patricia said, her voice irritable, “We’d be liars if we didn’t admit that we’ve been curious about what happened.”

“Well, she certainly put paid to any more gossip, didn’t she? I think we all must have had in the back of our minds that Marjorie must have done something to lead to her death. Making her as guilty as whoever killed her,” Cynthia said. “The police should have made it clear about the missing brooch. It would have quelled a good deal of speculation and talk.”

I put my knitting into its bag and said, “I’m cross-eyed from counting stitches. At least the sun has come out. It will be good to walk a little after tea.”

The others turned to me as if I’d changed the subject on purpose. Which I had.

CHAPTER FIVE

LYING AWAKE in my bed that night long after Mary was asleep, I considered Serena’s lie about the brooch.

It had been a foolish thing to do. She was bound to be found out when Marjorie’s murderer was caught and tried. I couldn’t help but wonder what other lies she might have told people who came too close to the mark, as Cynthia had done.

And Cynthia Newley had brought up a very interesting point. That if Marjorie was meeting a man in places where neither of them was known, she was outside that safe circle of acquaintances and familiar surroundings that made it possible for women to move about London on their own. If her murderer had come from those shadows, the chances of finding him would be very slim indeed.

On the other hand, if the killer wasn’t a stranger, Serena was running a risk openly digging for information. Just as one of her guests might unwittingly know this person, one of them might just as unwittingly tell him how close Serena was coming to uncovering the truth.

None of her efforts would bring her brother back to her, even if she could personally hand Marjorie’s killer over to the police.

I was surprised that Jack Melton hadn’t reined in her attempts to question his guests. But perhaps he saw this as a harmless way to deflect her grief and anger. And he could always say, later, “You must remember how recent it was, and how upset she’s been, especially since the police have got nowhere.”

I drifted into sleep and dreamed not of murderers but of India. It’s strange how smells and sounds come back so vividly in a dream. The dust, ancient and full of an exotic mix of scents from dung to rare spices. The muffled sounds of car wheels in the distance, harness bells jingling, and the creak of wood as the oxen put their shoulders into pulling. The feel of the dry wind on one’s face, just before the monsoon rains come. Voices in a bazaar, a dozen different dialects, all talking at once. I was back in a familiar and happy past, safe in a world I knew so well, my father walking through the compound gate, Simon Brandon at his heels.

Sunday morning it rained again. Not just the occasional shower, but a hard steady rain that had no intention of going away.

Most of us went with Serena to attend morning services at St. Ambrose Church in Diddlestoke, and listened to a homily on faith in times of trouble. The rector, aptly named Mr. Parsons, was eloquent. Most of the congregation were wearing black, although the Government had tried to persuade people to eschew mourning, to keep up the spirits of those at home as well as the returning wounded. My blue uniform coat stood out among them.

On the walk home, I asked if anyone knew someone in the Wiltshires, adding casually, “I haven’t heard from friends in a while. Are they facing serious opposition? Should I be worrying?”

There was a general shaking of heads. Lieutenant Bellis added, “I shouldn’t, if I were you. Your letters probably haven’t caught up with you yet.”

I had to leave it there.

Jack and Serena had gone ahead, to see that breakfast was ready for us, and afterward we played bridge. It was fun at first, but then the friendly bickering grew more strident as the better players argued over each hand. I lost interest and wandered away.

Captain Truscott was a tall, thin man suffering from nerves. His hands shook as he dealt the cards, almost like a palsy. No one had said anything as he twice dropped cards, or his fork fought to find his mouth at meals. But his mind was sharp and his sense of humor intact.

He too was soon banished from the tables, and he came in to join me in the music room. He’d asked me earlier to call him Freddy.

“May I join you?” he asked politely.

“Of course. This is a sanctuary for hopeless bridge players.”

He laughed. “Do you play?” He gestured toward the piano.

“Not as well as I should like.” Pianos are delicate creatures and dislike being shipped around the world, much less being carted from cantonment to cantonment on the backs of camels or in swaying oxcarts, absorbing dust and monsoons in equal measure. Lessons were possible only when my mother could find an instrument in fair enough tune to make learning the rudiments of playing even possible. She has perfect pitch, and I realized much later what agony of spirit she must have endured, even trying to pass on a little of her skill to her only daughter.

Captain Truscott walked across the room, sat down at the piano, adjusted his chair a little, and began to play.

Freddy, I discovered, was amazingly gifted, his hands steady and sure on the keys. I came to join him, turning pages in the music he’d found. It was a pleasure to listen to him.

He smiled up at me, but I could see his mind was elsewhere, as if the music reached deep inside.

As he moved on to another piece, this one from memory, he said, “Marjorie Evanson liked to listen to my playing. Her husband was Serena’s brother. A pilot. They don’t have much of a record for longevity. Marjorie formed a sort of club for women who were the wives or widows of fliers. They met once a week in her London house to give each other support and comfort.”

Something else I didn’t know about this woman.

“Who has taken over the group now?”

He shrugged. “I hope someone has. But she was the driving force. It may have collapsed without her.”

Moving effortlessly to another piece, this one an Irish ballad, the keys rippling softly under light fingers, he fell silent.

Then to my astonishment he said, “There was another man. I don’t think Serena knows. But I saw them together some months before Marjorie’s death. Two? Three? I’m not sure. At any rate, they were in a small restaurant on the outskirts of Rochester. Not a place I’d expect to find her, but I knew her at once. I’d had a flat, you see, and had to wait for it to be repaired. So I’d come to The Black Horse to have something to eat while I waited. There was a girl with me—she was engaged to someone else and worried about gossip. I was taking her back to London for her fiancé, it was completely aboveboard, but you know how people talk.”

I could easily see how that might happen. With trains so crowded and having to wait for troop-train priority, everyone asked for lifts from someone going their way.

“Did Marjorie see you?”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure she did. She was facing the door as I stepped into the room. She looked away at once, and I backed out, telling Nancy I didn’t care for the restaurant after all. I couldn’t see the man she was with. His back was to me, the lights were dim, and there must have been something wrong with the chimney, because there was a smoke haze hanging about. I knew it wasn’t Meriwether, but that’s about it. The man was dark, and looked to be about my height. Before Marjorie saw me, they had their heads together in a way that seemed rather—intimate, if you know what I mean.”

I did. And his description matched that of the man I’d seen. “Could you tell if he was in uniform? Anything to indicate rank or regiment?”

He shook his head. “I was too busy beating a hasty retreat. He could have been—”

And at that critical moment, the door opened and Cynthia came in with Lieutenant Gilbert.

“We heard the music,” she said. “It’s war in there—” She gestured over her shoulder. I could just hear Patricia arguing with Jack Melton about a hand. “We’ve escaped.”

That was the end of a private conversation, but just before lunch, when we had no more than a minute alone, Freddy said, “I can trust you to keep that confidence? I wouldn’t want to hurt Serena.”

“Of course.”

And that was that. I walked over to where Jack was showing off his gun collection. The cabinet was mahogany and lined with a pale velvet. Two prizes were there on display. I’d noticed them before. Jack was just pointing to the early American Colt revolver.

“My uncle went out to the American West to raise cattle. He had a weak chest and he hoped either for a cure or to die of it more quickly out there. To everyone’s amazement, he survived, made a fortune, came back to England, and lived to be seventy-seven.”

Everyone laughed, as they were meant to, and Jack’s hand moved onto a pair of dueling pistols. Halfway there I saw his fingers pause for an instant where the lining was indented but nothing lay in that spot. It was an infinitesimal pause, but I saw the flicker of expression on his face and then he went on smoothly, “These belonged to my great-grandfather. Handsome, aren’t they? He bought them not to kill anyone but because he believed a gentleman ought to own a pair. They were never fired in anger, but I have it on good authority that when he tried them here at the Hall, they pulled slightly to the right, and he missed his target, hit his coachman’s pet goat instead, and there was a terrible uproar. The goat survived, but the tip of one horn was shorter than the other for the rest of its life, and my great-grandfather was required by the magistrate to pay compensation. Only no one could decide on the value of a goat. In the end my great-grandfather paid the coachman five pounds, a princely sum in that day, and was ordered to swear he would never dismiss the coachman or eat the goat.”

I moved past them as his audience laughed again, and went to find Mary. Our train left for London an hour after lunch, and we were nearly ready.

She was rather quiet on the first leg of our journey. Busy with my own thoughts, I was content to let the silence between us lengthen.

After a time she said, “You know, it just goes to show that to eat well, one should live on a farm.”

That was not as far-fetched a conversational gambit as it might sound. She was seeing a naval officer whose father was a gentleman farmer, like Jack, and she had been dithering over whether to marry him should he propose or find someone more likely to enjoy the social whirl in London.

I murmured something noncommittal, and she went back to her own reverie.

I myself had been thinking about Serena Melton.

I’d had no brothers—or sisters for that matter—to help me judge how one might feel in Serena’s shoes, having lost Meriwether. Would I have been forgiving or vindictive? The closest I could come to imagining her emotional state was to consider something happening to Simon Brandon. He wasn’t related, but I’d known him all my life and loved him dearly. If someone caused his death, I’d be furiously angry and determined to see that person punished.

Soldiers are mortal, we had all been touched by that loss. But Serena’s brother hadn’t given his life for King and Country. He’d died under tragic circumstances, just after the doctors had felt it safe enough to send him home. He’d had a good chance of surviving his wounds. First hope, then despair.

I myself had grieved in my own way for Meriwether Evanson. And so had Matron, for that matter.

I took a deep breath, more like a sigh, and Mary said, “Was it a boring weekend? I’m sorry for dragging you there.”

“I was very glad I went,” I told her truthfully. But I was looking forward to spending the rest of my leave with my family. I’d had my fill of spying.

I had been back in France nearly ten days when the letter came from Inspector Herbert at Scotland Yard.

It was brief, and it contained a photograph. I turned it over, to find myself staring into a dead man’s face. I could see clearly the bullet wound in his temple.

I turned to the letter.

This is Lieutenant Fordham. He died of a single gunshot wound to the head. Forgive me for sending this to you without some warning, but I’m told you’re in France and there’s no other way. Fordham’s death appears to be a suicide. I use that word, appears, because there is a modicum of doubt. He was an officer in the Wiltshire Fusiliers. Are you still certain that the man with Marjorie Evanson the evening of her death was in this regiment? Could this be the man?

I looked again at the photograph. But I already knew the answer. This was not the man at the railway station.

I felt a chill. Suicide among soldiers was more prevalent than the Army admitted. It wasn’t good for morale to give exact numbers, they said. Why had Lieutenant Fordham chosen to kill himself? What demons drove him? And why—other than his regiment—had Inspector Herbert thought this might be the man I’d seen with Marjorie Evanson?

Was there something in his suicide note that pointed in that direction?

And what did Inspector Herbert mean by “appears to be a suicide”?

His brief message told me so little that my curiosity was aroused. I found myself thinking that he’d have done better to satisfy it.

I reached for pen and paper to answer him before the next post bag left.

Poor man. To answer your questions: I am not mistaken in the matter of the Wiltshires. And this is not the person I saw at the railway station.

But even as I finished putting those words down on paper in black ink, stark on the page, I glanced again at the photograph. Lieutenant Fordham was a handsome man even in death, and if he were charming into the bargain, he might easily turn a lonely woman’s head. He was the sort Serena Melton should have invited to a weekend party, not a Lieutenant Bellis, who considered himself a friend of Meriwether Evanson’s, or Captain Truscott with his shaking hands. They were loyal to the dead, and not likely to confide anything they might know to a grieving sister.

I added another line to my message.

What weapon did Lieutenant Fordham use to kill himself? Service revolver? Other?

It was the price Inspector Herbert must pay for not being more straightforward. For something had just struck a chord of memory.

Thinking about Serena and her house party had brought to mind a vivid image of Jack Melton’s hand pausing over an empty depression in the lining of his gun cabinet.

To suspect Serena Melton of killing a man she thought was her sister-in-law’s lover was ridiculous. And yet—and yet I had seen for myself how deep her grief and anger ran. If she’d found someone she believed was the guilty man, and there was no way of proving it, what would she do?

For one thing, she wouldn’t have a weapon handy, in the event she needed to use it. That was a very different thing from being so angry one could lash out with the first thing that came to hand. Besides, Lieutenant Fordham was a soldier, with a soldier’s reflexes. He wasn’t likely to let someone walk up to him, revolver in hand, and fire at him.

I was letting my imagination run away with me. But as much as I didn’t want to believe it, there was most certainly the possibility that Marjorie had had more than one lover. And Lieutenant Fordham could have had his own guilty conscience.

And so I didn’t tear up the reply to Inspector Herbert and start again. I left the query in my letter.

But Scotland Yard never answered. Not even to thank me for helping them with their inquiries.

CHAPTER SIX

FINALLY I WROTE to Simon Brandon.

He had been my father’s batman, his friend even though he was less than half my father’s age, and eventually his RMS, his regimental sergeant-major, a position of some responsibility as well as prestige. If anyone could find the answer to my question without involving the police or causing a stir, it was Simon. His contacts were myriad, and they had long memories of service together.

I knew my father well enough to be sure he’d find the answer to my question, and then want to know why I had asked it. The Colonel Sahib, as we called him behind his back, was accustomed to commanding troops in battle. Raising a daughter would—he’d thought—be as simple as taking a seasoned company on maneuvers. He could do it blindfolded. Hands behind his back.

By the time I was walking, he was in full retreat from that position. “She’ll be running the British Army before she’s ten!” he’d warned my mother. It wasn’t long before all the servants and half the men in his command were enlisted in a conspiracy to keep me safe. Not to mention our Indian staff and all their relatives.

The Army has a code of its own. I had been well taught not to air its dirty linens in public, and in India my father would have made short work of finding out who had been involved with Lieutenant Evanson’s wife, and seeing to it that he was disciplined. Or learning how Captain Fordham had shot himself. It would have gone no further, been dealt with quietly and appropriately. We weren’t in India now, but the same circumspection was still there, inbred in us.

A letter came back faster than I’d expected. It occurred to me that Simon had somehow arranged to have it sent with dispatches. The post where I was presently stationed was notoriously slow. And sent with dispatches, the letter wouldn’t pass through the hands of the military censors.

I opened it quickly, eager to see what he had discovered.

Bess. It’s been hushed up. I can’t discover why. What’s this about? Do you know this man?

Before I could answer Simon, we were moved again, this time to the tiny village of La Fleurette, so destroyed by war and armies that I could find nothing to show me what it might have looked like, once upon a time.

There was a pitted street, half buried in piles of rubble, only the west wall of the little church still forlornly standing, and miraculously, a stone barn that had somehow escaped damage. It was whole, even its roof intact.

“Praise God,” Sister Benning said, looking up at it. “Now to see if we can do anything about the inside.”

The lane into the barn’s forecourt was no more than a muddy and rutted track. The barnyard was already jammed with lorries and ambulances jostling for room, and we had orderlies clearing up the interior as fast as they could, so that we had a space in which to work.

The walking wounded were already sitting on benches, shoulders drooping, bloody bandaging around heads, torsos, or limbs. Sometimes all three. Stretchers with the worst cases were being set across frames made from mangers, and a surgeon was already at work, calling for us to hurry and bring him what he needed. The first of the dead had been taken away, out of sight in what had been the milking shed.

It was chaos, and we were accustomed to it, having packed in such a fashion that we could find anything we wanted immediately.

Ambulances were coming in now in twos and threes, and I was meeting them, trying to sort the wounded into those who could wait, those who needed immediate attention, and sometimes, offering up a brief prayer as I came across a soldier who had died on the way to us.

We worked almost thirty-six hours without respite on one broken body after another. Someone had managed to brew tea, and we drank gallons of it without milk or sugar, to stay awake. I took my turn at the tables where Dr. Buckley was operating, my eyes on his hands and the wound. Ellen Benning, on the other side, was constantly mopping his brow, and as I looked up, I realized he was flushed, perspiration rolling down his face, and I wondered if he were ill. At a break while the patients were being shifted, I led him outside and asked, “Sir, what’s wrong?”

He looked at me, his eyes so tired that they seemed sunk in his head, lined and puffy with lack of sleep.

“I’m well,” he told me irritably. “Don’t hover.”

I said nothing more, letting him go back to work without protest.

And then as suddenly as the flood had begun, it started to taper off.

I saw Dr. Buckley huddled with one of the ambulance drivers, their faces grim.

We had reached a point where we could actually catch our collective breath when Dr. Buckley began to load the wounded, ambulatory and stretcher cases, into whatever vehicles we had, sending them back down the line. The empty vehicles were returning for their next load when I quietly asked what was happening.

“The Germans are about to break through along the Front. We’re moving out as quickly as possible. The Army is trying to hold them, but I don’t think there’s much of a chance now. Best to be prepared.”

It was the story of this war—a few yards gained at horrendous cost, then lost again with even more casualties from trying to hold on against all odds. A retreat today, an advance tomorrow, and then retreat again before the next advance, like a bloody tug of war.

I nodded, and went about helping him, smiling and offering comfort where I could, assuring the soldiers we’d just patched up that this was too exposed a location and they’d be better off in one of the trench hospitals down the line.

One of the Scots officers agreed. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. We’d won the ground, HQ told us we could hold on to it. But their intelligence was wrong.”

We were down to the last half dozen walking wounded, who were being handed into ambulances, and the staff was packing one with what was left of our stock of supplies. A lorry was filled with the dead.

I looked around in the pale morning light, feeling rather exposed here in this shattered place. I’d been too busy to notice before this. Still, I was tired enough to sink to the ground and sleep where I was.

Dr. Buckley had come out of the barn to supervise the last of the stretcher cases, those he had waited as long as possible before moving. I was just about to go and help when I heard a faint new sound in the distance.

Almost in the same instant, I recognized what I was hearing above the rumble of the German guns down the line. It was an aircraft, and it was coming closer.

Searching the sky for it, I felt my heart rate rise. I don’t know why, but something, some instinct born of working so near war at its worst, warned me. Why was an aircraft heading this way? The British aerodromes were west of here. Was it in trouble? And then I saw it, coming low and fast. The shape was distinctive—the two wings and the different body of an Albatross. I had only a second to wonder how a German pilot could have flown this far behind our lines, and then remembered that our lines were collapsing. I was already running, pointing, shouting to everyone to take cover, one eye still to the sky.

The orderlies, patients, and nurses clustered around the great doors of the barn probably couldn’t see what I did, but my alarm was all too apparent. They glanced up, then heard the aircraft’s motor, and dashed for the security of the barn.

The German flier, perhaps on a simple reconnaissance mission to see how the wavering front was holding, had seen us as well, and he veered in our direction, one of the Spandau machine guns already stuttering angrily, ripping up the earth and tracing a line across the bonnet of one of the ambulances. It burst into flames as the orderly who had taken cover behind it flung himself to one side. I could see the bullets coming my way and dove behind one of the horse troughs, and then he was gone, only to swoop past and swing around to bear down on the barn itself.

I saw one of the wounded with a rifle in his hand, and he stood there, in full view, carefully taking his aim, firing and then waiting for death to come. But the pilot hadn’t seen him and fired at the barn instead. I could see Dr. Buckley standing there, his mouth opened wide in a wordless shout, his fists raised above his head, cursing the pilot.

I realized he was trying to distract the German at the stick, and just as the pilot veered, a tiny plume of white smoke showed beneath the aircraft, turning black quickly and growing larger by the second, until it was a column trailing the aircraft like the shadow of death. I knew what was coming—I’d seen Lieutenant Evanson’s burns and those of other fliers.

Dr. Buckley and the barn were forgotten as the pilot pulled up sharply and turned away in a frantic dash for his own lines.

By some marvel of aim, that soldier must have hit the German.

I was already at the barn, climbing into one of the other ambulances, ramming the burning one to one side, where it could do no harm to the barn’s wooden doors. Just at that moment, the German Albatross exploded into flames, spiraling toward the earth. A cheer went up, and then Sister Benning was pointing, saying something to me that I couldn’t hear over the explosive sound of the crash.

I closed my eyes for a second against the sound, then turned in the direction she’d indicated, and there was Dr. Buckley on the ground in a heap. All I could think of was that he’d been hit.

I ran to him as Sister Davis asked, “Isn’t anyone going to see if that pilot survived?” No one stopped to tell her that he’d burned alive in that conflagration.

Bending over Dr. Buckley, I searched for blood, a wound, then felt for his pulse. It was slow, labored. An orderly was there, and I told him to put Dr. Buckley into one of the ambulances. “We ought to be going,” I added. “If that Albatross got through our lines, the rest of the German army may be on its heels.”

Sister Williams caught my own alarm and called, “Hurry!”

We got Dr. Buckley into the nearest ambulance. There was no room, with one ambulance destroyed, for six of us, and Sister Benning said, “Well, it’s shank’s mare, then.”

The lorry with the dead was already pulling out, and the ambulances followed. We began to march in its wake, and I thought that all we needed now was for one of us to twist an ankle in the ruts and pits of the road. I was concerned as well for the wounded, bounced and shaken in spite of the care their drivers took to spare them the worst of the ride.

Sister Davis was saying, “They’re getting ahead of us. What if the Germans are closer than we know?”

“Keep walking,” Sister Williams answered her sternly. “And pay attention to where you’re putting your feet. There’s no one to carry you if you stumble or fall.”

I looked over my shoulder. The black plume that marked where the German flier had gone down was dwindling, as the fire had consumed the wooden body of the Albatross and there was less and less fuel to feed on. I tried to put it out of my mind and did as Sister Williams had asked—silently concentrating on each step.

My main worry was that another pilot from the same squadron, seeing the telltale black smoke, might come to investigate. We could still be spotted.

We’d marched nearly three miles through desolation and the French summer sun, thirsty and wishing for nothing more than an hour’s rest. Sister Benning had already asked if we needed to find some shade for five minutes of respite from the heat, but we all knew it would be the height of foolishness.

And then a lorry came barreling toward us, crashing about like an erratic monster, and it slowed in a shower of dust and loose stones.

“Get in,” the sergeant at the wheel shouted to us, standing on no ceremony. “We lost this round, and the Hun will be at La Fleurette in twenty minutes.”

We didn’t need a second invitation. We scrambled into the back of the lorry and held on tight as the driver swung it in a wide circle to make his turn. Then we were heading back the way he’d come, gripping whatever we could find to keep ourselves from being thrown about. I could feel the bruises accumulating. But we were safe, and that was all that mattered.

The driver slowed after what seemed to be hours of torture, and he called back to us, “We should be in the clear. Sorry about the rough ride.”

I asked if there was news of Dr. Buckley, but the driver shook his head. “No idea, Sister. But not to worry. We’ll be back in La Fleurette soon enough. Word is the Huns can’t hold what they’ve gained today.”

And then he turned back to the wheel, and Sister Benning said, “Well. I know what it feels like to be on the rack, now,” as we gathered speed again.

But I wasn’t fated to return to La Fleurette, although later I was told that we’d regained the lost ground, just as the sergeant had predicted, and a dozen yards beyond it. But at the cost of how many lives, how many wounded who would never be whole again?

Dr. Buckley was being sent back to England. He resisted going at first, and then relented finally, asking if I could escort him—“She doesn’t fuss,” he had told the worried doctors who had examined him. At the same time I was informed that I was to be given leave, although I knew very well that in the rotation, I had weeks to go.

I never knew—although I had my suspicions—if my leave had to do with Dr. Buckley, or if Inspector Herbert had had some say in it. That was rather far-fetched, but stranger things, I’d learned in dealing with the Army, could happen. It was entirely possible that Simon Brandon had pulled some strings. Between them, he and my father knew everyone from General Haig to the lowliest subaltern down the line of command.

It was Simon who met my train as it came into London, and I’d sent no telegram.

CHAPTER SEVEN

SIMON GREETED ME, took my satchel away from me, and walked with me to the motorcar that was waiting outside the station.

My father’s motorcar, in fact.

Simon smiled. “It’s home for you, Miss Crawford. Orders from the Colonel-in-Chief.”

That was my mother. None of us disobeyed her when she issued a command.

I had delivered Dr. Buckley to a doctor waiting for him in the hospital in Portsmouth. Once he’d been settled and the papers I’d been carrying about his condition were handed over to Matron, who took charge of them and Dr. Buckley with quiet efficiency, I had been free to leave.

I was just as glad to be going home again. Standing at the rail of the ship bringing us into Portsmouth, I’d watched the smooth waters of The Solent and the irregular shape of the Isle of Wight rise out of the darkness like some fantastical place in dreams—quiet and peaceful. At the back of my mind, unbidden, were the sounds of that Spandau machine gun firing round after round. And then an officer of the Wiltshire Fusiliers came to stand beside me, looking out toward the busy harbor.

“I miss the lights,” he said without turning. “I could pick out the villages by their lights as we came into port.”

They had been turned off to make the enemy blind. Portsmouth, across The Solent, was a major port and a tempting target for submarines.

I looked up at him, but it wasn’t the face I’d hoped to see.

And that encounter had brought Marjorie Evanson back to mind. I still had her photograph.

Turning to Simon as we drove toward Somerset, I said, “What did you learn about Lieutenant Fordham’s death?”

“It’s still under wraps. A police matter. How did you come to hear about his death? Your letter was brief.”

“I was worried about the censors. Scotland Yard wanted to know if he was the man I’d seen with Marjorie Evanson at the railway station, the day she died.”

“And was he?”

“No. I can’t even be sure he knew Mrs. Evanson. He was just in the same regiment as the officer the Yard is looking for. To help with their inquiries, as they say. Scotland Yard might even have asked me just on the off chance it would connect the two cases. Apparently they haven’t made much progress in finding her murderer.”

“That explains the fact that so little has come to light about Fordham’s death. The Yard kept it out of the newspapers. Did you know that? But then Fordham was from a prominent family. I suspect they’d rather believe he was murdered than that he killed himself. He was a serving officer, recovering from wounds. Suicide smacks of not being able to face going back into the line.”

“Was there an inquest?”

“It was adjourned at the request of the police.”

“I did ask Inspector Herbert for the particulars, when I answered his letter. But he never replied. Where does the Fordham family live, do you know?”

“In Wiltshire. Leave it to the police, Bess.”

“I know. They have more resources, and all that.” I gave the matter some thought, then asked, “Was Lieutenant Fordham married?”

“I don’t know. Bess—”

He turned to look at me, taking his eyes off the road for a moment. And that was when I realized that he was not telling me everything. I know Simon Brandon as well as he knows me.

“There’s something else. What is it, Simon?” He was concentrating on passing a small dogcart driven by a heavyset man asleep on the seat, the pony trotting purposefully toward its destination as if it had done this a thousand times before. I waited until we were safely past pony and cart. “You might as well tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

I smiled. “Must I spend my entire leave making your life miserable, wheedling and pleading and issuing ultimatums?” His profile was like stone. “I’ll even cry.”

He laughed then. “I haven’t seen you cry in years.”

I let it go. We drove in silence for some time.

Finally, Simon said, “All right. A fortnight before he died, Lieutenant Fordham was invited to a weekend party at Melton Hall.”

I stared at him. “Melton Hall? But—” I stopped, then asked, “And did he accept?”

“He refused the invitation.”

There could have been any number of reasons for refusing. But what had Serena Melton made of that?

“How on earth did you discover that?”

“Quite by chance. I was asking someone about Fordham, but she hadn’t seen him for weeks. And then she added that, in fact, she’d just missed him. Apparently she’d attended a party where she’d been looking forward to seeing him—she had heard he was to be a fellow guest. But he never came. When she asked her hostess if he was all right, she was told that Fordham had pleaded another engagement. When she learned afterward that he’d died, she had wondered if his wounds were worse than she knew.”

“I was a guest there one weekend. Simon, he must have known Marjorie—that’s the only reason he’d have been asked to the party.”

“That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I knew you’d jump to conclusions.”

I let it drop. But the rest of the way home to Somerset my mind was busy.

Inspector Herbert had asked me if the face in the photograph was the man I’d seen in the railway station with Marjorie Evanson. And I’d replied that he wasn’t.

Granted, a good deal ot time had passed since that night. But Inspector Herbert must have believed that I could still recognize him. Otherwise, why send the photograph?

If there was some evidence I didn’t know about, why hadn’t he said so? Something that pointed to Lieutenant Fordham, something to show that the man at the station had had nothing to do with Marjorie’s death later that night. Yet he’d asked if they were one and the same.

Surely he wouldn’t simply close the case now, whatever evidence he had uncovered, and never identify Marjorie Evanson’s lover? Yes, Lieutenant Fordham had taken his own life, there could be no trial, the matter could be hushed up and the family’s good name protected. But what about justice for Marjorie and her good name?

The silence, keeping the facts of the lieutenant’s death out of the press, adjourning the inquest—it all made a certain sense whether I was comfortable with it or not.

After all, it was her murderer Scotland Yard wanted. It didn’t matter about her private life if that private life had nothing to do with her death. Even if it had been responsible for her husband’s suicide, the police could wash their hands of the case.

That seemed so unfair to Marjorie, so unfair to her husband, and to the families that grieved for them.

“You’ve been quiet. Are you all right?” Simon was asking as we came down the street and could see the house gates just ahead.

“A little tired, that’s all.”

Thinking that I must be remembering what I’d left behind in France, he said, “If you need to talk to someone…” He left the rest unfinished.

I thanked him, and then I was being welcomed with open arms. There was no fatted calf, there not being one handy for this occasion or any other, but I was safe and at home.

It wasn’t until after dinner that I found a moment to put through a call to Scotland Yard. I only wanted to be reassured, told that I was wrong about Lieutenant Fordham.

A constable at the other end identified himself and asked how he could help me. I asked for Inspector Herbert.

“Your name, please?”

I gave it.

“I’m sorry, Miss Crawford. Inspector Herbert isn’t in at present.”

“When do you expect him to return?” I asked.

“I can’t say, Miss.”

“Tonight? Tomorrow?”

“I can’t say, Miss.”

I waited for him to ask if there was a message. But there was only silence.

I thanked him and put up the receiver.

Then I went to find my mother.

For someone who had spent most of her married life following my father around the world, she seemed to know half of England.

My father always explained that without any difficulty. “In the first place,” he’d told me soon after we’d returned to Britain, “she needs to know anyone of importance, with an eye to providing you with a suitable husband.”

Shocked, I’d blurted, “I’ll find my own husband, thank you!”

“I’m sure you’ll try,” he’d replied doubtfully. “In the second place, if you’ve never noticed it for yourself, your mother has a winning way. People flock to her, wanting to be her friend. I’ve never understood it, to tell you the truth. But I’ve found that fact helpful more times than I’ve chosen to tell her.”

Laughing, I’d answered, “Come to think of it, you’re right.”

“And lastly, who will people think of the instant they suspect trouble is stalking them? Complete strangers, mind you, but they’ll turn up on our doorstep seeking an audience with your mother for her advice.”

I could clearly remember asking my mother when I was a child in India why there were always people at our door, natives and Europeans alike. She’d answered, “I never know, my dear. I think the wind blows my name to them.”

And for days, I’d watched and listened, hoping to hear her name in the wind for myself.

At the moment, knowing half of England was going to come in handy.

My father had gone out to walk—a habit left over from his days in the Army—and my mother was reading in the small sitting room she used most often.

She looked up. “There you are. I thought there was something on your mind. I sensed it at dinner.” Drawing up another chair, she said, “Is it France?”

“Not France. Do you think, Mother, you could arrange an introduction to someone who lives in or near Little Sefton, in Hampshire?”

“And what, pray, is in Little Sefton that takes you away just as you’ve walked in the door?” my suspicious mother wanted to know.

“It’s where Marjorie Evanson grew up.”

She repeated the name, then said, “Isn’t she the woman who was found murdered in London not so very long ago?” She picked up her knitting.

“In fact, yes. I knew her husband. He died of a broken heart after she was found dead. He had a long recovery ahead of him. Severe burns. I expect he had nothing to live for after that. He was devoted to her.”

“One of your wounded? I see. Meddling again, are you?”

I tried a smile, to see if it would help. “Not so much meddling as trying to understand why the police haven’t made more progress. Or if they have, why they’ve kept it quiet. Most of us live in London peacefully. We aren’t murdered in our beds or on the streets, and tossed into the river.”

“I should hope not,” my mother said, not losing a stitch. “Your father has gone to great lengths to enlist Mrs. Hennessey in his campaign to see you safe.”

I had to laugh. Still, I answered her, “I can take care of myself.”

The words were no sooner out of my mouth than I had a flash of memory, of the German pilot firing his machine gun and the bullets tearing up the earth toward me.

“I’m quite sure Marjorie Evanson felt exactly the same,” she reminded me.

“Yes,” I began, ready to argue the point, then thought better of it. “The truth is, I have a photograph of her.” I went on to explain how I had come into possession of it. “I’m not sure—given the circumstances—that Marjorie Evanson’s family will want it any more than Serena Melton did. I thought perhaps I should find out before I sent it.”

“And quite right,” my mother nodded. “Tell me more about this man you saw at the station. Why do you think he’s never come forward?”

“I have no way of knowing whether he has or not. I rather think not. But something happened recently that made me believe the police are looking in the wrong direction.”

“Perhaps he has a good reason for not contacting the police. That’s to say, if he knows they’re looking for him. Either he’s married, or he’s in a position that would make an affair with a married woman bad for his reputation.”

Depend on my mother to reach the heart of the matter.

“It doesn’t speak well for him, I agree.”

“Are the police quite sure he had nothing to do with Mrs. Evanson’s death?” She turned the heel of the stocking she was knitting. Then she looked up at me.

“They felt it was possible, but not likely. I don’t see how he could have managed it. Once they find him, they’ll know whether he met his ship on time or not.”

“Has it occurred to you, my dear, that if you’re the only person who can identify this man, it might put you in some danger? Especially if he killed Mrs. Evanson. And even if he didn’t.”

“I don’t think it’s very likely that he even knows I exist.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that. If you saw him, how can you be so certain he didn’t see you standing there staring at the two of them?”

“He didn’t look my way. He was staring straight ahead.”

“But you were looking at Mrs. Evanson.”

A point well taken.

I said, “All the more reason to rid myself of this photograph as soon as may be. And put the Evansons out of my mind.”

But I wasn’t sure I could do that. And so I added, to ease some of the worry I could read in my mother’s eyes, “He could be dead, of course. For all we know.”

“Don’t make excuses for him. And Scotland Yard can find him without your help.”

“The thing is, they have no name, no photograph, only my description.” I sighed. “It’s been long enough now. I have a feeling Mrs. Evanson’s murder will never be solved. And I find that abominable. He was my patient—her husband—and that makes it personal.”

“Yes, you always did have an extraordinary sense of fair play. For better or for worse. Well, perhaps it would be wisest if I helped you, and made certain you don’t come to grief.”

She sat there, staring into space, thinking. I said nothing, almost afraid that if I spoke, she might change her mind.

Finally she said, “Do you remember Dorothea Mitchell?”

“She was a school chum of yours.”

“We’ve kept in touch all these years, and I’ve met her in London a time or two for lunch. I’ll have a word with her.”

I was reminded of what my father had said in his second point about my mother, that she won and kept friends easily.

And so it was that Dorothea Mitchell—now Dorothea Worth—was engaged to find someone in her own vast acquaintance who could provide an introduction into Little Sefton for me. It didn’t take her very long.

Mrs. Worth knew someone in Gloucester who had a friend in St. Albans whose younger sister happened to live in Little Sefton, Hampshire.

It was that simple.

Armed with a letter from my mother, I drove myself to Little Sefton—a good four-hour journey—and presented myself at the door of one Alicia Dalton.

I’d expected someone of my mother’s age, but the woman who answered my knock was only about ten years older than I was. She was fair, with blue eyes, and her smile was warm.

“Miss Crawford? How nice to meet you. Do come in.”

The house was stone, with lovely windows and colorful flower beds that ran down the short drive to the gates. Inside it was cool, with high ceilings and paneling in the hall, stairs running up to one side and a passage to other rooms on the left.

“I’ve been looking forward to your visit ever since my sister wrote to me. She didn’t tell me why you were so interested in Little Sefton, but I was delighted to have your company even if only for a short while. My husband just went back to France, and I’ve been fighting tears and melancholy for two days.”

“I’m interested in Marjorie Evanson,” I told her truthfully. “I knew her husband—he was one of my patients after his last crash—and her death has been on my mind as well as his. I thought perhaps it would help if I came here and tried to put the past to rest.”

That wasn’t the whole truth. But it would do as a start.

“I knew Marjorie, of course. Not well—she was a rather private person, even as a child. But do come in, you’ll want to settle yourself in your room, and then we can sit in the garden and talk.” As she led the way upstairs, she said over her shoulder, “You’re in luck, actually. We’re having a garden party to raise money for children whose fathers have been killed. I’ll take you around and introduce you to people.”

She chattered all the way to my room, which was down the passage to the left, and when she opened the door, I smiled.

The room was large and airy, with windows looking out across the gardens toward the church that stood on a slight rise to the north, the rooftops of cottages clustered around it. The coverlet on the bed was a soft yellow, with flowers embroidered in a circle in the center, and the window curtains were cream with pale green ties.

“How lovely!” I said.

“I’m glad you like it. It’s Gareth’s sister’s room. She’s in London awaiting the birth of her first child. It’s a nervous time, and she wanted to be near her doctors. I’ll leave you to freshen up. Come down the stairs, go to the second door on your left, and I’ll have tea waiting.”

I thanked her, changed out of my traveling clothes and into a dress that was more comfortable in the afternoon heat, then went down to find Alicia.

She was in a small room with delicate French furnishings, a very feminine room with walls painted a soft rose and trimmed in cream.

We were soon on first-name terms, and I discovered that she was a fund of information about Marjorie.

“She has a sister, you know. Victoria. Marjorie was always in her shadow, a quiet girl who never fussed about anything, tried hard to please, and was never in trouble of any kind.”

“Marjorie is younger than Victoria?”

“Oh, no, Victoria was several years younger, but you’d never guess it, really. She was domineering from childhood, always wanting her own way, always making certain that no one forgot her. I thought her quite bossy, and said as much to Marjorie one day when we were twelve. She gave me her quiet little smile, and said, ‘Yes, it’s simpler to give in than to fight. There’s peace at home when Victoria is happy.’ I told her that was arrant foolishness, that Victoria needed to learn her manners and her place. But her father doted on her, you see—Victoria, I mean—and he thought her behavior was a mark of strong character. In truth, she was quite spoiled.”

“And Marjorie always let her have her way?”

“At least while she was living at home. But when Marjorie went away to school, and then to live with her aunt in London, on her next visit here she surprised us all by telling Victoria she was a bully. Publicly.”

I laughed. “And what did Victoria have to say about that?”

“She left in a huff, vowing never to darken the door of any house where Marjorie might be invited. But it must have given her pause, because Marjorie and she were on better terms for a time.”

“Does this aunt still live in London?”

“She died just after Marjorie and Meriwether were married. There’s a distant cousin, Helen Calder, but no other family that I know of.”

I found myself wondering how Serena Melton, Lieutenant Evanson’s sister, and Victoria, Marjorie’s sister, had got on. Like oil and water, very likely. They were both strong-willed women.

“Did the family approve of Marjorie’s marriage to Meriwether Evanson?”

Alicia refilled my cup as she answered.

“It was a very good match. I think Mr. Garrison was pleased. Victoria wasn’t. All the same, she was soon enjoying being the only child in the bosom of her family, and until her father’s death, she showed no interest in leaving home. The Garrison house was left to her.”

“Did you know Lieutenant Evanson well?”

“I stayed with Marjorie and Meriwether in London for two weeks in the autumn of 1915. I’d seen Gareth off to the France and I needed cheering up.”

“How did they get on?”

“It was a love match, you know. They were quite happy. I think Marjorie had hoped that she might have a child before very long, but it never happened. Probably for the best, with both parents dead now.”

It was a very practical point of view. But I thought perhaps Alicia was convincing herself that it was just as well she had no children yet.

If Victoria and Marjorie hadn’t got on, I’d probably come here on a wild-goose chase. Still, sudden death could change attitudes, smooth over rifts.

As if she’d read my thoughts, Alicia said, “I couldn’t believe it when I heard that Marjorie was murdered. I’ve never known anyone who was murdered. It was rather frightening. I couldn’t help but wonder how it had happened. I mean, no one walks up to you and says, ‘Hallo, I’ve just decided to kill you.’ It’s hard to comprehend.” She shivered.

I said, “I expect there must have been a reason. Love. Hate. Fear. Greed. Passion. Some strong emotion that got out of hand.”

“They did say that her purse was missing. It doesn’t bear thinking of—killed for a few pounds. And then Meriwether dying so soon afterward. I saw Serena Melton at her brother’s funeral, and she was in such distress. I heard her say to the rector, ‘It’s not fair, you know, for me to lose Merry on her account.’ Meaning Marjorie. I thought it was a terrible thing to say. But they were close, Serena and her brother. I remember Marjorie telling me once that their parents had died at a very young age, and the two of them had depended on each other for support. Their guardian was not particularly good at dealing with distraught children, and left them to their own devices. A roof over their heads, clothes on their backs, food on their table and he felt his duty was more than satisfactorily done.”

It explained Serena’s feelings for her brother. Serena and Meriwether had been thrown together in a time of grief, when there was quite simply no one else to comfort them. It was a powerful tie.

I also understood why Marjorie might not have turned to her own sister, in her distress. Then where had she gone?

“What about Marjorie’s mother? How did she feel about her daughters?”

“She’s dead.” Alicia’s answer was short.

Marjorie had been utterly alone. No wonder she had been crying as if her heart were broken.

If anyone had a reason for suicide, she did. And yet she’d been murdered.

The garden party the next day was held at the rectory, and according to Alicia, it was a pale shadow of former days, when food was plentiful and two-thirds of the male population wasn’t away fighting a war.

The food was makeshift, the women were in black rather than the usual array of summer dresses bought or made for the occasion, with matching hats to protect one’s complexion. And except for the rector, the men were in uniform.

Little Sefton was small enough for everyone to know everyone, and I was one of the handful of outsiders in their midst. Alicia and I walked across the green lawn to the booths set out on the grass, their poles decorated with loops of flowers and bows of ribbons and bright fabrics. People nodded to us as we passed, and children ran about playing, chased by excited dogs.

Alicia was saying, “Let me present you to Rector Stevens. He’s a lovely man. Do you play chess, by any chance? He quite fancies himself as the best player in Hampshire.”

Not wanting to spend my afternoon in a chess match, I hemmed and hummed a bit, and Alicia said, “Well, never mind. One of the wounded is sure to oblige him.”

I had seen far too many of those, walking with canes, arms in slings, or even being wheeled in invalid chairs.

She began to point out people to me. “That woman in puce. She was housemaid to Marjorie’s mother. She puts up the best pickle relish in the county. Over there, the one with red hair—she was a friend of Marjorie’s mother—” The list went on, and then Alicia stopped.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Victoria is here. I’d never have guessed it. I owe the rector’s wife a dozen brown eggs.”

“You had a wager on whether or not she was coming?”

“Oh, yes. I was nearly certain that with everyone discussing poor Marjorie’s death, she wouldn’t wish to be here.”

I looked at Marjorie’s sister. She was about my height, with fair hair and hazel eyes. But her mouth, unlike Marjorie’s more generous one, was thin lipped, and I found myself thinking that I shouldn’t like to cross her.

A family resemblance was there all the same, especially around the eyes, but I wouldn’t have picked Victoria out on my own as Marjorie’s sister.

Victoria turned away as we came nearer, and the rector was engaged with an older man who was speaking earnestly to him.

Alicia said, “That’s Mr. Hart. A gentleman farmer. He owns the largest farm in Little Sefton. He’s kind enough to send his workmen around to help with things like repairing chimneys or patching roofs or heavy lifting. It’s a blessing, with Gareth in France.” She turned away, to allow the two men a little privacy. “And that handsome devil sitting in the white elephant booth—the one with his arm in bandages—has been breaking hearts since he arrived a few weeks ago. He’s staying with the Harts. Their nephew.”

I could see the man she spoke of. An officer in the Wiltshire regiment, tall, very fair, a deep voice and a laugh that began in his chest and a smile that was devastatingly sweet. But with a roving eye as well. I watched him try his charm on a girl of perhaps fourteen, who blushed to the roots of her hair, then he switched his attention to her mother, but she must have been used to it. I heard her say, “Oh, behave yourself, Michael. One would think you were the Prince of Wales, the way you carry on.”

He laughed and leaned across the booth’s counter to kiss her cheek. “Dear Mrs. Lucas, if I ever marry anyone, it will be you.”

She nodded. “Yes, and what shall I tell Henry when we elope?”

Henry must have been her husband, because Michael dropped his voice to a conspiratorial level and asked, “Must we tell him?” He looked around. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him today. His back, again?”

“Sadly, yes. He’s gone to see a doctor in Salisbury.”

She moved on and he turned our way. “Ah, a new blossom in our garden,” he exclaimed, seeing me. “And who is this, pray?” he asked Alicia.

Alicia took me across to the booth, presenting me. “Bess Crawford, this is Michael Hart. He’s not to be trusted.”

He bowed over my hand and welcomed me to the fete.

Close to, I could see the lines of strain around his mouth and the shadows in those wonderfully blue eyes.

“How is your shoulder?” I asked.

“Never better.” But it was a lie. “I’ll be returning to the Front by September, they tell me.”

“How many surgeries have you had?”

“Enough for a lifetime,” he replied tersely, and then laughed to cover his lapse.

Alicia left me there while she spoke to an elderly woman leaning heavily on a cane.

Michael Hart said, “Do you need a white elephant?” He was pointing to one—literally—made of porcelain. It was quite charming, and so I bought it, and he wrapped it carefully before handing it to me. I paid him and was about to turn away when he caught my hand in his good one, and said in a low voice, “No, don’t go.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Victoria bearing down on us, and I stayed for the opportunity to meet her. But when she realized that I had no intention of leaving, even after my purchase was completed, she veered away.

“Do you know her?” I asked, interested to hear what he had to say.

“I knew her sister,” he said in that same terse manner.

Marjorie.

He was beckoning to a woman just coming up the grassy avenue. “Mrs. Hampton, would you mind the booth for a bit?”

She came over to him and said at once, “Do go and sit down, Michael. You must be in terrible pain. I thought someone was to assist you?”

“No one came,” he told her. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”

“Take as long as you like.” She noticed the little box stuffed with coins and said, “I see you’ve done quite well. I told the rector’s wife you were the perfect one to sell our little treasures.”

Once more I began to turn away, but Michael took my arm and said, “Stay with me.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

I DID AS HE ASKED. The debonair officer had vanished, and there was perspiration on Lieutenant Hart’s face, a tightness to his mouth. I’d seen this happen with wounded men. Off parade, so to speak, they let down their guard and admitted that they were in pain.

We walked together along a short path that led to the side door of the rectory. He reached for it out of habit, but I was there first and held it for him. Inside it was cool and dim, and I realized we were in a small plant room, where secateurs and trowels, baskets and pots lined the shelves on either side. Below were vases of all kinds. A dry sink where plants could be repotted or divided held a vase of wilting blossoms. Here flower arrangements were made up or cuttings were prepared for setting out.

My escort led the way through the second door and into a wider passage, then up a short flight of steps to a book-lined room that was clearly the rector’s study.

“No one will think to look for us here.” He sank into a leather armchair to one side of the desk, and closed his eyes.

I took the one opposite him. After a moment, he opened his eyes and said, “You’re a good sport, Sister Crawford. Thank you.”

I smiled. “Not at all. Is there anything I can bring you? Water? A pillow?”

“I’m all right.”

Which I translated as, Don’t fuss.

After a time, as the pain eased, he said, “I didn’t know Victoria would be here today. I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I owe you some explanation. Victoria’s sister was killed some weeks ago. Victoria appears to think I know something about that. She hounds me every time she sees me. I couldn’t deal with it today.”

“And do you know something?”

He’d closed his eyes again. “I don’t make a habit of killing women.”

Which wasn’t precisely an answer to my question.

“You’ll hear about it soon enough if you stay in Little Sefton for very long,” he went on after a moment, as if he’d made up his mind. “Marjorie Evanson was murdered in London. She was a friend of mine. Her sister is not.”

“I didn’t know Mrs. Evanson, but I was in charge of the wounded when her husband, Lieutenant Evanson, was brought home with burns.”

Those marvelous eyes opened and seemed to spear me. “Were you indeed? A small world. I liked Merry, you know. The first time I met him, I knew he’d be right for Marjorie.”

“Alicia told me you were a nephew of the Harts.”

“I often stayed with my aunt and uncle on school holidays. My father was in the Army and my parents were half a world away most of the time. That’s how I came to know Marjorie. She lived close by. A sweet girl. I liked her immensely. I wasn’t in love with her,” he added hastily, “but I liked her. We played together as children and sometimes she’d confide in me, and I in her. I think our two families are related somehow—a distant this or that. So we called each other cousin, Marjorie and I. She had no brother, and I had no sister. It was a good relationship.”

I believed him. There was the ring of truth in his voice now.

“I read something about her death. Did the police ever discover who had killed her?”

“I don’t know that they’ve made any progress at all. Although I’d had my suspicions that something was wrong.”

“Had you?”

“About five or six months ago—you won’t say anything to Alicia about this, will you?” I promised and he went on. “About five or six months ago, late winter anyway, her letters changed. They were shorter and not as full of news. Distracted. Unlike her. I put it down to worry about Merry—his squadron had been posted to France. And then the letters were fewer, as if she’d written out of duty when she remembered she owed me one.”

“Did you see her after that?”

He sat up as a clock somewhere in the house struck the hour. “I must return to the booth. I don’t know what possessed me to agree to man it.”

I considered him. Friend or not, cousin or not, Michael Hart was very attractive. But he wasn’t the man I’d seen with Marjorie Evanson in London.

I was tempted to ask him if he knew Lieutenant Fordham, but they were in the same regiment, and Simon had told me that the lieutenant’s death had been kept out of the newspapers. Instead I asked, “There might have been another man. Had you thought of that?”

His eyes sharpened, and an ugly twist reshaped his mouth. “What do you mean? What have you heard?”

I shrugged. “You suggested there was a change in her. There’s usually a reason for it. Perhaps there was something she didn’t want to tell you or was afraid you’d read between the lines in her letters.”

He got up and swung around the room, as if he were trying to find a way out of it, like an animal pacing his cage at a zoo. “That’s nonsense. Besides, it doesn’t explain her murder, does it?”

When I said nothing, he went on as much to himself as to me. “I can’t drive, and I’m forbidden to take the train. I need to go to London. To talk to her friends. There was a women’s group she belonged to, they met every week. I asked my uncle to drive me there, but he has his hands full with the farm just now—everyone is shorthanded, I know that’s true, but still—” He took a deep breath. “It’s been weeks already.”

“What does Victoria have to say? Surely Marjorie confided in her.”

“She wouldn’t tell me even if she knew the name of Marjorie’s killer. She was an insufferable little beast, always prying, always tattling. Neither of us could abide her. Marjorie tried to make peace with her, but confide in her? Never.” He considered me. “Have a motorcar here, do you?”

“Yes, I—”

“Excellent. You can drive me to London, if you please. I’ll start with the servants. They’ll talk to me. I helped her choose most of them when she opened the house.”

It was tempting. But I said, “My family lives in Somerset. I’ll be going back there, not to London.”

“How long have you known Alicia?” he asked shrewdly. “You don’t strike me as old friends. I’ve known Alicia for years, and I’ve never seen you in Little Sefton before. You said you knew Meriwether. Did his sister send you here? I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“I told you the truth. I brought Lieutenant Evanson back to England, to Laurel House. He had a photograph of his wife, and it was pinned to his tunic where I could see it every day. He wouldn’t let it out of his sight. I couldn’t help but see it.”

I didn’t tell him that it was even now in my valise at Alicia’s house. But I found myself adding, “I was told by Matron that Lieutenant Evanson’s family didn’t want it buried with him.”

Under his breath he swore with some feeling. “Serena’s doing, very likely. I think she felt as elder sister she ought to have a say in the woman Evanson married. She’d introduced him to several friends of hers, but nothing came of that.”

I could hear people talking in the passage. “We should go out to the garden. They’ll be looking for you.”

“I’ve lost interest in the blasted white elephant booth.”

“It is for a good cause,” I reminded him.

“I’d rather give them the money and be done with it.”

“That’s charity.”

Suddenly he chuckled, that same deep rumble that began in his chest before erupting into deep laughter.

“You’re an extraordinary woman, Sister Crawford. I think Marjorie would have approved of you.” Cradling his shoulder, he added with resignation, “Come along then. But think about it, won’t you? Driving to London, I mean.”

We walked together out of the rector’s study, down the passage, and back to the fete.

As we stepped out into the gardens, Alicia raised her eyebrows at the sight of us together, and on the other side of the palm reader’s booth, Victoria was staring.

I could almost read their minds as they wondered how I had so successfully cornered the Prince of Wales.

Behind me, Michael Hart said just loud enough for me to hear him, “Is this where you slap my face and walk away?”

Unable to stop myself, I smiled broadly.

But Michael had already slipped away and left me standing there alone.

The rector stepped into the breach and introduced himself, welcoming me to Little Sefton and asking where I was from. “Somerset,” I told him, and then we played the social game of do you know…

We did indeed have a connection in common. It seems that the chaplain of my father’s old regiment—now long since retired to grow roses and tomatoes in Derbyshire—had been a friend of the rector’s father, and with those bona fides, I was accepted into the bosom of Little Sefton.

The afternoon turned out to be lovely in every sense. I found I was enjoying myself as the rector and Alicia between them presented me to everyone. I took my turn in the white elephant booth, and even sold tickets for the little raffle. Michael was least in sight, and I heard someone, a woman, say, “He’s probably gone to have a lie down. He told me that Sister Crawford had advised him to rest and take a little something for his pain.”

My back was to the speakers, and so I couldn’t see who answered that remark.

“I wonder if she knows that he’s altogether too fond of that little something for the pain.” Another woman’s voice.

Just as I turned to see who it was, I found myself almost face-to-face with Victoria.

I had wondered if—when—she might speak to me. She had no way of knowing who I was, but seeing me with Michael had for some reason ruffled her feathers.

As if to prove it, her first words were, “Have you known Michael very long?”

“Approximately two hours,” I answered with a smile, refusing to be drawn.

“Alicia told me she hadn’t realized you were acquainted with him, or she wouldn’t have invited you to Little Sefton. She doesn’t care to be used in this way.”

Alicia had said nothing of the sort. She knew why I was here.

“How odd,” I replied. “It was she who introduced us. She did mention that he was considered the exclusive property of someone—Victoria, I believe she was?”

Her face went beet red.

“I’m Victoria Garrison. And that man is of no interest to me.”

“I’m Elizabeth Crawford,” I went on. “Are you by any chance related to Marjorie Evanson?”

“It’s clear to me that you’ve been reading the London papers. Who told you that Garrison was her maiden name? Alicia, of course. Our little scandal attracts all manner of curiosity seekers.”

“As a matter of fact,” I answered her serenely, “I was Lieutenant Evanson’s nurse while he was in hospital in France.”

That stopped her cold. But she recovered quickly. “Did Serena Melton send you here to annoy me?”

Intrigued by the fact that both she and Michael Hart had leapt to that conclusion, I hesitated a second too long.

She turned away, then swung around again to face me. “Well, you can tell her for me that while a murder in the family is not something to cry from the rooftops, a suicide is even worse.” And she walked off, her shoulders stiff with anger.

I stood there thinking it was sad that two families had been torn apart by one act of violence, rather than being brought together in common grief.

Behind me, Mrs. Hart said quietly, “Poor girl. She’s taken her sister’s death hard. They were never close. Perhaps she has come to regret that now.”

I hadn’t heard her come up behind me. I’d have liked to disagree with her, but said, “I’m sorry.”

“Victoria takes after her father. He was a hard man to like. Marjorie was more like her mother, which is probably why Mr. Garrison was fonder of Victoria.” She shifted the course of the conversation. “Alicia tells me you’ve come just for the weekend. Have you known each other long?”

“She’s the friend of a friend who thought we might enjoy each other’s company,” I answered. “And we have, I must say.”

“She’s missed Gareth terribly. Of course there are no children. That’s been a sorrow for both of them. One might say early days, but for the war. One can only pray that Gareth returns safely. I fear for Michael. You’re a nursing sister. Will that shoulder heal cleanly? I don’t know what they’ve said to Michael. He puts up a good front, and we try not to ask too many questions. I do know he secretly dreads the possibility that he might lose his arm. I’ve heard him cry out at night, dreaming they’re taking it.”

“It’s too soon to judge these things,” I said, the only hope I could offer, not knowing the details of the case. “I’m surprised he’s out of hospital. But that’s a good sign, you know. When was he wounded?”

“It was no more than a fortnight, if that, after dear Marjorie was killed. When the news came, I said to my husband that I wondered if Michael had got careless, worrying over her death. They kept him in hospital as long as they could, but he’s not one to be penned up. He brooded too much. We were happy to have him back and safe.”

I remembered him pacing the rector’s study.

“He’s no trouble at all,” she went on. “He can do everything for himself except dress. But he won’t take his morphine when he needs it. He says fighting the pain is good for the constitution.” She smiled sadly.

She moved on to speak to a friend, and I went to find Alicia. The garden party was coming to a close, and she was helping to pack away the remnants of food from the stalls, preparing to take them around to those who weren’t able to attend. I volunteered to help, and she and I crisscrossed Little Sefton, answering questions at each door about who was at the affair and who was not, and of course having to explain who I was and why I was here in Little Sefton.

Along the way, Alicia pointed out the Garrison house. It was stone, and unlike its neighbors, was set well back from the road, with lovely roses climbing almost to the windows of the first storey, and a low wall around the front garden, which was ablaze with blooms of every kind, the hollyhocks just coming into their own.

Tired and ready to put our feet up—“with a little sherry,” Alicia suggested—we returned to her house. But when we got there, she discovered a letter from Gareth had arrived in the post, and she quickly excused herself to run up the stairs and read it in private.

There was a knock at the door before she’d come down again, and I went to answer it.

Michael Hart stood on the doorstep.

“I’ve just been to see Dr. Higgins,” he informed me lightly. “He says I’m fit enough for London if I don’t drive, carouse, or chase unsuitable women.”

“How dull for you,” I responded. “But I’m not going directly to London. I’m returning to my parents’ home in Somerset.”

He could see that I was on the point of refusing him, and he said in quite another voice, “Don’t let me down, Bess Crawford. This is important to me, and there’s no one else.”

“Surely there’s someone in Little Sefton who would agree to drive you.”

“Undoubtedly. But the reasons why I’m so set on going would be common knowledge in the village, even before we’d cranked the motorcar. Let them believe I’ve taken a fancy to you—that my broken heart has finally begun to mend.”

“Do you have a broken heart?” I asked, curious.

“There was a girl before the war. One I liked very much. She preferred someone else. It was generally assumed I was devastated. But the truth was, I liked her. I wasn’t passionately in love with her.”

Was he talking about Marjorie? Michael was glib, in my opinion. It could be the truth or it could be what he thought I wanted to hear.

But then it dawned on me that if he were not so handsome, people might well see him differently and accept everything he said at face value.

“If you go with me to Somerset, you’ll have to put up with the scrutiny of my family. I don’t as a rule bring young men home with me.”

In fact, I never had. He sensed this, and said, “You knew Meriwether. Surely you must be curious about what happened to Marjorie. I don’t mind if you are there when I talk to the staff or her friends.”

“Lieutenant Hart—”

“Michael.”

“Michael. I have only so much leave.”

“One day. That’s all I ask.”

“Let me think about it,” I said, to be rid of him. I could hear Alicia coming down the stairs.

He must have heard her too. He smiled at me, and was gone.

The next day I went to the early service with Alicia. It was a gray morning and the small church was only half full. As we took our places, Alicia said, “Not many people here today, I’m afraid. But then most of them met you yesterday. Their curiosity is satisfied.”

I smiled and said softly, “Never mind. I’ve enjoyed my visit.”

Alicia nodded. “Yes. So have I.”

The organ wheezed into life in the dampness, and I noted that neither Michael nor Victoria was present.

As we walked home, I waited until we were out of earshot of everyone else, and said to Alicia, “I’ve been meaning to ask you. Did you know a Lieutenant Fordham? Did he come to Little Sefton, do you know?”

“Lieutenant Fordham? I don’t believe I’ve ever met him. And if he came to Little Sefton, I was never aware of it.”

“I wondered if perhaps he was a friend of Marjorie’s?”

“I have no idea,” she answered, but it was clear I’d inadvertently sparked her interest. “Is there any reason I should have heard of him?”

I was prepared for that question and smiled. “He died not long after Marjorie. And the same inspector was looking into his death as well as hers. Coincidence? Or connection? Did someone from Scotland Yard come to Little Sefton?”

“I never saw him, but there was someone who came down. He broke the news to Victoria, and asked about Marjorie’s solicitor, and the like. He spoke to Constable Tilmer and the rector as well, then left. But Marjorie hadn’t lived here for years, so I expect he spent most of his time in London.”

“Did he question Michael Hart?”

“He was in France at the time.”

“Michael told me Victoria believes there’s something he knows about the murder—she keeps demanding that he tell her.”

“I’ve seen her corner him in the street and even in the churchyard. That explains why he’s taken to avoiding her. What does she think? That perhaps Marjorie wrote something to Michael? She didn’t know what was about to happen to her. That doesn’t make sense.”

I hadn’t considered letters. When I didn’t answer straightaway, she turned to look at me.

“It was robbery, wasn’t it? Marjorie’s murder.”

“I don’t think her purse has ever been found.”

We had reached Alicia’s house, and as she lifted the latch, she said, “Michael has asked me at least twice to drive him to London. He feels that he could learn something that the police missed or overlooked. It seems so unlikely, and I’m not comfortable driving Gareth’s motorcar. I told him so. He’s bound to ask you. I think he feels helpless, and needs to be doing something. Even if it’s a wild goose chase.”

I didn’t tell her he already had asked me. Twice. “I’m not going to London,” I said. “I’m returning to Somerset.” But I was still thinking about letters.

“He can be very persuasive,” she said doubtfully. “You don’t know how close I came to giving in, even against my better judgment.”

“And I’m used to the blandishments of wounded men,” I answered. “He won’t sway me.”

When I walked through the door in Somerset with Michael Hart in tow, it was worth any price to see my mother’s eyes widen as I introduced him. She was in the sitting room writing letters to her circle of correspondents, and rose to meet us as I said, “Mother, may I present Lieutenant Michael Hart. He’s on his way to London tomorrow, and I offered to give him a lift since he can’t drive himself.”

“This is a pleasant surprise,” my mother said, recovering her manners in an instant. “Will you be staying with us, Lieutenant Hart?”

“I’ve already taken a room at The Four Doves,” he told her, smiling.

“Indeed,” said the Colonel Sahib, coming into the room behind us, to be introduced in his turn.

“Do sit down,” my mother said hastily, and rang for tea.

CHAPTER NINE

MICHAEL WAS of course invited to dine with us, and my father swept him off to the stables to see a new foal.

I went up to my room, changing my clothes quickly, and found my mother waiting for me as I came down again.

“Simon is coming to dine as well,” she informed me.

“How cozy,” I replied.

My father and Michael came in at that moment. He said, “I met Michael’s father once in Delhi. He was there as part of a commission on its way to Burma.”

The earlier frost in the air had warmed almost to cordiality. We had drinks in the drawing room and talked about the progress of the war and the garden party at Little Sefton. We were just moving on to changes that the war had brought to London when Simon Brandon came in, greeted me, and shook hands with Michael. As he took his chair on the other side of my mother, Simon passed me an envelope.

“This came for you earlier today.”

I thanked him and shoved it into a pocket until I could read it.

But as we were going in to dinner, Simon, falling back to walk beside me, said, in a low voice, “That came by special messenger from Scotland Yard. I met him in the drive earlier as I was coming to borrow your mother for half an hour.”

I let him go ahead of me, turned to one side, and tore open the envelope.

There was just a brief message inside. And another photograph.

Did you by chance see this man at the railway station on the day in question? He’s wanted for the killing of three women in Oxford. They were apparently accosted on the street, then followed home. The previous victims were shopgirls. He escaped the police and may have traveled to London. It’s possible he saw Mrs. Evanson, just as you did. Inspector Herbert.

Dismayed, I read the message again. Was it possible they’d found Marjorie Evanson’s murderer?

I turned quickly to look into the face of a man I was sure I’d never seen before. It was an older photograph, and I recognized the background: the gates of one of the colleges in Oxford.

He appeared to be of medium height, neither fat nor lean, with a long face that was too ordinary to draw attention. He had what looked to be light brown hair and dark eyes, and a mouth that was too small. He could have been a shop clerk or a lorry driver or the man sitting across the way in an omnibus.

I stared at the photograph for a moment, searching my memory. And then I went to the telephone and put in a call to London and Scotland Yard.

Inspector Herbert was not available, but I left a message for him, telling him that I hadn’t seen the man in the photograph.

But as I went in to dinner, I thought how easily he could come up behind someone on a rainy street, and not even turn a head.

Everyone was waiting for me in the dining room, and I apologized for the delay without explaining why it was necessary.

As Michael and my parents carried the burden of conversation, I was silent, thinking about the dead shopgirls and whether Marjorie Evanson, blindly walking out of the station into the rain, might have attracted the notice of someone like the man in the photograph. It could have happened that way. He could have followed her.

But there were a good four or five hours between the time Marjorie Evanson was at the railway station and the time she’d died. Inspector Herbert had said as much himself. Was he clutching at straws?

I’d have liked to ask Michael what he thought, but it would be difficult to explain a communication from Scotland Yard without confessing how I’d been drawn into the case.

I happened to look up as the chutney was passed to me, and I met Simon Brandon’s dark eyes, watching me speculatively.

And it was Simon who volunteered to drive Michael back to The Four Doves.

When they had gone, my mother said to me, “My dear, do you know what you’re doing?”

“I’m only taking Michael to London to speak to the staff at Marjorie Evanson’s house. He wants to hear about that morning before she left the house. Or if something was worrying her.”

“But surely the police—?”

I shook my head. “Of course they must have done. But consider. If the police came here, would Lois or Timmy or anyone else who worked for us tell them things they believed we might not want the police to know? For whatever reason?”

“I’d expect them to tell the truth.”

“And they probably would, if you were innocent and the truth would help. But if you were guilty of some indiscretion, and they knew that if they told the police it would ruin your reputation, what then?”

She was fair. She was always fair. “And so Michael Hart hopes they will confide in him. Charming he may be, but their first loyalty will still be to their mistress, don’t you think?”

“He’s healing. He needs to focus all his energy on that. And instead I think Marjorie Evanson’s death is weighing heavily on his mind. If he learns nothing of importance, he’ll still be satisfied that he did all he could for her. And if he does discover something, then he can take it to the police.”

“That would be the wisest move. Was he in love with her, do you think? That would explain his resolve.”

“He was in France when she was killed and wasn’t eligible for compassionate leave—she wasn’t his wife or mother.”

“Yes, I see what you mean. This is the least he can do for her.”

My mother usually did see. I kissed her good night then and went into the passage toward the stairs.

Simon Brandon was waiting for me in the shadows by the door. He took my arm, opened the door, and led me out into the warm summer night. The sun had not yet set, and the distant horizon was a lovely illusive opal that turned the tops of the trees to a soft gold. A jackdaw, sitting in the top of the nearest tree, was singing to it, his breast a shimmering black like wet paint.

I walked a little way down the drive, knowing what was coming, listening to the crunch of stones under my shoes.

Finally he said, “How well do you know this man?”

“I don’t. But he’s trying to find out what happened to his childhood friend. And to do that, he wants to go to London. You can see for yourself he can’t drive. I promised—since I was going to London anyway—that I’d take him.” When he said nothing, I added, “I didn’t suggest that he stay here. Nor did he.”

“Were you going to London anyway?”

“I—in the long run. Simon, I saw the man with Marjorie Evanson the night she was killed. He got on the train and left her there. Now the Yard thinks she might have been the victim of a man who fled Oxford after three women were killed there. They were interested in Lieutenant Fordham before him. The Yard doesn’t seem to be making any progress at all, and the only person who might answer their questions about where she intended to go after leaving the station is either dead or refusing to come forward. If Michael Hart can learn anything useful, it’s all to the good. If he doesn’t, he’s done no harm.”

“I understand why you feel you have a responsibility to this woman—” he began.

“I saw how desperate she was that night. Where did she turn? Perhaps she trusted the wrong person.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the message from Scotland Yard. “You see, Inspector Herbert has been using what I know to help him sort through suspects. I’m not involved, not officially. But he can send me a photograph and ask me a question.”

He was staring up at the jackdaw. “This isn’t the first time the Yard has asked you for information. How many photographs have you looked at for them?”

“Only these two.”

“Stay out of it, Bess. You know what nearly happened the last time you got yourself involved in the troubles of another family. Leave this one alone.”

“It’s Michael Hart who is involved at the moment.”

He turned to look at me. “There’s something you ought to know. The Colonel has already spoken to me. And I have my own suspicions. Michael Hart may not be what he seems.”

“What do you mean? Did you know him before this?”

“I’ve never seen him before. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s become addicted to the medicines his doctors have been giving him to control his pain. When I took him back to the inn just now, his hands were shaking and his mouth was dry. You’re a nurse. Be more observant. And think what it is you may be getting yourself into.”

“I’m not getting myself into anything,” I told him, furious at the lecture. “I don’t intend to marry Michael Hart. I’m only driving him to London. Besides, fatigue and pain could cause the same symptoms.”

Simon grinned. “Indeed. Good night, Bess.”

And he walked away down the drive, leaving me there to look after him, torn between calling him back to tell him what I thought of his interference in my life and letting him go.

As I turned toward the house, I remembered what Mrs. Hart had said about Michael Hart, that he had refused sedation and was fighting his own way through the pain.

But had my father been suspicious, or had Simon simply brought him into the conversation to back up his own views?

I walked in the door, shut it, and continued down the passage to the study, where my father was sitting with a book open in his lap.

“Good night,” I said. “I hope to get an early start tomorrow.”

“Be safe, Bess,” he said, but he didn’t smile as he usually did when wishing me a safe journey.

I said, “Thank you for being kind to Michael Hart. I remember when I broke my arm last year, how frustrating it was for me, being dependent and helpless.”

“He’s strikingly handsome,” my father said, finally smiling. “But I wouldn’t introduce him to any of your flatmates. He’s being ridden by his own devils.”

“Drugs?” I asked baldly.

“I don’t know what his devils are. He’s very amusing, he answers questions openly and apparently truthfully, and he doesn’t trade on his charm. But there’s something behind the bonhomie that gives him no peace. It isn’t your place to put that right.”

“As I told Simon,” I said, “I’m just driving him to London, not marrying him.”

“See that you remember that,” he said, and turned his attention to his book. “Good night, Bess.”

I took my dismissal with the best grace I could muster, and went up to pack.

Snapping my valise closed, I found myself wondering if I had completely trusted Michael Hart. Even before Simon had made his remarks.

On the whole, I thought I did. I couldn’t have said why. Except that he hadn’t turned the full force of his charm on my mother.

The next morning I retrieved Michael Hart from The Four Doves and drove both of us to London.

He asked me where The Four Doves Hotel had got its name. For the sign showed only four gray doves.

“The house that once stood there was the pilgrimage guesthouse of a convent that had already fallen into ruin by the time of Henry VIII. The last of the nuns—four of them—were very old and had come to live in the guesthouse because there was nowhere else for them to go. But they still kept it open for travelers, in the care of a man they trusted. When Henry’s men stopped there on their way to burn out the abbot of Glastonbury, they remembered that the house had once belonged to a convent, and they asked the manservant if there were any nuns still there. He told the soldiers that the only females he knew of were four doves in the ancient dovecote in the garden. Henry’s men decided they would have the doves for their dinner. The servant was in great distress, because the dovecote had been empty for years, and that was where he’d hidden the nuns. He went out there, sick with fright, and told the nuns what he’d done. They said, “But didn’t you know? There are four doves here, roosting for the night.” And when the manservant lifted his lantern, he saw that they were right. He served Henry’s men their dinner, and sent them on their way. And ever after, there were always four doves in the cote and the elderly nuns lived out their lives in peace.”

Michael was silent for a moment. Then he said, “It’s too bad life doesn’t have such happy endings.”

I replied, “Here is what I know about Marjorie Evanson. She had a sister, but often there was no love lost between the two of them. Her parents are dead, but Victoria was her father’s favorite, and he appeared to spoil her. Marjorie went away to school and never really came back to Little Sefton. She married Meriwether Evanson, and her father seemed to make no objection to the match. While Lieutenant Evanson was in France, Marjorie must have taken a lover, because she was pregnant when she died—” I could have bitten my tongue.

“I didn’t know that,” he said, his voice strained. “Is it true?”

“Yes. It was discovered in the postmortem. It wasn’t made public.”

“That would explain why Meriwether killed himself, wouldn’t it? He’d known he wasn’t the father.” He thought about that for a moment. “And does anyone know who this man might be?” He still hadn’t got full control of his voice.

“He’s a mystery. The police asked anyone who had seen Marjorie the day of her death to come forward. And he never has.”

“Now I understand why Serena Melton asked that the funeral for her brother be private. And why he and Marjorie weren’t buried together. Neither Victoria nor I were invited to the service, but she went anyway. And the Meltons didn’t attend the service for Marjorie. That caused talk, I can tell you. But most people accepted the fact that they were still in mourning.” He cleared his throat, angry with himself.

“I didn’t know.” It seemed vengeful to me.

“You couldn’t have known. I’d thought it was because Marjorie was murdered. As if that had been her fault.”

“Murder doesn’t happen in nice families,” I quoted.

He said something under his breath, the words whipped away by the wind as we drove east toward London. I had a suspicion he was swearing.

“Serena Melton. Do you know her very well?”

“Not well at all. We met at the wedding, and at a party or two in London after that. I didn’t like her very much. Mainly because she didn’t seem to care for Marjorie. Merry was all right. And Jack, Serena’s husband.”

“Who could have been Marjorie’s lover? Someone she knew? A stranger she happened to meet on a train or in a restaurant or at a party?”

“I don’t know. I told you, she changed. Her letters changed. Yes, all right, I was in France, and it’s difficult writing very personal things that the censors will read before the person at the other end does. But I hadn’t thought—I don’t know what I thought,” he ended. “It’s hard knowing your husband could be shot down any day he flies. I thought that might have put strains on Marjorie’s marriage. That she was afraid to love him too much.”

We drove in silence for a time.

Then Michael said, easing his injured shoulder, “She was in love with Meriwether. A blind man could have seen that. I don’t know what could have gone wrong.”

“He crashed twice. He was badly burned the second time. It must have been frightful to realize that the man you knew and married was so disfigured that you might not even recognize him. She could have turned to someone for sympathy and his kindness made her vulnerable. She had only to sleep with him once. She needn’t have loved him. Or he her.”

“In some way that’s worse.” Michael Hart turned to look at me. “You seem to know what she was feeling. How such things happen.”

“It’s not surprising,” I told him. “I’ve dealt with soldiers of every rank. I’ve written their letters home, and I’ve read them their letters from home. Marjorie wasn’t alone in her fall from grace.” Three years of war had had other costs besides the long lists of dead and wounded. “I think it’s time you told me the truth. Were you in love with Marjorie Garrison?”

He wiped his good hand over his face, as if to conceal the agony there. “God help me. I was.”

We said nothing more for the rest of the journey.

We were coming into London when Michael roused himself and said, “I haven’t been very good company, have I?”

“I was thinking. Marjorie’s house was also her husband’s home. You’ve been assuming that the staff would speak freely to you. But what if they won’t? Out of loyalty to him as well as to her?”

“I’ve considered that too. But it was Marjorie in trouble—Marjorie who was murdered. I don’t think Victoria came here to question the staff. I don’t know that she cared enough; she would have left that to the police. As for Serena, she sent her husband to box up Meriwether’s belongings. She never even told them Merry died. She left that to the family solicitor.”

“How did you know this?”

“I telephoned the house as soon as I came to stay with my aunt and uncle. I wanted to know about Marjorie’s things. What was to happen to them.”

I suddenly remembered Alicia’s remark about letters.

“Why is the house still open, if both Marjorie and her husband are dead?”

“I can’t answer that. But I rather think Victoria and Serena are squabbling over it. And until that is settled, it’s being run as if Evanson and his wife are expected to return.”

“Fully staffed?” I was surprised.

“As fully as any house can be staffed today. They’re paid to the end of the quarter, anyway.”

“But if Marjorie died first, and then Lieutenant Evanson died, I don’t understand the problem. If she willed everything to him, then all their property was his to dispose of, and so Serena must now be the owner of the house.”

“It’s not that simple. Marjorie inherited the house, you see. It was in her mother’s family, and her mother’s sister—her aunt—lived there until her death. Marjorie could have wished it to stay in the family.”

Weaving through traffic, I said, “It takes time to settle affairs. But I understand now why you were so intent on coming here.”

London was crowded, men in uniform looking for places to stay, families coming to see loved ones off to France or hoping to meet them on leave, everyone demanding a room and no rooms to be had. But Michael found one. He walked into the Marlborough, not far from Claridge’s, and came out again in a quarter of an hour, saying, “A room for four nights. I doubt I’ll be here that long, but a bird in hand is wisest.”

I wondered how he managed it. But I had no intention of asking.

Hesitating, unsure how to put my question, I said, “Can you cope with one arm strapped to your body?”

“Well enough. It’s awkward as hell, but I can do up buttons on my own, comb my hair, shave, and even brush my teeth. What I can’t do are laces. But they’ll send someone up. I’m not the worst case they’ve come across.”

I nodded, told him to be ready the next morning at nine, and left him and his suitcase to the tender mercies of the ancient doorman.

CHAPTER TEN

WHEN I REACHED the flat, Diana and Mary were there, eager for news. Then Diana was off to make her train in time, and Mary said, “You’re braver than I am, Bess, to do what you’re doing for a woman you don’t know. It will be ages before you have another leave like this. Don’t waste it chasing shadows.”

But I did know Marjorie, in a sense. That was the problem. I’d watched her photograph give her husband hope. And then I’d seen her in person, unaware of why she was crying or who the man was, but a witness to such wretchedness that she couldn’t hold back her tears even in this very public place. And whatever she had done, she hadn’t deserved to be stabbed and thrown into the river to drown, unconscious and unable to help herself. I could still see her rush away into that sea of umbrellas, and if I’d had any idea what lay ahead, I’d have found her somehow and brought her back to the flat with me. I don’t know how I could have solved the problems she was facing, but I’d have tried.

That was hindsight. And I couldn’t dwell on it. Yet in a way I was.

I met Michael Hart at nine o’clock the next morning, as promised. He was waiting for me on the steps of the hotel when I drove up, and he directed me to the Evanson house in Madison Street.

It was tall, three stories with two steps up to a pair of Ionic columns supporting the portico roof. Curved railings to either side graced the steps, and above the porch was a balcony with a white balustrade.

I lifted the knocker, wrapped with black crepe, and let it fall, smiling at Michael Hart to cover the trepidation we both suddenly felt.

No one answered the summons. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the flick of a drapery as someone peeked out. It was quickly pulled to again. After a moment a middle-aged woman in the black dress of a housekeeper opened the door, apologizing profusely to Michael.

“Mr. Michael. I’m so sorry, sir! Truly I am. But we’ve been besieged by newspaper people and curiosity seekers. There was a woman here a fortnight past swearing she could find the murderer for us if she could come into the house and touch something belonging to the dead. That was the last straw. I shut the door in her face, and we decided that we wouldn’t open it again to anyone.”

She was ushering us into the small square hall, and then into a drawing room decorated in pale green and cream, urging us to be seated.

“How are you, sir? We heard about that shoulder. You must have been in great pain. I don’t see how you can bear it, even now.”

I saw Michael’s mouth twist in the beginning of a grimace, and then he smiled and said, “I try not to think about it, Mrs. White. This is Sister Crawford, my nurse. She agreed to accompany me to London. I’m not yet well enough to travel on my own.”

Mrs. White made polite noises in my direction, clearly relieved that I represented nothing more than Michael’s nurse.

“I understand, Mr. Michael, truly I do. My grandson just came home with half his foot shot off. He can’t bear to put it to the floor yet.”

Changing the subject he said, “I don’t know what’s happening, Mrs. White. I know Marjorie is dead, that she was murdered. Victoria hardly speaks to me, and she won’t tell me what progress the police are making. This is the first time I’ve been able to come up to London. I want to find out anything I can that will help.”

“There was an inquest, sir. I was there, and horrible hearing it was. Mrs. Evanson’s death was put down to person or persons unknown and left open for the police to pursue their inquiries. But I don’t think they have any. They came here after her poor body was found and searched the house for evidence, but I don’t know what they was hoping to find. And then the solicitor, Mr. Blake, came to look for her will, and he left empty-handed as well. I told him she’d been speaking of changing it, but I doubted anything had come of it. He knew nothing about that. The police came again, asking us more questions about her state of mind, who might have called at the house, who she might have gone out to meet. I gave him the best answers I could, but I really didn’t know much. She wasn’t herself these past months.”

“How so?”

“She had one of her meetings here. Of the ladies with husbands who fly those aircraft—February, I believe it was. And it upset her. They talked about such terrible things, Mr. Michael. I heard them discussing how burned flesh feels when you touch it, and what it’s like to lose fingers or toes to fire, and the like. One of the women arrived in tears, and I think her husband had just been reported dead. Burned alive in his Sopwith.”

I felt a shudder, remembering the pilot of the Albatross going down in flames. As angry and frightened as I’d been at the time, he too had a family somewhere grieving for him.

Before Michael could ask another question, Mrs. White was saying earnestly, “Mrs. Evanson cried herself to sleep that night. I could see how red her eyes were the next morning. She went out in late afternoon, and although she’d told me she’d be at home for dinner and there would be no guests, she didn’t come in until close on to ten o’clock and that wasn’t like her to stay out with no word. But I smelled cigarette smoke on her coat as I put it away and helped her get herself into bed. And she didn’t tell me anything. Usually it was, ‘Oh, I ran into such and such a one, and we decided to have dinner together.’ And tell me what she’d had to eat, and how dreary the menu was or how bad the service, or how kind the waiter had been when she couldn’t even cut her meat with a knife, it was so tough—she was lonely, she missed the lieutenant something fierce, and I was there to listen if I could. But it all stopped that night. I thought she must have been angry with me.”

A woman beginning an affair? Or one caught up in an emotional tangle, and turning to the first sympathetic ear. And then having to be secretive, unable to speak freely, and so falling back on silence.

That gave me an interesting time frame. February. Her husband was in France, just joining a new squadron, his first and last crashes in the future. I’d been told that Lieutenant Evanson was a very good pilot, with quick reflexes, an understanding of the machines he flew, and the good sense to know when to fight and when to run. Most of the young, green pilots joining a squadron had to be restrained from trying to be heroes before they had even learned the rules of engagement with the very well-trained German fliers. And often they died in their first encounters with the enemy, too easily tricked into doing something rash that exposed them to a sure shot. The Germans liked to hunt in packs, lurking where they couldn’t be seen, but ready to come in for the kill when the opportunity arose.

Michael was asking if any of the other staff had found Mrs. Evanson more willing to talk about her days and evenings.

“Nan—you remember her, sir, she’s from Little Sefton, Mrs. Evanson brought her to London with her—she remarked to me that Mrs. Evanson was quieter, and later she told me she thought she was worried. That she cried in the night. We put that down to the lieutenant’s first crash. But he walked away from that one. Still, it must have frightened her to know how close he came to dying then.”

“Did she bring any strangers to the house? That’s to say, women or men you didn’t recognize? Someone she hadn’t known before Merry went to France?”

“She didn’t. No. Except of course for the ladies whose husbands flew. That changed from week to week, it seemed. But one of her friends, Mrs. Daly, stopped by, and as I showed her into the drawing room here, I heard her exclaiming, ‘Marjorie! At last. I haven’t seen you for ages. Come and dine with us tomorrow night.’ But I don’t think Mrs. Evanson went. I didn’t help her dress for such a dinner.”

“No letters from strangers? No messages? No—flowers or the like?”

“You mean, was there a man hanging about? I was beginning to wonder myself, when she paid particular attention to how she looked. And then she was at home nearly all the time, morning, noon, and night, refusing all invitations, and sometimes not leaving her room until late in the afternoon. What’s more, she wasn’t eating properly. Skipping a meal, saying she wasn’t hungry and would take only a cup of soup.”

“The day she—died,” I asked. “What happened that day?”

She turned to me as if she hadn’t expected me to have a voice. “Miss?” She shot a quick glance at Michael, and he must have nodded, because she answered, still looking at him, as if he’d asked the question.

“The police wanted to know as well. She was unsettled in the night. Mrs. Hall, the cook, came down to start the morning fires, and she found Mrs. Evanson in the kitchen, her eyes red, and she said she’d been horribly sick before dawn, could Mrs. Hall make her a cup of tea as soon as the fires were going. Mrs. Hall got her the tea and a pinch of salt to put on the back of her tongue to stop the nausea, and she went back to bed. But later she got up, dressed, and went out. She said she had a train to meet. She didn’t come home, and we thought perhaps she’d met the train and stayed with the friend she was expecting. I thought she looked very upset to be meeting a friend, but we supposed it was someone from her women’s group who had had bad news.”

“And no messages came for her, no one stopped here looking for her?”

“There was the note, before she left. Brought round by messenger.”

“Did she read it?” I asked, for the first time feeling that we were making progress.

“I don’t know if she did or not, Miss. She put it in her purse because she was in something of a hurry.”

And her purse had never been found.

I asked, remembering Serena Melton’s lie, “Was she wearing any special jewelry when she left that day? A brooch, or a bracelet, a fine ring? Something that might tempt a desperate man to rob her?”

“Of late she hadn’t worn much in the way of nice pieces of jewelry,” Mrs. White answered. “I’d have noticed if she had.”

We stayed another half hour, speaking to Mrs. White for a little longer, and then to Nan and another maid, and finally to Mrs. Hall, the cook, and the scullery maid who helped her. Mrs. Hall told us that if she hadn’t known better, she’d have guessed Mrs. Evanson was in the family way, she’d been so ill in the night.

“But of course the cuts of meat the butcher’s boy brings us these days, you never know whether they’ve turned or not.”

“Was anyone else ill that night?” Michael asked her.

“No, sir. Just Mrs. Evanson.”

No one could tell us who had been on that train. I’d have given much for a name, to hand over to the Yard.

Michael thanked them all for their care of their mistress and promised to see they were given good references when a decision was made about the house. I could see that they were grateful and relieved.

Outside, we found the day had turned from early sunshine to clouds that seemed to hang over the city and hold in the heat like a wet blanket; I was grateful for my motorcar rather than trying to find a cab.

“Take me back to the hotel,” Michael said abruptly, in as dark a mood as the day.

I nodded, cranking the motorcar and driving us to the Marlborough. As the man at the door helped him to descend, Michael said, “Find a place to leave this thing, will you, and come in. I’ll be in the lobby.”

With some misgivings I did as he’d asked, and when I got there, he’d found a table in one corner of the lounge, quiet and private, and had already organized tea for us.

As I sat down, Michael said, his voice low and angry, “If she had to turn to someone, why not me?”

“You were in France,” I pointed out.

“Yes. Damn the French and their war. We wouldn’t have been drawn into it save for them.”

I couldn’t point out that it was the Belgians we had come into the fighting to save. He wasn’t interested in logic, he was looking for somewhere to lay the blame.

“I don’t think she really loved him—” I began, but he gave me such an angry look that I broke off.

“Do you think it makes me feel any better to know that she picked someone she didn’t love to give her comfort?”

“I didn’t mean it that way, Michael, and you know it. I think she was used—that she was vulnerable and unhappy, and whoever it was saw that and took advantage of it.”

“Don’t make excuses for her.”

I stopped trying to talk to him and lifted the lid of the teapot. It had brewed long enough and I filled our cups.

I didn’t really want tea, but it gave me something to do with my hands while he mourned for a love he’d never really had, except in his own heart.

After a time, I asked, “What would you have done, if she’d come to you, Michael? No, don’t bite my head off. I’m trying to think this through.”

He glared at me all the same, but after taking a deep breath, he said, “I’d have tried to comfort her. I’d have offered her a friendly shoulder to cry on and fought down whatever feelings I had, so that she wouldn’t know. I’d have taken her somewhere quiet for dinner and talked to her, tried to make her see that she couldn’t do anything about her problem except cry it out, then face it. And I’d have stood behind her, whatever it was, until she was all right again. She wouldn’t have wound up in my bed. I wouldn’t have done that to her or to Meriwether.”

“But someone must have done. Perhaps not that first night. But on another. It’s what must have happened. And she might not have foreseen where it was leading.”

Or she might have seen it, and needed that reassurance that she was loved and wanted. Swept away on a tide of feeling that as soon as it passed would leave her hurt and ashamed and possibly pregnant.

I knew of three nursing sisters who after a very difficult time in France came home with nightmares and an emotional void that led them in the end to turn to someone to reaffirm that life went on. A love affair, a foolish liaison, and sometimes slashed wrists had been the outcome, and all three had returned to France chastened and quiet. There was often no real outlet for shattered nerves except the courage to see them through alone.

Michael was saying, “I still find it hard to believe. Not Marjorie.”

“You’ve seen her differently, that’s all. And part of it is what you wanted to find in her. Only Marjorie Evanson could really know Marjorie.”

“I need a drink,” he retorted. “Not this damned tea.”

“No, you don’t. Are you going to fail Marjorie as well? Did she disappoint your expectations, and so you’re going to walk away angry and hurt because she wasn’t as strong as you’d have liked her to be?”

“Damn you, you see things too clearly,” he said, almost turning on me. But then he settled back in his chair. “You have a point. I’m no better than anyone else, am I? It’s not Marjorie that I’m crying over right now, it’s my own hurt.”

“A very real hurt. But it won’t help us to find out who killed her.”

“No. But when we do find out, I’m not going to the police. They can have him when I’ve finished with him!”

I left Michael sitting there and walked out of the hotel. Coming down the steps, I looked up in time to see two men in quiet conversation on the pavement not ten feet from me. They shook hands, and the older man, the one facing me, touched his hat politely as he was about to enter the Marlborough. The other moved on. I had seen only his back, but I had a feeling I knew him.

I had already taken a half dozen steps in the opposite direction when I realized that the other man must be Jack Melton.

I turned and went after him, calling to him. A very forward thing to do—my mother would have been appalled—but I wanted very badly to speak to him.

He swung around, frowned at me, and then said, “Miss Crawford,” in a very cool tone of voice as he removed his hat and stood waiting impatiently for me to explain myself.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, lying through my teeth—I was no such thing. “Do you have a moment?”

“I’m late for a meeting—but yes, I have a moment.”

It would have been better to return to the hotel, but Michael Hart might well still be in the lounge just off Reception.

I said rather too quickly, “I made no mention of it when I was a guest in your home. I thought it out of place to bring it up so publicly. But I think you should know that I saw your sister-in-law, Marjorie Evanson, the evening she was killed. Perhaps this will help you narrow the search before your wife—” I broke off.

His face lost all expression, smoothing into flat planes of light and shadow without any emotion. “Indeed. The police never said anything to me about this. You were with her…?” He left it there, waiting.

“No, I saw her. I’d just come in on the train from Hampshire. She was standing directly in my path.” I hesitated. “She was crying. Terribly upset. I couldn’t help but notice. And there was a man with her. He boarded the train, and she walked away alone. I lost her in the rain and the crowds. I never saw her again.”

“How could you possibly have recognized Mrs. Evanson?” His voice was cold, now, and very hard. “What is it you want, young woman? Is this an attempt at blackmail?”

I was so angry I stared at him, speechless. Then I found my voice. “Commander Melton,” I said in the tones of a ward sister dealing with an unruly patient, “I didn’t wish to distress Mrs. Melton while I was at Melton Hall, but I nursed Lieutenant Evanson in France and had just accompanied him and other patients to Laurel House the day Mrs. Evanson was killed. Your sister-in-law’s photograph was with him day and night. I’d also seen it not half an hour before taking the train to London. I couldn’t possibly have mistaken his wife’s face, even in such distress.”

He had the grace to look ashamed. “I’m—sorry. This has been a terrible business, and my wife is still grieving for her brother. We have both been under considerable strain—” He broke off, aware he was running on. Then he asked, tightly, “Did you also recognize the man with her? Please tell me who he was.”