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."
"I'm afraid not. He was an officer in the Wiltshire Fusiliers, and I have a good memory for faces. I believe I'd know him if I saw him again."
He digested that. "And have you spoken to the police?"
"Of course. And I told them what I'd believed at the time, that she was distraught enough to have done herself a harm. Instead she was murdered. I can't help but wonder why she was in such great distress."
"Surely that was obvious. She was saying good-bye to her lover. Who else could it have been?" There was contempt in his voice.
"I don't know," I told him. "We've all assumed…" I realized then that there could be another reason for the officer's coldness. "Perhaps he was sent to offer her promises, or, more likely, considering her distress, to tell her she couldn't rely on the other man. Rather cowardly of him, if that's true, to send an emissary. And what sort of man would be willing to take on such an onerous duty, even for a friend?"
"I liked Marjorie," he admitted after a moment. "If she had turned to me, I'd have quietly found a way to help her, even though I disapproved of what she'd done. But she didn't. I've had to watch my wife suffer through the shock of her death and then Meriwether's death. Just now I find it hard to feel any sympathy for Marjorie's despair."
"Whatever happened on that railway platform, that person bears some responsibility for Marjorie's death. If it hadn't been for him, she'd have been at home, out of danger." My voice trailed off as I looked up at the entrance to the Marlborough at that moment. Michael Hart was standing there glaring at me. He couldn't have overheard what I'd been saying. Not at the distance between us. Could he?
Jack Melton followed my gaze in time to see Michael Hart turning away, walking stiffly back into the hotel.
Serena's husband looked from his departing back to my face, then he said sharply, "If you want to know who Marjorie could have turned to, there's your man." And he started to walk away.
"He was in France," I said, stopping Mr. Melton with an outstretched hand. "Out of reach. Who else-?"
"Was he? Out of reach?" Melton asked. "I would have sworn he was in England."
And he was gone, leaving me there in the middle of the pavement, in the path of those passing by.
By the time I'd collected myself and gone back up the hotel steps and into the lounge, there was no sign of Michael Hart. I asked Reception to page him for me, and then to send someone to his room.
But he was nowhere to be found.
At the flat, Mary was washing up the last of the dishes. I went to my room, murmuring something about letters to finish, and instead sat by the window thinking about what Jack Melton had just said about Lieutenant Hart.
Truth? Or lies?
But why should he lie?
I'd seen the fleeting expression in his eyes when he recognized Michael Hart at the top of the hotel's steps. Antipathy, certainly. Anger as well. But was the anger directed at Michael or what Jack and I'd been discussing?
Impossible to know the answer. Still, I'd made a mistake talking to him about Marjorie. But I'd heard his attempts to rein in Serena's vehement emotions, and I'd believed we might discuss Marjorie Evanson's last hours and look for something, anything, that could lead us to the truth.
I remember my mother telling me as a child, "Bess, my dear, you can't always expect others to see things as clearly as you do." I didn't always remember that lesson.
I'd failed to take into account that the man was also a husband.
But I'd learned something in the encounter with Jack Melton. Marjorie must have met that train with high hopes that she could share the burden she was carrying. And she walked out of the railway station knowing that there was no help in that direction, whether the officer she'd met was her lover or someone she thought she could trust.
What's more, her husband had just returned to England, and she must have felt the pressure of time catching up with her. She might not have known the exact date, but she would have known from Meriwether's letters that it would be soon.
And if she was three months' pregnant, it would be increasingly difficult to hide the fact. Something had to be done. Was she considering ridding herself of the child? Finding a place for it with another family? But that would mean leaving her husband for six months while she hid herself away somewhere. And it would very likely destroy her marriage. Did she expect the father of her child to marry her if she were divorced by her own husband? Did she love him at all?
Impossible to know. But that rejection as the train pulled out most certainly sharpened her need to find help somewhere.
But if she had known that Michael was in London…
I caught up my hat and purse and with barely a word of explanation to Mary, went down to my motorcar.
Marjorie's housekeeper wasn't happy to see me again. It struck me that she thought I was meddling, behind Michael's back. "We've told Lieutenant Hart all we could," she began.
"Yes, of course you did," I answered quickly, before she could shut the door in my face. "He forgot to ask if you could give him the names of one or two of her closest friends? I've come alone because he needed to rest."
"Is he in terrible pain?" she asked sympathetically. "There were new lines in his face. I don't remember them being there before. He was never one to take life seriously, always a smile." She stood aside and I stepped into the entrance.
"He tries not to be dependent on drugs." It was what his aunt had told me.
"That's good to hear. There was a footman once when I was a girl. He was addicted to opium. Mr. Benson-he was the owner of the house where I was maid-locked the poor man in his room for a week, to cure him. I never heard such screams and cries, begging to die one minute and cursing us all in the next breath. We thought surely he'd die."
"It must have been terrifying."
She took a deep breath, as if shoving the footman back into the past where he belonged. I wondered if she'd had a fondness for him once.
"Names, you said. At a guess, her two closest friends were Mrs. Calder and Mrs. Brighton. Mrs. Brighton lives one street over, at Number 7. I've returned a book Mrs. Evanson borrowed, that's how I know. Perhaps she can tell you how to find Mrs. Calder."
Calder. I knew that name. A distant cousin. Was this the same woman?
"And the ladies who attended the group meetings for wives and widows? Were they close to Mrs. Evanson?"
"They came and went, you see, there was no time to make real friendships."
I could understand that. "Thank you," I told her. "This is a beginning."
I left my motorcar where it was and walked the distance.
But there was black crepe on the door of Number 7, encircling the knocker. The folds were still crisp and new.
I hesitated and then lifted the knocker anyway, and a red-eyed maid came to the door. She said immediately, "Mrs. Brighton isn't receiving. If you care to leave your card?"
"I'm so very sorry to intrude," I said, and prepared to turn away. Then I asked, "I've just come to London from Somerset. I was to meet Mrs. Calder here-I didn't know-" I gestured to the black crepe. "She must have tried to reach me and I missed her message. Do you know how I could find her? I'm afraid I left my diary in the hotel."
A shot in the dark. But it found its mark.
"She called only this morning," the maid said, and gave me what I wanted before she quietly shut the door again.
I drove to Hamilton Place, and found the house I was looking for at the corner of its tiny square.
As I got out, I stood to one side as a nurse wheeled a wounded man along the pavement. He was in a chair, his eyes bandaged, one arm in a sling, a leg missing. I smiled at the sister, and then went up to knock at the door.
Mrs. Calder was in. I was shown into a small sitting room, and she rose to meet me, a query in her glance.
She was a tall woman, rail thin, with fair hair and blue eyes. I introduced myself as a friend of the Evanson family, and she frowned.
"Indeed? I don't recall meeting you at Marjorie's," she said, suspicion in her tone.
"I'm not surprised," I said easily. "I've been out of the country." Her eyes dropped to my uniform. "I was one of Lieutenant Evanson's nurses."
"You know he's dead."
"Sadly, yes. Matron told me on my last visit to Laurel House."
"What brings you to see me?"
"I was in Little Sefton only a few days ago. I understood from Alicia Dalton that you're related to Marjorie Evanson."
She was still wary. I searched for a way to convince her I meant no harm.
"It seems to me that very little progress has been made in finding out who killed Mrs. Evanson. And it matters to me, because her husband died when he shouldn't have. Not medically. He'd passed the crisis. He was counting on seeing his wife as soon as possible. Someone took that away from him. I don't want her murderer to escape justice."
"But why come to me? You should be speaking to Victoria Garrison, Marjorie's sister."
If it was a test, I was ready for it.
"With respect, I don't believe I should. We had words in Little Sefton. She thought Serena Melton had sent me there to spy."
"And were you?"
"No."
Helen Calder sighed. "There's no love lost between them. A pity, but there you are. Even tragedy failed to bring them together."
"There's more. I have reason to believe that Marjorie had met someone, perhaps six months ago. It's possible I've seen this man. I don't know his name, but she met him at Waterloo Station the night she died. I happened to be coming up from Laurel House, and it was sheer coincidence that our paths crossed."
"Marjorie had a good many friends. It could have been any one of them."
"She was so distressed. Crying, in fact. I don't think that was like her. Do you?"
After a moment she said, "No, she wouldn't have made a scene. Not Marjorie. But I'm afraid I can't help you. It would be-prying. And she's dead."
"This polite conspiracy of silence is all very well and good," I pointed out, a little angry with her. "But I think Marjorie would approve of a little 'prying' if it meant her killer was found out."
Helen Calder studied my face for a moment, and then nodded. "You're absolutely right, you know. We've all taken such pride in closing ranks to protect her memory. I never considered the fact that we were protecting her murderer as well. But you see, people do ask about her death, and I've gotten quite good at fending off gossipmongers. Heaven knows there have been enough of them. But even if I answer your questions, what possible good will it do?"
"I myself stepped forward when there was a notice in the newspapers asking for any information about Mrs. Evanson on that last day of her life. I met with an Inspector Herbert at Scotland Yard. It was not as difficult as I'd expected." I smiled. "Sadly, I don't think what I told him about seeing her at the railway station was very useful. But it did fill in a part of their picture about her movements after leaving her home earlier in the day."
She said, "Yes, all right. There was a man. I don't how she came to meet him. She told me he was in London just for the day, and they talked for a bit. And then he asked her to join him for dinner. I know this because Marjorie mentioned it casually in another context, that it brought home to her just how much she missed Meriwether and the things they often did together. It pointed up her loneliness, she said, and she was left to face that. 'I shan't do that again,' she told me. 'It's too painful.'"
"Did she tell you the man's name?"
"No, and I really didn't care to ask. I didn't want to make more of the event than she already had done. I was hoping it would come to nothing."
"But she saw him again?"
"She must have done. I met her coming out of a milliner's shop with a hatbox in her hand. She greeted me sheepishly, as if she hadn't wanted to run into anyone she knew. I was about to tease her when it occurred to me that perhaps she was dining with that man again. There was almost a schoolgirl's furtiveness about her."
"Can you be sure it was the same man?"
"I must believe it was. Marjorie wasn't the sort to take up with strangers, and it was no more than a month after the first dinner."
"What happened next?"
"It was almost a month later-two months after that first dinner-and she was standing waiting for a cab, and I saw she'd been crying. My first thought was that she'd had bad news about Meriwether, and she answered that she'd had a letter from him only the day before and he was all right." She shook her head. "Looking back, I wonder if she'd broken off with this man. It was the last time I saw her-she began to refuse invitations, keeping to herself after that. There was this group of women she worked with. I told myself at the time that listening to their experiences was doing her more harm than good. I should have made an effort to see her, but I had my own worries, and I kept putting it off. To tell you the truth, I thought she might feel compelled to confess, and I didn't want to know."
"Do you perhaps know of a Lieutenant Fordham?" I asked.
Mrs. Calder frowned. "Ought I to know him? Do you think he was the man Marjorie was seeing?"
"I have no real reason to believe it. His name came up in a different connection. But I'd like to ask, if Marjorie were in trouble-of any kind-would she have turned to you for help? And if not to you, where would she go?"
"She didn't come here. My housekeeper would have told me if she had called. I wish she had." She shook her head. "There's really no one else she was close to. Except for Michael Hart. But of course he was in France."
"If you could ask among her friends? It could lead somewhere."
"Yes, by all means. I'm ashamed now that I didn't do something. You're very brave to take on this search. It should have been me."
But she hadn't wanted to know.
I told her how she could contact me, and thanked her.
Sadly, we were still no closer to finding Marjorie's killer.
I was outside on the pavement, preparing to crank the motorcar, when I realized that she hadn't asked me if Marjorie was pregnant.
Did she know already? Or was this something else she didn't want to hear?