An Impartial Witness

by Charles Todd

  “Did he tell you where he’d been?”

  “He said he’d walked until he was too exhausted to walk any longer. He found a cab and was driven back to the theater.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “I didn’t know whether to believe him or not. I wondered if he’d had no interest in the play after all, and had only used me to bring him to town.”

  “Could the people who had the seats nearest you swear that you were alone until the end of the play?”

  She was angry then. “Are you suggesting that I wasn’t there either?”

  I hadn’t been, I’d just wondered if she’d been lying, but she was furious and said, “You won’t get him off, you know. However much you try. I tell you, I was lucky that he didn’t decide to kill me on the way home. I didn’t know then that he was a murderer.”

  “But I don’t understand why you should think he would harm Marjorie. Or had any reason at all to attack Helen Calder. If he couldn’t bear to sit still, he might well have tried to walk instead.”

  There was silence for a moment, and then she said, “There was a dark smear on his sleeve. I pointed it out to him, and he said he’d stopped for a glass of wine and spilled some of it, then tried to wash it out with cold water. The sleeve was still damp; it must have been true.”

  I couldn’t decide if she was telling the truth about that. Her voice seemed a little different, somehow. Or had I imagined it? “That still doesn’t explain—”

  “The next day, a friend telephoned to tell me about Helen Calder. She knew that Helen was a connection on my mother’s side. She lives across the square, she’d watched the police come and go from the garden, and she’d sent her husband to find out what had happened. He told her that Helen Calder had been the victim of a knifing, and he thought she must be dead. But his wife had seen an ambulance come and then leave. I expect she hoped that I might know more about the attack. She said Helen Calder’s assailant hadn’t been found.”

  “I still don’t see the connection with Michael Hart,” I pressed.

  “My friend—Mrs. Daly—told me she herself had seen a young officer with his arm in a sling come to Helen Calder’s door, earlier in the evening. He spoke to the maid, then left to sit in the garden for a time before walking away.”

  My heart sank. Whether that maid knew Michael by name didn’t matter, her description of the caller would be enough. That, coupled with Victoria’s statement about the stained sleeve, would be telling evidence.

  “Do you really believe he killed Marjorie?” I asked, as soon as I could collect my thoughts.

  “Oh, yes. Once the police asked me if I was aware that he was in London on that same day, I knew it must be so. Someone got her pregnant, did you know that? The police told me she was pregnant when she died. If Michael had found that out, I think he would have killed her out of sheer jealousy. I was convinced from the start that she must have written to him in France and confided in him that she’d had an affair. She always had confided in him, why shouldn’t she turn to him now? I kept after him to tell me if he knew the name of the man she’d been seeing, and he swore he didn’t. I was starting to believe him. Did you know he hadn’t even told his aunt and uncle that he was in London that night? But he must have told Marjorie. He’d found a way to get leave and confront her.”

  Her voice changed again, and I wished I could see her face. “He never got over her marriage, did you know that? He always thought she’d marry him. I remember him at the wedding, looking as if he’d like to snatch the bride up and ride off with her across his saddle bow.”

  That made a dreadful sense. After the man at the station, Raymond Melton, walked away from her, Marjorie would very likely have turned to Michael.

  “But why should he kill Helen Calder?”

  “How should I know? Perhaps he’s still trying to find out Marjorie’s lover’s name. For all I know, Michael intended to kill him next.”

  But Helen hadn’t known who the man was. At least she told me she didn’t.

  “Someone shot at Michael. Perhaps it was the same person who killed Marjorie and tried to kill Mrs. Calder.”

  “You are pathetic,” she said. “Don’t you know what that was about? I knew, the minute I heard about it. Michael was trying to kill himself. And he failed. He couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. So he invented someone shooting from the bushes, to spare his aunt and uncle the truth. Someone was bound to have heard the shots.”

  I felt ill, unable to think of anything to say. I hadn’t considered suicide.

  Victoria interpreted the silence and laughed. “It’s rather shocking, isn’t it, to realize he’s in love with a dead woman. He hasn’t let her go. But you’re like all the rest, that’s why you came to his defense when the police wanted to take him away. Even dead, Marjorie still has him in thrall.”

  There was a sudden break in her voice, and I realized that she was talking about her own sense of loss, not mine.

  And then before I could answer, she added harshly, her voice hardly recognizable, “They won’t hang him, you know, until that shoulder is fully healed. But hang him they will. Mark my words. And it will be my testimony that will put the noose around his neck.”

  There was a click at the other end of the line. Victoria had hung up before she gave herself away.

  I stood there for a moment, the receiver still in my hand, then put it up.

  Victoria was angry, vindictive. But Michael had sealed his own fate when he lifted the knocker on Helen Calder’s door. If the maid knew him by sight or could identify him, the police had all the evidence they wanted.

  For a fleeting moment I wondered if Victoria had tricked Michael, and while he was walking off the pain in his shoulder, she had taken advantage of his absence to kill Mrs. Calder herself. From the start I’d been surprised to hear that Michael and Victoria had gone anywhere together, much less London. Why had he asked? Why had she agreed?

  Could Victoria stab two women?

  I could have asked Michael—but he was beyond reach.

  Feeling closed in, I went out into the gardens, thinking to refresh the vases we’d arranged for the dinner party.

  Now that he had Michael in custody, would Inspector Herbert still summon Raymond Melton to England to make a statement? Or would that be left to the KC who was preparing the prosecution? I wanted to hear just what had been said at that meeting in the railway station. If Captain Melton had made promises, he had given them grudgingly, and they had provided no comfort. Marjorie deserved better.

  I was ready to go back to France, but I wanted very badly to be here when Helen Calder regained her senses. And time was running out.

  My father met me as I came through the garden doors into the passage.

  “Hallo.” He took one look at me. “I’ve seen Pathan warriors with happier faces. Care to talk about it?”

  I smiled. “I just had a conversation with Victoria Garrison. She could probably hold the Khyber Pass single-handedly with a fork.” As he laughed, I went on, “I’ve been trying to decide if Lieutenant Hart is the sort of man to want to kill himself.”

  “Do you mean before his trial?”

  “No, earlier. According to Victoria, no one fired at him as he walked in the garden. The only reason I can think of for a suicide attempt is guilt. And why two shots?”

  “It’s hard to miss with a revolver if you’re serious about using it.” He led me to his sanctuary, the study full of trophies from his years in the Army, and offered me the chair across from his. “Especially twice. Unless one intends to miss. In which case, it’s a cry for help.”

  “If it was a cry for help, he covered it up very well indeed.” I stared into the golden glass eyes of a Bengal man hunter, a tiger that had killed fourteen villagers before my father brought it down. “More important, I’d like to know if he lied to me. And if he did, what else had he lied about? Conversely, if it was Victoria’s lie, it could have other implications. There’s a big difference between being shot at and
shooting one’s self.” I turned to look at my father. “I also have to wonder why Victoria agreed to drive him into London—and I’d give much to know what they talked about on the way. I do know he didn’t tell her who he expected to see while there.”

  “It would be wiser, don’t you think, to leave the entire matter in the capable hands of Inspector Herbert?”

  “I have done. It doesn’t stop me from wondering, or from weighing up what I know or suspect.”

  “And you’d be content to see Victoria Garrison as a murderess.”

  “It’s entirely possible that she could have killed her sister, and tried to make it appear that it was a random act of violence on the part of someone nameless and faceless in London.”

  “That’s a damning comment.”

  “Yes, but Victoria is so filled with something—hate, envy, jealousy—a wanting—that she might have seen her chance and taken it before she’d even considered what she was doing.”

  “Women don’t usually carry a large knife in their purses.”

  Which was an excellent point. I smiled. “You’ve just shot down my best argument for Victoria as a murderess.”

  “I’m not saying it couldn’t be done, only that she would have had to plan carefully.” He considered me. “I’ll be just as happy to see you back in France, if you want to know the truth. Out of reach. You ask too many questions—if the police are wrong about Michael, then you will need to be cautious.”

  “Being shot at by Germans is preferable to being stabbed by Englishmen?”

  “Absolutely. Just don’t tell your mother I said that.” He paused. “If you must go back to London before you leave, do take Simon with you.”

  I promised, and felt the eyes of the Bengal tiger follow me from the room.

  My distant grandmother, who had followed her officer husband to Brussels in June 1815, and helped nurse the wounded brought in from Waterloo, was not certain until well into the next evening whether her husband was among the living or the dead. Reports had come in placing him in the heat of the battle, and various accounts had listed him as dead, severely wounded, or missing. But she had held to her faith in his ability to survive, and her words to him as he finally walked into the house they had taken in Brussels had been, “My dear, I’m so sorry, there seems to be nothing for your dinner.”

  My mother, dealing with the ravages of this war’s shortages, still managed to put a decent meal on the table, and I was reminded of Mary’s remark that a country house fared better in trying times.

  It was Simon’s night to join us, and we were finishing our soup when he said, “You’ll never guess who I ran into as I was coming out of my meeting today.”

  I thought he was talking to my father, then looked up to realize that he was speaking to me.

  I named several retired officers we’d known in other campaigns, and he shook his head each time.

  “I give up. Tell me.”

  “Jack Melton.”

  I stared at him. “You didn’t mention his brother, did you?” I wouldn’t have put it past Simon to have engineered the meeting for the sole purpose of finding out what I would like to know about Raymond Melton.

  “I did ask how his brother was. It was the decent thing to do,” he said, smug as a cat with a mouthful of canary feathers.

  “Well, then?”

  “He’s presently near Ypres. You might keep that in mind when you go back to France next week.”

  “Little good that will do me. I’ve no idea where I’ll be sent next. What else did you learn?” I asked.

  “That Melton wasn’t particularly at ease talking about his brother. His answers were short, as if it wasn’t a subject he was comfortable with.” Simon Brandon had dealt with men all his adult life—soldiers, prisoners, angry villagers. Men in trouble, afraid, lying, angry, vindictive. He could read them without effort because it had become second nature. I knew he could read me as well, and oddly enough, it was one of the things that made me trust him.

  I set aside my soup spoon. “When I learned that the man was his brother, I found myself wondering if what I’d said to Jack Melton outside the Marlborough Hotel in London might not have put him on to Raymond as the man I’d mentioned. I didn’t describe him of course. But Jack was rather short with me as well. Almost rude, in fact. Still, he must not have said anything to his wife—she’d have brought it up when she came to Somerset to see me.”

  “Very likely not,” my father put in. “On the other hand, by the very nature of his work in cryptology, Melton isn’t likely to be talkative. He can’t afford to be, given what he reads every day in dispatches and intercepts. After a while, secretiveness must become a way of life.”

  “It’s more likely that he prefers to steer Serena away from suspecting his brother was the man with Marjorie. She’s angry enough to cause trouble. And that wouldn’t go down well with his superiors either.” I’d had a taste of how angry she could be, and how hurtful. “But it’s rather two-faced of him, isn’t it? Protecting the man who seduced his brother-in-law’s wife.”

  “I expect,” my mother said, surprising us all, “Mr. Melton feels that since Marjorie Evanson is dead, and her child with her, there’s no point in ruining his brother’s marriage, career, or life. It’s finished. And so he can simply put it behind him.”

  It was a very perceptive remark.

  “And now,” she went on, “perhaps we can dispense with murder as a subject for dinner conversation.”

  Not five minutes later, I was summoned to the telephone. I almost failed to recognize the voice at the other end.

  “This is Matron speaking—”

  I thought she meant Matron at Laurel House, and was about to greet her warmly when the voice continued, “—at St. Martin’s Hospital in London.”

  “Yes, Matron. This is Sister Crawford.”

  “I thought perhaps you’d want to know that Mrs. Calder is out of danger and has been removed from the surgical ward to the women’s ward. We have kept her heavily sedated, to keep her quiet. But that’s been reduced, and I expect her to regain consciousness in a few hours.”

  “I should like very much to be there,” I said. “Will I be permitted to see her?”

  “I see no reason why not. Unless Scotland Yard objects.”

  “I’ll be there,” I promised. “And if she awakens before I arrive, will you tell her that I’m on my way?”

  “I’ll be happy to,” she said, and rang off.

  I hurried back to the dining room. “I must go to London tonight—as soon as may be.”

  Simon was already pushing his chair back. “I’ll drive.”

  My mother said to me, “I suggest you finish your meal first, my dear. Ten minutes shouldn’t matter, not with Simon at the wheel.”

  And so we finished our dinner in almost indecent haste, and then I was rushing upstairs to change and fetch my coat.

  I was tense on the drive to London. The hours crept by, and Simon said little, his concentration on the road intense.

  It was late when we walked through the doors of the hospital and asked for Matron.

  She greeted me, and with a warning not to tire her patient, she turned me over to a young nursing sister. Simon was asked to remain outside. He touched my arm and said quietly, “I’ll wait in the motorcar.”

  I nodded, grateful, and then I was shown to a bed near the middle of the ward. A small lamp burned above the bed, leaving the rest of the room in darkness. I could hear the quiet breathing of other patients, and one moaned softly.

  Helen Calder’s eyes were closed, and she appeared to be sleeping as well as I took the chair by her bedside. She must have heard the slight rustle of my skirts, for she stirred a little and bit her lip as if in pain.

  I said in a low voice that I hoped would carry only to her ears, “Helen? Do you remember me? It’s Bess Crawford.”

  She opened her eyes, focusing them with some difficulty at first. And then she said faintly, “Oh yes. Of course. How kind of you to come and see me
. My family has just left—”

  “Then you’ll be tired. I just wished to be sure that you were recovering. Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable? Is there anything you need?”

  The young woman in the bed behind me coughed a little, and then slept again.

  “The sisters have been so good,” she said. “But I hurt—”

  “I’ll ask them to look in on you,” I promised. “I was so shocked by the news,” I went on. “Do you have any memory of what happened?”

  “I remember dressing and leaving the house, looking forward to dining with friends. And then I woke up here and didn’t know where I was.” She frowned. “I’m told I was attacked—knifed. As I came home alone. Is it true?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “But who would do such a thing?” A tear ran from the corner of her eye down her pale cheek. “I’ve never harmed anyone. Not ever…” Her voice trailed off.

  “You’re safe, now.” I touched her hand. “Let the police deal with it.” Her fingers closed tightly over mine.

  “Bess—it’s frightening that I can’t remember. They tell me it happens. The shock, they said.” She moved restlessly. “I’m told it will all come back. Only I’m not sure I want it to.”

  “If it starts to return, ask a nurse to send for the police,” I said, trying to soothe her. “They’ll want to know. It will help them apprehend whoever did this.”