An Impartial Witness

by Charles Todd

  “But—I didn’t think those two got on well together. Victoria and Serena.”

  “They don’t. You see, there’s the matter of the house in London. The two of them haven’t agreed on what’s to become of it. Mrs. Melton feels that since Meriwether died after Marjorie, he inherits. Victoria’s contention is that the house had belonged to Marjorie’s aunt on her mother’s side, and therefore reverted to the Garrison family. I expect Mrs. Melton came about that. She did say something about papers.” He smiled. “We hear the gossip—and of course Michael knows a little about Marjorie’s affairs.”

  I remembered something Michael had said about the house in London remaining fully staffed while the question of ownership was being resolved.

  “I’d have thought they’d meet in London—neutral ground.”

  “Apparently she hadn’t been able to reach Victoria, and as she was coming up from visiting a friend who lives south of us, she decided to stop by.”

  “And you told her that Michael had gone to London with Victoria.” I couldn’t help the undercurrent of surprise in my voice. It was so unexpected.

  “I saw no reason not to,” he said defensively.

  Of course he wouldn’t have. While the Harts disliked Victoria, they would have told Serena the truth if asked, unaware of what might happen as a result of a few words.

  “I shouldn’t worry about it if I were you,” I replied, not wanting to add to their distress. “But I’m glad you told me.”

  “I hadn’t given it another thought,” he went on. “Until you mentioned the Meltons.” And that was probably true as well. The point of Serena’s visit had been to find Victoria, not to betray Michael.

  “Did you tell Michael about Mrs. Melton stopping by?”

  “I don’t believe I did. We’d retired long before he arrived home.”

  “And Mrs. Calder—did you say anything about Michael going in search of her?”

  “No, no. Mrs. Melton said she might catch them up before the curtain rose. She asked if they were having dinner before the play. I told her I thought not, as Michael wished to see a friend before dinner. At that point she said she thought she’d go directly home instead, that she was already rather tired.”

  “I think you did mention Mrs. Calder,” Mrs. Hart said. “I’m sure of it.”

  “Absolutely not. I just said a friend. I’d have remembered.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” By the time Serena reached Melton Hall and told her husband, he couldn’t have reached London in time to kill anyone. Unless—unless of course he was in London already, and she telephoned him to tell him she had arrived safely, but had missed Victoria after all.

  She wasn’t there. You won’t believe this, but she and Michael Hart are attending a play together. Marjorie must be turning in her grave. No, I don’t know what play—probably the one everyone is talking about…

  Even so, even if such a conversation took place, it didn’t link Helen Calder, Michael Hart, and Jack Melton.

  Nothing had changed. I looked at the clock on the table by the window. I couldn’t wait much longer. It would be too late to call on anyone.

  I said, “I hadn’t realized the time. I must go.”

  Mrs. Hart started to say something, then changed her mind.

  Mr. Hart, rising, said, “I’ll go with you. Let me fetch a coat. And a light.” He paused to look out the window. “I don’t think that mist has lifted.”

  “No, you mustn’t—” I began, then thought better of it. Caution, my mother often told me, was the best protection. He was gone only a few minutes, returning with a lightweight coat over his arm and a torch in his hand.

  “You’ll be careful, won’t you?” Mrs. Hart asked him, her eyes on me. “Not that I expect any trouble, but you never know, do you?”

  We left her sitting there, and I wondered if she would go to a window and watch our progress, once the door was closed behind us.

  I wrapped my arms around me against the damp, then realized that I was cold because of nervousness. Matching my pace to Mr. Hart’s, using the torch as my guide, I tried to get my bearings. The mist gave everything a strange softness, changing shapes, obscuring distances. I thought in passing that the mist would delay Simon. He wouldn’t care for that.

  We walked in silence past other houses, shadowy forms with no details, their windows only a smudge of brightness. I heard laughter from one as a door opened and then closed, a brief rectangle that loomed and vanished. A dog barked, sudden and shrill, sending my heart into my throat. I thought we must be near the church on the other side of the road, but there was nothing to see. Three more houses, one with a cat sitting on a low stone wall, jumping down to twine around our legs as we came closer, before trotting back to wait for the summons to its dinner.

  When we reached the walk to Victoria’s door, through gardens that were black shapes until the torchlight touched them, Mr. Hart stopped.

  “Here you are,” he said, gesturing to a house I could barely perceive.

  I said, “Will you wait here? She might speak more freely if I seem to be alone.” He was about to protest, but I said, “Don’t worry. I’ll stay within calling distance. I promise.”

  He didn’t like it, but he stopped, flicking off his torch, and I went on up the walk. Nearer the door, white flower blossoms glowed in the darkness on either side of the flagstones, guiding me to the door where two stone urns held topiary trees.

  I lifted the knocker, still uncertain about what I would say to Victoria when she opened the door.

  But she didn’t.

  I knocked again.

  Nothing.

  I called, “Victoria, I know you’re at home. It’s Elizabeth Crawford. Please let me in. It’s important.”

  I thought she would ignore me, but she must have been near the door, because after a moment it swung open. She was standing there in the sudden glare of lamplight from the entrance hall, her face in shadow. I could feel her antipathy.

  “I’ve told you. He’ll hang, and there’s nothing you can say to me that will move me to do anything about it.” Her voice was quite calm, unyielding.

  “I want to ask you about Jack Melton.”

  That caught her by surprise. She must have been expecting me to begin a passionate defense of Michael Hart instead.

  “What about Jack Melton?” Her voice now was wary, but her face was still expressionless. I couldn’t read anything there or in her eyes.

  “He was Marjorie’s lover. Did you know? We all thought it must have been his brother, Captain Melton. But it wasn’t. What we don’t know is how Jack Melton found out that Michael was on his way to London with you, the night Helen Calder was attacked. But Serena told him, didn’t she?” I was probing, to see where it led.

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “She was here—Serena Melton—the day you drove up to London to see the play. She went to speak to Michael when you weren’t at home. But his uncle told her Michael had gone with you, so she drove on to Melton Hall. And she must have told her husband why she’d missed you.”

  Victoria laughed. “You are desperate, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t see how else it could have happened.”

  It was almost as if Victoria couldn’t bear to let Serena take credit for something she hadn’t done. “Jack was in the theater that night. He was with several American naval officers. When I realized that, I hoped he would see me there with Michael. But Michael hadn’t come back. He was off somewhere nursing that shoulder of his.”

  “But you told him Michael had come to the play with you?”

  “Just before the curtain went up, Jack noticed the empty seat beside me and came over to speak to me. He thought I’d come alone, and he made some snide remark about that. It irritated me. And so I lied. I told Jack that I was expecting Michael to join me at any moment, but he was close to discovering the name of Marjorie’s lover from someone who knew her secret, and he must have lost track of the time. I said it to annoy Jack, an
d it did. He went back to his seat, and just as the lights went down, he made some excuse to the Americans and quietly left. He’d mentioned that they were sailing for New York the next day, so they weren’t likely to gossip about his absence, were they?”

  “You sat there in the theater and let it happen? You must have guessed—just because Michael let you down, you made Jack angry enough to go looking for him? But Jack took you at your word, didn’t he? And instead of hunting for Michael, he must have gone directly to Helen Calder’s. She was the only ‘friend’ who was likely to know Marjorie’s secrets. And when she came home from her dinner party, he must surely have believed that she’d been out with Michael, telling him everything. Victoria, don’t you see that your malicious remarks nearly got Mrs. Calder killed? When Jack came up behind her, she even thought it was Michael, because she was expecting him. Dear God. None of this needed to have happened. None of it.” I felt sick.

  “I went to see a play, and I saw it.” She was unrepentant, and I caught a glimpse of that child who had tried to rearrange her family to her liking. “And you still can’t prove which of them killed Marjorie, can you?” There was triumph in her voice.

  She was right—she would most certainly lie in the witness box. But I said, “Surely—you deliberately taunted Jack about something you should have stayed out of. Victoria, if he killed Marjorie and attacked Helen Calder, what’s to stop him from killing you after Michael is hanged, just to be sure his last link with your sister is broken? You’ve put yourself at risk, don’t you see? You’re wagering your life that Michael is the murderer.”

  “Jack told me Michael had killed her—that Michael was in London the night she died.”

  “She didn’t ‘die,’ Victoria. She was stabbed, then thrown into the river to drown. That’s murder.”

  “What if it was? She brought it on herself, didn’t she? If you want to know what I think, she wanted a child, she wanted to see me thrown out of this house. They hadn’t had any children, she and Meriwether, and it was very likely they wouldn’t. I think she looked elsewhere. Even if that affair cost her her marriage. There was always Michael, faithful Michael, in the wings. Or so she must have convinced herself.”

  I wanted to tell her about Marjorie at the railway station. About the despair and the desolation. Instead, I asked, “How did you learn about Marjorie and Jack Melton? Did she tell you?” I couldn’t believe Marjorie had, even out of spite.

  “I saw them together. Quite by accident. They didn’t see me, and I could tell by the way she stood there, hanging on his every word, that they were lovers. So I made it my business to take him away from her—”

  She was peering past me, into the milky darkness. “Who’s out there?” she demanded. “Who did you bring with you?”

  “It’s only Mr. Hart. Michael’s uncle. He very kindly walked me this far because of the mist. He has his torch with him, to guide me back.”

  “I don’t want him here.”

  “I promised—”

  “I don’t care what you promised. Send him away!”

  I turned and called to Mr. Hart. “It’s all right. Will you wait for me near the church? I won’t be long.”

  “I’m not sure—” he began, unwilling to leave me here in the dark.

  But I stopped him before he could say more. “Truly. It’s all right. Please?”

  The torch flicked on, and after a moment it moved away, toward the church on the opposite side of the street. I doubted he could see me very well from there, but at least he could hear if I shouted for him.

  “You’ve got your way,” I told Victoria. I should have turned and left then too, but there was more she could tell me, and for Michael’s sake I stayed.

  “You tried to trick me,” she accused, angry now.

  “No such thing. If I’d wanted a witness, I’d have brought him to the door with me. I doubt if he could have heard more than our voices.”

  “I tried to warn Meriwether that Marjorie was just like our mother—not to be trusted. And I was right, she had an affair, didn’t she? I was proved right.”

  “And Jack Melton turned his back on her when she got pregnant,” I retorted, defending Marjorie. “That was hardly something to be proud of.”

  She studied my face. “You don’t understand, do you? I really didn’t like my sister. I felt nothing when she died but relief. She was going to win—why should I weep over her? Or that child?”

  “But murder—”

  “I tell you, it was as if it had happened to a stranger. Someone you read about in a newspaper, cluck your tongue over her death, and then turn the page.”

  “Michael told me you believed he knew more about Marjorie’s death than he was telling you.”

  “Jack said Marjorie had gone to see Michael that night before she was killed. I wanted to know if it was true.” She looked away, and I knew then that she hadn’t been sure whether to believe Jack Melton or not.

  But in the end, she’d decided to sacrifice Michael Hart because it was her last chance to destroy everything that Marjorie had cared for. Jack Melton meant nothing to her, just a conquest. If Michael had shown any fondness for her, would she have protected him instead and thrown Jack to the wolves?

  “Did you really sleep with Jack Melton? Just because Marjorie had?”

  “I just let him think I would. He’s a very attractive man, and he likes women. I thought, Imagine that! Serena’s husband, a philanderer. And I knew it would make Marjorie wretched when he turned to someone else. Why not me? Besides, there’s the house in London. Serena is being an idiot about it. She wants it to punish Marjorie. I want it because it was Marjorie’s. I thought if it appeared I was going to lose it, I could convince Jack to put in a good word for me. With Michael up for murder, Jack owes me a favor.”

  It was amazing to see her vacillate. But at the moment, she needed Jack Melton for reasons of her own. For how long, if he didn’t persuade his wife to let the house go to Serena?

  “Were you ever in love with Michael Hart?” I asked her.

  “I don’t know,” she said truthfully, “whether I wanted him to spite Marjorie or because I loved him. Over the years the two feelings got so entangled I couldn’t sort them out any longer. I was always afraid that when he looked at me, he remembered Marjorie. And in the end, I didn’t want that.” She moved slightly. “I’m tired of standing in the doorway, and I’m not about to invite you in. Why don’t you leave?”

  I thought perhaps I’d touched a nerve. That in spite of her denials, she had cared too much.

  And then, as if she’d read my thoughts, Victoria said in a tight voice, “I couldn’t marry him, even if Michael loved me a dozen times over. I can’t marry anyone. My father saw to that in his will. So Michael might as well hang and be done with it. Marjorie would hate that just as much. The sad thing is, she isn’t here to see it. But if there’s an afterlife, she’ll find out.” She looked toward the church. “I don’t see the torch. Mr. Hart hasn’t come sneaking back up here, has he? I will deny everything, you know. If you try to use me to free Michael, I’ll tell the world that you were so besotted with him, that you were willing to perjure yourself to save him. So don’t bother to try.”

  “I could make a very good case for you as the murderer,” I countered. “In fact, I already have, to Michael’s barrister.”

  She stared at me, then said contemptuously, “I’m sure you could try. But who would believe you? Helen Calder can’t remember who stabbed her. I called on her in hospital, to see.” She held out her hands. “Do these look like they could drive a knife into someone’s chest? Look at them.” She drew her hands back, clenching them into fists.

  We were standing full in the light pouring out of the open door. I thought I was safe as long as that was so. Mr. Hart could pick out two figures—even Mrs. Hart at her window must be able to tell there were two of us, although we were blurred a little by the mist. I turned, looking for Mr. Hart by the church. But then I saw a light bobbing toward the Harts’ hou
se, up the walk, to the door, then shutting off.

  Victoria had seen it as well. I felt suddenly vulnerable.

  She laughed. “He got tired of waiting for you, Mr. Hart. I don’t blame him. I’m here alone in the house. I could kill you quite easily now, and there would be no one to see.”

  She was trying to frighten me. I laughed with her.

  “You could try,” I said. “You’d find I was your match.”

  I turned to go, but she pulled a revolver from her pocket. “Don’t be so certain of that.”

  I stared at it.

  “It’s from Jack’s collection. He gave it to me because I was traveling back from London on the train at all hours, and a girl had been raped and murdered two villages north of here by a soldier who got off at her station and followed her home.” She held it in her hand like a gift, admiring it. “If you want the truth, I think Jack used it on someone and then wanted to be rid of it. He never said, but I expect I know who it was. An officer whose sister Jack had seduced. He’d told Jack that as soon as he recovered from his wounds, he was going to hunt him down and kill him.” She looked up at me. “But that’s Jack, you never know when he’s telling the truth and when he’s having you on.”

  “You’ve already shot at Michael, haven’t you?” I asked, trying to distract her.

  “I think Jack was hoping I’d kill Michael. But I’m no fool. I let the police deal with him instead.” Still, I thought perhaps she had shot at him, and was reluctant to say so. Even here, with no one listening.

  I turned and walked away. My skin crawled as I did, knowing that she had the revolver and not knowing what kind of shot she might be. I was halfway down the walk when she went inside and slammed the door.

  I reached the street and turned toward the church, and beyond it, the Hart house, hoping that I didn’t break an ankle on my way back. The mist was still heavy, and I felt enclosed in it, smothered. I couldn’t understand why Mr. Hart had deserted me. It was so unlike him, and I felt very much alone.

  And then someone put a hand on my shoulder, and I thought my heart would stop.