An Unwilling Accomplice

by Charles Todd

  “Damn the man,” he said between his teeth. “If he was intending to desert, why did he drag you into this business?”

  I hadn’t considered it from that point of view.

  “Perhaps he thought I’d be easier to deceive than an orderly. Besides, I couldn’t stay in his room. An orderly would have. He did ask for me specifically.”

  Simon stopped his pacing. “There’s that. I wonder why.”

  “I told you, I didn’t think I’d ever nursed him. He must have got the names confused. Or he just needed a Sister’s name. Anyone would have done. I was in London, after all.”

  “But who knew that?”

  “That I was in London? Mrs. Hennessey, of course. You. Mother.”

  “Someone who might have seen you at the station or on the street? Even on the transport from France? And passed the word.”

  “That’s silly. Who could be watching me? And why me?”

  “I don’t have an answer to that. But in the end, I shall. Be sure of it.”

  “Simon, I think it was happenstance. I think he must have asked for me, and when the Army looked, I was already in London. Handy. I might have been in Rouen or Ypres or even Calais. It just happened that I was not in France.”

  “Yes, all right, until I know more, I’ll accept that.”

  “How did you find out about this? I haven’t even written to my mother.”

  “I was called on the carpet to explain why I had taken you away from your duties. I told the officer in charge that I had brought you to London for the ceremony and that I’d been asked by your mother to see you safely on the train for France the next evening.”

  “I wish you hadn’t brought Mother into it. They’ll ask her if that’s true.”

  “No, they won’t. I assured them that I had merely been asked to take your father’s place, since he was away, and I had not thought it suitable for you to dine in a public hotel dining room alone. I had been with you when twice you checked your patient’s room, and all had been quiet and unremarkable. That short of sleeping in that room with him, you had done all that was possible to assure his safety and well-being.”

  Simon. It had been said in India that he feared neither man nor devil. He’d certainly dealt often enough with superior officers not to be intimidated in their presence. I felt the sudden urge to laugh, and I wasn’t sure whether it was relief or fright.

  “You shouldn’t have—”

  He stopped me in midsentence. “I told the absolute truth, Bess. The Colonel would have expected no less.”

  Simon was right.

  “Yes, I understand. I just didn’t want this problem to spill over into the family. Not for a while at least, not until I know what they will do with me.”

  “I expect by last Tuesday evening, being shot at dawn in the Tower would have been an attractive choice for your sentence.” Simon grinned. It was to make me feel better. And it did.

  As the grin faded, he added, “I doubt they can show that you did anything to aid and abet Wilkins’s desertion. You reported the disappearance as soon as you were certain you weren’t raising false alarms. And that man Grimsley was with you. He clearly believed in your innocence.”

  “Did they question him?”

  “Thoroughly. He stood by his belief that you had been taken advantage of by an unscrupulous man who hadn’t had the courage to return to France and who had felt no sense of shame at involving you.”

  “But Grimsley had just met me. How could he have known any such thing? For certain, that is. And how did you know?”

  “I asked to read his statement.”

  “And they let you?” I was astounded.

  “Not officially,” Simon answered slowly. “A friend left it lying where I could see it.”

  I took a deep breath. Grimsley had believed me. That was something. After he’d been taken away for questioning, I wasn’t sure what he’d say. But why should he lie? He himself was not involved. He’d arrived at The Monarch long after the sergeant had left.

  “Simon, someone in Shrewsbury had to know how badly—or how well—Sergeant Wilkins was mending. Whether his wounds were still draining or had closed. If he could walk out without sticks or a chair. Surely the Sister in charge of his case would have been aware of all that.”

  “What about the man who brought him down from the clinic?”

  “Thompson told me he was leaving for France. Besides, if he’d been ordered only to change the outer bandaging, not the dressing itself, he’d have followed instructions. As I did, when I was told that the next orderly would see to them before taking the train north.”

  “I’ll make certain he was telling the truth about leaving.”

  The question still was, what had become of the sergeant? Had he left the country? Disappeared into the vastnesses of Wales or Scotland, where he wouldn’t be found for some time? Or had he got to Ireland and safety? Such as it was.

  As if he’d heard my thoughts, Simon began to pace again. “I’ll find that man Grimsley and see what I can learn about the Shrewsbury hospital. Stay here, as you were told. I don’t want it to appear that you’ve met Wilkins at any point. The Army may even have set a watch in the event Wilkins turned up.”

  “Why should he come here?”

  “To apologize. To rid himself of you, now that he’s finished using you. Who knows what’s in his head by now? Just be very careful.”

  “But I don’t want to sit helplessly here and do nothing. I want to find this man or whoever it was who helped him.”

  “Not now. Not yet. Follow orders. Then we’ll take the next step.”

  Simon’s cooler head prevailed. I knew he was right, of course, but it was maddening to sit here idle, and wait for whatever was to come. Not when I felt I could do something to help myself.

  He smiled whimsically. “I know. But tell me, even if you were free to find this man Wilkins, just how would you go about it?”

  That gave me pause. I knew nothing about the man, where he was from or where he might go. Or why.

  “I’d start in Shrewsbury,” I said after a moment. “This had to begin in Shrewsbury. Concealing just how far he’d come in his recovery. Someone there lied for him, Simon, made him seem weaker than he was. If he could leave the hotel under his own power, then he didn’t need Thompson, the first orderly. Or me. Or Grimsley, the one who came to fetch him. He could have traveled alone by train, with someone to see him off there and someone to meet him here in London. So why the charade?”

  “A very good point,” he agreed.

  “And I suspect it must have been the Sister assigned to care for him.”

  “You’re probably right there as well. I’d offer to go and speak to whoever she is myself, but I think she might talk more freely to you.”

  I sighed. “And here we sit, in London.”

  “She won’t vanish into thin air,” he told me. “She’ll still be there when you’re free to go.”

  “Will she? Or has she already left the clinic, intending to meet him somewhere? That would make sense too,” I said.

  “If that’s the case, then the Army and the Nursing Service will quickly see that she was involved and that this was a carefully planned disappearance. But I doubt it very much. He’s used her just as he’s used you.”

  It was galling to think I’d been so trusting. But then I’d gone against my better judgment, hadn’t I, in allowing the sergeant an evening with his friends when I should have sat with him until he slept. If nothing else, my presence would have delayed his escape.

  But only by a matter of hours.

  Where was the harm in a few friends coming to wish him well . . .

  “Simon. What if instead of several men in his unit, there had been only one. The one who came to help him leave the hotel?”

  He considered that possibility. Then he shook his head. “It would be too much of a risk, involving someone else.”

  “But we can’t depend on that, can we? Usually my instincts are so sound,” I added. “How did
he manage to trick me so easily?”

  “He didn’t. You looked in on him twice. And you refused to leave the hotel to dine with me.”

  “Yes, well, you see it from my point of view,” I said glumly. “Not from that of the Army, with a missing hero on its hands, or the Nursing Service, with what appears to be callous dereliction of duty.”

  And then a thought occurred to me.

  “Diana is here. I could ask her to travel to Shrewsbury and speak to the Sister in the clinic.”

  Simon shook his head. “Patience, Bess. Don’t drag Diana into this. It will turn out all right.”

  I wasn’t so sure.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  OVER THE NEXT three days I pretended to feel a slight chill coming on. It was the only way I could refuse Diana’s repeated invitations to go out to dine without explaining that I was confined to quarters. And Mrs. Hennessey had asked me if I’d care to go with her to market, to see what we might find for the evening meal.

  “You must eat, Bess. It will do you good, appetite or not. I shouldn’t have to tell a Sister such things,” she ended with a smile on the third day.

  But it wasn’t my slight chill that had spoiled my appetite, it was the waiting. I’d thought surely I’d hear something before this. And the longer I waited, the worse my punishment would be. Or so I’d nearly convinced myself.

  The morning of the fifth day Mrs. Hennessey came up the stairs and knocked on my door. When I answered it, she stared at me with large, worried eyes.

  “Bess, my dear,” she said in a whisper, “there’s a man in my sitting room who insists he must speak to you privately. He won’t give me his name. Shall I fetch Constable Williams? I really don’t like the look of him.”

  My heart sank. “Is he in uniform?” What did the Army want with me now?

  “Uniform? No, not at all.”

  “Young?” Surely it wasn’t Sergeant Wilkins having second thoughts about his desertion? And the damage was done. Now there would be no need to kill me to keep me from telling the Army what I knew. Still, I felt a twinge of concern.

  “No. Closer to your father’s age, I should think.”

  “Did you tell him I was here in the flat?”

  “I think he knows you are. I only said I’d come and see if you were in.”

  I couldn’t think who this man might be. Certainly not someone from the Nursing Service. Nor from the Army. Had someone sent a solicitor to interview me? That would mean serious charges were being brought against me.

  I said with more assurance than I felt, “Tell him I shall be down directly. Then put on your hat and shawl, take up your market basket, and leave. Bring back Constable Williams if you can find him.”

  “Yes, that’s the very best plan,” she said hurriedly, and turned to go.

  I gave her five minutes, and then I took my time descending the stairs in her wake. The door to her sitting room stood open, but as I walked toward it, I couldn’t see anyone waiting inside. I hesitated, then briskly stepped over the threshold.

  There was a man standing with his back to me staring out the window. He turned, frowning, and said, “Is that silly woman fetching the constable?”

  I said, “Mrs. Hennessey? I have no idea.”

  “Sister Crawford?” He strode across the room and held out his hand. “My name is Stephens. Inspector Stephens, Scotland Yard.”

  My mind was in a whirl. If he’d told me he was the King of Siam, I couldn’t have been more astonished.

  “May I see your identification?” I asked.

  Annoyed, he dropped his extended hand to his pocket and brought out his identification.

  I examined it carefully. I’d dealt with Scotland Yard before, I knew what I was looking at. And he was indeed an Inspector.

  Gesturing toward the rosewood chairs in front of Mrs. Hennessey’s hearth, I said, “Please.”

  He put away his identification and took one of the chairs after I’d sat down in the other.

  “I am sorry I didn’t identify myself to Mrs. Hennessey, but I didn’t wish to make my visit generally known.”

  “I see,” I answered him, for lack of anything else to say. I couldn’t imagine why he was here. Losing Sergeant Wilkins wasn’t a police matter, it was Army business.

  The front door opened, and I could hear Mrs. Hennessey and Constable Williams coming toward us.

  Rising again, I went to the sitting room door and said, “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Hennessey, Constable. I didn’t know it was Mr. Stephens waiting for me. It’s all right. I’d like a—a few minutes in private with him.”

  The constable looked my visitor up and down, decided he was fairly respectable and I was under no duress. He said, “Very well, Sister Crawford. I wish you a good day.”

  He turned to leave, and Mrs. Hennessey, still uncertain, dithered for a moment. I smiled at her. “It’s all right. Truly it is.”

  She nodded finally and hurried to catch up with the constable. We could hear the outer door close behind them.

  Returning to my chair, I sat down. I didn’t think I owed the Inspector any apology for my protectors, and indeed, he smiled for the first time.

  “The constable was quite right to see that I offered no threat.”

  “I have a reputation to protect,” I said simply. “As a nursing Sister.”

  “Yes, well, that’s what has brought me here.”

  I felt a surge of unease.

  “Then perhaps you should tell me.”

  “I understand you were the last person to see a Sergeant Wilkins, before he disappeared from The Monarch Hotel on Tuesday last.”

  “Yes, that’s true. I looked in on him at nine o’clock, and all appeared to be as it should be. I left him to sleep, and when I came to wake him up the next morning, his bed and his room were empty.”

  “What did you make of him? Before this disappearance?”

  “He received a medal for gallantry under fire.” I went on to explain my actions and the result, all the while wondering where this was leading.

  Surely Sergeant Wilkins wasn’t a spy—or associated with spies? But it was the only reason I could think of for Scotland Yard to take an interest in the man.

  “And he seemed normal to you? Calm, collected, as far as anyone could be after an audience at the Palace?”

  “Yes. Most of the men who have done brave things appear to think it’s nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “An interesting observation. What can you tell me about the sergeant’s friends?”

  “I never met them. I couldn’t even say with any certainty that they came to call on him. Only that he claimed he was expecting them to come.”

  “And the orderly, Thompson?”

  “He did what he was ordered to do, and then left for France. So I was informed.”

  “Yes, we’ve checked. He was on that train, all right, and on the transport to which he was assigned.”

  “Is anything wrong, Inspector? I really don’t know why you’re asking me questions about Sergeant Wilkins. I’ve already reported all I know to the Army and to Matron at the Nursing Service.”

  “We are aware of that. Your report was concise and to the point. And you’ve given me no reason to doubt it now.”

  “Which still doesn’t tell me why you’ve come to interview me?”

  Stephens looked down for a moment before answering me. “We have been informed by the Inspector in a town in the north that two days after he disappeared from London, Sergeant Wilkins was seen there by a witness whose identification is trustworthy.”

  “Then you’ve located him?” I said, surprised and uncertain whether I was pleased or not. From my own point of view, it was good news. But deserters got short shrift from the Army. He would be tried and executed. Hero or not.

  “Not to say located him,” Inspector Stephens said brusquely.

  Which meant, surely, that he’d been seen and then got away before he could be caught.

  I waited.

  After a moment, Inspector Stephe
ns added, “The charges against this man Wilkins now include murder.”

  It was a shock. I’d never considered Sergeant Wilkins a candidate for desertion. Much less murder.

  “I can see this is unexpected.”

  “I—yes, it is. May I ask who he killed?” All I could think of was his accomplice, or even the Sister who had lied about his wounds for him.

  “A man by the name of Lessup. Sergeant Henry Lessup. He was at home on extended leave.”

  “Had he helped in Sergeant Wilkins’s escape?”

  “He was never in London on the dates in question.”

  I could think of a number of explanations why one soldier might kill another. But the most likely reason in this case must have to do with that medal Sergeant Wilkins earned. Perhaps there was more to the account of his bravery than we knew.

  When I said as much, Inspector Stephens shook his head.

  “Lessup wasn’t in France when Wilkins was there. In fact he’s spent most of his war in England.”

  Surprised, I said, “Then it was something that happened before the war.”

  “Frankly we can’t find any connection between the two men at all. That’s why I’ve come to speak to you. To see if he’d mentioned anyone by that name.”

  “But how could the witnesses know that the murderer was Sergeant Wilkins?”

  “According to the Inspector in Ironbridge, a man who fits our description of Wilkins was seen in the town two days before, and he asked several people where he could find Lessup. The next morning, Lessup was discovered hanging from the iron bridge. And Wilkins was gone. The description is quite clear, and the man had apparently been wounded, for he had a limp and carried one arm with care.”

  “But that could describe many wounded men.”

  “I understand. Which is precisely why we’re looking for this man Wilkins. First to hear what he has to say, and then to bring him face-to-face with his accusers in Ironbridge.”

  “What does the Army have to say about the sergeant?”

  “They are as eager to find him as we are at the Yard.”

  “I can’t help you. I spent less than twenty-four hours in the man’s company, and most of that time he was in his room or with me at the Palace.”