by Charles Todd
“All the same, Warren could have been killed,” Simon went on. “Someone going about shooting people is dangerous.”
“It’s an Upper Dysoe matter,” Maddie said after a moment. “I shouldn’t worry about it.” He set out cups for us and I noticed that they were a rather fine china, and the spoons, though old, were silver, tarnished a little from being kept in a drawer in the cupboard. “What brings you back to us? Surely it isn’t only your concern for Mr. Warren’s welfare.”
“Sister Hammond,” I began slowly, “a friend of mine as well as a colleague, received a letter from you recently, asking her to come here as soon as possible. She was very worried, because she thought that someone she knew might be desperately ill. Or desperately in trouble. And as she had no means of reaching Upper Dysoe on her own, she asked me to come here in her place. The odd thing is, we ourselves were here looking for someone not that long ago. It could be that they are the same man. It’s even possible that the Major knows where we can find him.”
Maddie didn’t reply at once. He dealt with the tea quietly and efficiently, and then while the pot was steeping, he looked across at me.
“I’m afraid I don’t know anyone by that name. Sister Hammond, did you say?”
“She’s serving at a hospital for wounded soldiers, outside Shrewsbury. Someone knew how to find her.”
“And did she say why she’d been summoned here?”
“Only that someone had been asking for her. She thought the writer must be a woman, because the letter was signed Maddie.” From my pocket I took the letters Mrs. Hennessey had forwarded to me. “Is this your handwriting? Or do you know whose it might be?”
He politely read the letter, folded it again and handed it back to me.
“This isn’t my writing. For that matter, how could I possibly know anyone in a Shrewsbury hospital?”
He was avoiding answering me. He probably didn’t know Sister Hammond. But someone must have known her.
I asked, “Why should someone else use your name? I assure you, the letter is genuine. The question is, who wrote it—and why? And if this man needs help, why won’t you let us take him to Sister Hammond?”
He set the pot on the little table at my elbow, looked again at the sling and my puffy fingers where the swelling hadn’t completely gone down, then poured the steaming tea into the delicate cups himself.
“I expect if someone didn’t want to sign such a letter, the writer might have chosen the name of any number of other people. Madeleine isn’t an uncommon name.” He put honey in his tea, and stirred it with the silver spoon. “Not everything is what it seems.”
It occurred to me that although I’d helped him in a very difficult bit of surgery, Maddie knew very little about me and even less about Simon. We were strangers asking questions that perhaps he didn’t care to answer.
“I can bring Sister Hammond to you,” I said. “If you wish it.” I didn’t know quite how, but I was willing to try.
“You could bring anyone here and call them by whatever name you liked.” He smiled at me. “Have you considered that someone might have played a trick on your friend? Not a very nice one, to be sure. Still, there must be dozens of men in her care. And dozens of others who have left that hospital and moved on, back to France or invalided out of the Army altogether. Who knows what sort of feelings one of them has harbored.”
He would have been a master at chess. Nothing in his face gave anything away. But then depending on his past, he might have had many years of experience hiding what he was thinking.
I was feeling hurt and angry. I’d come to his aid when he needed it. And in return, he’d refused to come to mine. I said, “Odd that a former patient serving in France would have thought to use your name and this village in his letter. Unless of course you’re hiding something.” I rose. There was no reason to prolong our stay. “Thank you for the tea.”
A shadow passed over his face. “I’m an old man,” he countered. “I have met many people in my lifetime. If they choose to use my name, I can’t prevent it.”
As we walked to the door, Simon turned. “Perhaps you will carry a message to the man who knew Sister Hammond. Tell him we came to help, and you sent us away.”
We left him standing there, and went out to the motorcar. While Simon saw to the crank, I tried to think what to do next. Call on Sister Hammond? Or find a way to speak to the elusive Major?
In the end we drove on to Shrewsbury, and there we waited for more than an hour until Sister Hammond came off duty.
She greeted us apprehensively. She hadn’t met Simon before, and this tall man in uniform was an unknown quantity.
I tried to set her mind at ease by introducing him as a friend, but her experiences with the Army and the Nursing Service because of Sergeant Wilkins had left their mark.
“Did you receive my letter? I shouldn’t have sent it, but I was worried, you see,” she began anxiously. “I didn’t quite know what I should do about it. I’ve heard nothing more from this woman Maddie. Perhaps it was all a mistake, and I read more into the message than I should have done.”
We hadn’t said anything—yet—to her about stopping in Upper Dysoe. Nor had I told her that Maddie was a man.
The rain had moved on. We were walking on the grounds, enjoying a warm evening and moonlight pointing our way. The gardens had lost their color without the sun. Now the late season pinks and whites and blues were varying shades of gray, deepening to black.
“You thought it was from Sergeant Wilkins. This letter.” Simon hadn’t phrased it as a question.
Sister Hammond turned to him. “I didn’t know what to think. This person Maddie hadn’t given me a name. But who else could it be? I didn’t want any more trouble. Sergeant Wilkins had seemed so trustworthy, so open and honest. And look what happened? I never expected—and so when the letter came, I was frightened I’d be drawn back into his problems. I was even afraid to tell anyone else that it had come.”
She left unsaid the fact that she must have felt something for the sergeant, and possibly still did. In spite of everything. She didn’t want to be the one to turn him in, knowing he would very likely be shot for desertion. If he wasn’t hanged for murder.
“Have you ever had such—er—difficulties with a patient before this?” I asked. “You assumed this person was referring to Sergeant Wilkins. But could it have been someone else, someone you’d treated in the past?”
“I’ve thought about that too,” she told me, her voice on the edge of tears. “But there’s no one. The men in this house are from the ranks,” she went on with an uneasy glance at Simon. “We aren’t encouraged to get to know any of them personally. But of course we do. We write letters to their families and read them their letters as well, if they’re too ill. You know as well as I do that when you sit by a man in delirium, you learn things about him that no one else knows.”
Beside me in the moonlight Simon stirred abruptly, but said nothing.
I’d sat by him when he was off his head with delirium. He’d relived old battles, but there may have been other confidences another Sister had heard. In fact, he’d questioned me afterward about what he’d said while feverish.
“And you form attachments, you can’t help it,” Sister Hammond went on. “You’re warned against this in training, but it’s only human to feel.” She was trying to justify the reason she’d believed in Sergeant Wilkins.
“But have you heard from any of your other patients after they’ve been released? From Lovering Hall or elsewhere?”
“Only the usual. A note of gratitude from a wife or mother, sometimes from the patient as well. The officers write more often to thank the staff than the ranks do. I expect that’s only natural.”
“You’ve worked in a clinic or hospital that cares for officers?” Simon asked her.
“Well, yes, earlier in the war. Before I was sent here. Shrewsbury is closer to my home in Ludlow than Dorset. I can go there when I’m given leave.”
Thirty miles o
r so compared to around one hundred and fifty. It made sense.
“Were there any officers who would think of you in a time of distress?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Sister Hammond replied. “The hospital in Dorset dealt with severe head injuries. There were men who couldn’t remember anything about their lives before the war. They woke up in hospital and couldn’t even tell you how they’d been wounded, much less their names or where they came from.” She started to cry. “It’s too much. I’d just been kind, I’d just tried to help. And it nearly got me relieved of my duties. Matron is still watching everything I do, looking for a reason to pounce. I’m just so very tired.”
We walked down to the small lake at the bottom of the garden. The moon silvered the surface, and as we moved around to the far side, the lights of the house were reflected like so many candles floating on the pewter face of the water.
Simon touched my shoulder briefly as we stood there, looking back at the tall windows that gave on to the terrace and the gardens below it. A lovely scene,
And then someone screamed, shattering the quiet.
Sister Hammond said, “That’s Bobby Taylor. He has nightmares sometimes. We’re used to it now. Some of the officers had nightmares too. Fragments of memory that tormented them in their sleep. They couldn’t recall them afterward, no matter how hard they tried.”
Or wouldn’t, I thought, having had experience with such cases myself.
“And you did your best for them. Perhaps there’s someone whose memories are coming back now, and he needs help coping with them.”
“Do you think Maddie could be his wife?” she asked eagerly. “That would explain everything. I can’t go to him, of course, I’m needed here. But I could write and make suggestions, couldn’t I? I know there are clinics and hospitals—even doctors—who can help.”
It was a way out for her. But I had to discourage her.
“Until you know, I wouldn’t do that,” I told her. “Write, I mean. Unless she gives you more information, a name, something you can take to Matron for advice. You don’t want to find yourself in trouble again because you jumped to conclusions.”
“No, that’s true. But I feel better already.” In the moonlight I could see her tentative smile. “I’ll wait.”
“Was there any officer in particular who might turn to you in dire distress?”
“I can’t think of anyone.” But she’d answered too quickly.
I waited until we were halfway to the house before asking, “Are you sure there’s no one? Simon, here, has friends he can call on to find out what’s being done for this man. It would take some of the burden from your shoulders.”
She was silent for a time. We’d nearly reached the path that led to the drive when she said, “Of course there’s Harry. Captain Cartwright, that is. We were all so fond of him, and we were overjoyed when we discovered his identity. And quite by chance, you know. Another officer, a new patient, recognized him at once, in spite of his bandages. He couldn’t be sent back to France, but when he was to be released, we found a cousin to care for him. I’d hate to think he was having recurring problems. Or perhaps his memory is beginning to come back, and I’m sure that’s frightening at first.” I could see her sudden frown in the light spilling out of the lower windows. “I don’t think his cousin’s name was Maddie. She lives in Bakewell. Derbyshire. I don’t suppose—do you think he might have wandered off and found his way to this woman Maddie, and she’s writing for him?”
Sister Hammond was a hopeless romantic.
“I think it’s better for Simon to find out, don’t you? It could be a trick by Sergeant Wilkins to lure you somewhere and force you to help him escape. After all, the Army will be checking all the ports. And he has to do something to save himself.”
That brought her back to reality. “I hadn’t considered that. Now I’m even more confused than ever.”
“You mustn’t be. Leave this with us, Sister. We can get to the bottom of it quickly enough by looking to see whether Captain Cartwright is still with his cousin. For all we know, he’s been returned to hospital in Dorset or somewhere else.”
“Of course, you’re right. I’m being stupid again. It’s just that I like helping people, I can’t hold my tongue when a word or a kindness might lift someone’s spirits or make the difference between recovering and being an invalid. Matron tells me to be more objective, but I went into nursing because I care.”
“The best of reasons,” I agreed. “But if you hear again from Maddie—or you decide the letter might be from someone else entirely—let me know. Or speak to Matron if you can’t reach me. Please. Two heads are better than one.”
It was an old cliché, but it was the right thing to say to Sister Hammond.
She took that to heart, and shyly thanked me for my understanding.
We watched her until she had gone back indoors and disappeared down the long hall.
I said to Simon with a sigh, “We got nowhere. On the other hand, if we kept Sister Hammond from making a grave mistake, it was worth the time and trouble.”
“She means well. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions,” he responded.
It was too late to drive on, and so after a brief stop for petrol, we found an hotel in Shrewsbury, one with a view of the abbey ruins.
I sat up late, pulling a chair to the window, watching the moon reach its zenith, then start to sink toward the west. I wished I could put my finger on the problem that was vexing us. But Maddie was holding his tongue, and Sister Hammond couldn’t be relied on to handle whatever it was sensibly.
Someone was walking down the dark street below the hotel. I realized all at once that it was Simon.
For some reason he’d been unable to sleep as well.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I HAD NO real excuse to go in search of Captain Cartwright.
He most certainly couldn’t be Sergeant Wilkins, and I couldn’t see that he’d have anything useful to tell us about the man, even if the sergeant had served under him. But I could strike off the letter to Sister Hammond, if I learned that he’d sent it. But how had he come to know Maddie, if he lived in Derbyshire?
Still, short of knocking at the door of that lovely house tucked into the fold of a hill and demanding to speak to the Major, to make certain he wasn’t Sergeant Wilkins after all, we’d run into a blank wall.
Was it a hoax? Sister Hammond’s letter from Upper Dysoe? If so it was a cruel one. But again, who had known where to find her?
The next morning over breakfast, to my astonishment it was Simon who suggested we drive to Bakewell.
“You won’t be satisfied until you see Cartwright for yourself. We must keep an eye to your leave. There’s that to consider. I’m all right, just now.”
“I could go to Inspector Stephens, at the Yard. It would be easy for him to get to the bottom of it. But Sister Hammond will be questioned again. And they’ll come to speak to Maddie. The Cartwrights as well. I know what it’s like, being under suspicion.” I hesitated. “What if Sergeant Wilkins wrote that letter. Begging for her help. Why would Maddie protect him?”
“He just might. Depending on what tale Wilkins spun him.” He asked the woman serving us to remove his empty plate. “There’s another problem. If Sister Hammond receives a second letter, and it appears to be more desperate than the first, she might well find a way to reach Upper Dysoe. Or at the very least try. God knows what she’ll find herself caught up in.”
“Well, then, Bakewell, it is,” I agreed. “Simon, I didn’t expect Maddie to lie. I was quite angry with him at the time. A word from him and all of this could have been over.”
“It’s odd that everything we’d discovered—the bay horse’s whereabouts, the long-distance hauling lorry, and now the letter to Sister Hammond—all lead us to Upper Dysoe in one way or another. It’s possible that Wilkins is somewhere nearby. And if his wound is troubling him, he’d seek out someone like Maddie, not a doctor who might report him.”
&nb
sp; We set out for Bakewell. It was interesting to see that by the time we’d reached the little town of Biddington we’d lost those unique thimblelike hills, finding ourselves in more rolling countryside. Simon drove in silence for some time. Then he said, “That cluster of hills where the Dysoes are has had an uninteresting history. I looked it up, you know. That’s to say, the Dysoes and Windward escaped most of the horrors of war from the time of the Conqueror onward. Isolated, difficult terrain, perfect setting for an ambush. No great abbeys, no castles, nothing to loot or burn, just a handful of small hamlets connected by a single winding road. Much like Cheddar Gorge in a way. Only one way in or out.”
“Which makes it an ideal place for a wanted man to hide,” I pointed out. “There aren’t any newspapers to carry stories about Sergeant Wilkins’s flight, if ever the story makes it into print. And even if someone heard about his desertion on market day in Biddington, they’d hardly think of looking in the Dysoes. A stranger would stand out.”
“Unless he doesn’t appear to be a stranger. Like the Major.”
“Which reminds me,” I said, “are you certain Diana told you the Lieutenant’s name was Everard? Not Evering?”
“The connection was clear. Even so, I asked her to spell it.”
But perhaps Diana only thought she’d remembered the Lieutenant’s name.
It was a long drive. We’d had an early start, but it was well after dark when we pulled up in front of the Rutland Arms Hotel.
There was no one behind the desk in Reception, but there was a small silver bell, which Simon rang.
Shortly afterward, a middle-aged man came out from the back and asked if we were looking for directions or accommodations.
Simon arranged for two rooms and went to see to the motorcar while the man at Reception carried my kit up the long elegant staircase to a very pretty room. He drew the curtains for me and asked if I’d care for tea, late as it was. I accepted gratefully. When he came back with the tray, Simon was going down the passage to his own room. He suggested meeting at eight the next morning for breakfast, and I agreed.
