A Question of Honor: A Bess Crawford Mystery

by Charles Todd

  And that’s precisely what had transpired.

  Or appeared to have happened. Cold-blooded indeed.

  I said, “Someone else appears to be worried about the past coming out. Someone who had nothing to do with the murders. But who stands to be caught in the publicity if there is a renewed interest in the Caswells?”

  “Is that how Simon came to have his bruises?”

  “I must presume so.”

  “Then you’ve awakened a sleeping snake, my dear. And you and Simon must take great care. A cobra strikes before you know he’s there, curled up in the tangled roots of a banyan tree. Or lying quietly in the high grass before you come along and step on it. And then sadly it’s too late.”

  It was a warning I took to heart.

  I spent the night at Melinda’s comfortable house in Kent, and in the morning, after breakfast, Ram took me to Dover and waited until my ship arrived in port before leaving. It was kind of him.

  Before I’d slept that night at Melinda’s, I found stationery and an envelope in the drawer of the desk in my room and wrote a long letter to Simon. I posted it in Dover before boarding. It would not have to pass through the hands of a censor, and so I could put on paper everything I’d learned.

  I realized as I got out of the ambulance at the forward aid station where I was posted this time that we were all weary. Four years of war had taken its toll. The wounded men brought in to us, the staff, and the ambulance drivers, all were hollow-eyed. Even the vehicles were forever breaking down from overuse and from being maneuvered on what passed for roads, the ruts and ditches and pits sometimes covering half a mile in width. Tanks had been through one section, churning up the mud, and a caisson had bogged down in another stretch.

  We saw quite a few Americans as they pushed hard to drive the Germans back. They reminded me of Captain Barclay, an American serving with a Canadian regiment. Polite but also very unreserved. These men called me Nurse rather than Sister, and one or two asked if I was engaged or was walking out with anyone. I told them that I was engaged to the Prince of Wales and he would clap them in the Tower if they didn’t do as they were told. They roared with laughter and took to calling me Your Royal Highness, much to the displeasure of Dr. Hilton, who thought them disrespectful in the extreme. But they also looked after their own and made no complaint when we had to cut a uniform off a shattered shoulder or a boot off a rotting foot. Many of them had never been more than a dozen miles from home before they enlisted—like so many British soldiers—and coming out of the ether they often called for their mothers.

  And then the Yanks were gone and we were back to the Tommies, who demanded to know in mock seriousness if we’d given our hearts away to the enemy.

  The next convoy I took to Britain came into Portsmouth in the middle of the night. I’d managed to find a telephone and called my parents to tell them I had no more than thirty-six hours of leave before sailing for France again, but that I was all right. The influenza epidemic of the spring had returned with a vengeance, just as predicted, and was more virulent than ever. Those who had escaped the first wave were falling ill now. Since I had survived the disease, and a very severe case at that, I had already been told I’d be returning to a base hospital to work with the latest victims. We had been warned that this was a deadlier strain, and there had been reports—none of which had been verified—that steam shovels had been brought in to some hospitals to dig mass graves. It had been good to hear my mother’s voice, and then my father’s, and be reassured that they were all right.

  I went to the canteen and sat there over a cup of tea, wondering if I could find a room in a hotel, when Simon Brandon walked through the door. His bruises healed, he looked fit and preoccupied.

  I don’t know which of us was more surprised. He came across the room to greet me and sat down at my table.

  “Good God,” he said. “You do appear in the most amazing places!”

  “I could say the same about you. What brings you to Portsmouth?”

  “It’s not for your ears,” he said with a grin, and then he turned to look out the canteen window. A light rain had begun to fall, and the wind was pushing ships at anchor, making their running lights bob with the outgoing tide. When he looked at me again, he said more seriously, “I’ve been teaching infantry tactics to tank crews. A brave lot, those men. Shut into a metal coffin, only one way out. It doesn’t bear thinking of. But since the Somme they’ve made tremendous strides in tactics.”

  I’d attended some of the men from inside those tanks, their flesh burned black as soot from the fire inside, their hands and faces and feet peeling red beneath the black.

  “Are you on your way to Somerset or London?”

  “Neither. I’ve spoken to my parents. I only have a few hours left.”

  “Then it’s good I found you. Where are you billeted?”

  “I’m not. I’ll find a hotel and sleep a few hours.”

  “There’s room in my quarters. I’ll take you there.”

  I finished my tea and went with Simon. On the way I asked if he had read my letter, the one posted in Dover after visiting Melinda.

  “Yes, it came while I was away. I retrieved it when I passed through Somerset some days later. I think it’s very possible that the Caswells took in Anglo-Indian children. That photograph appears to confirm it, and the box you bought, along with the little chair, indicates Lieutenant Wade’s sister was there, and it isn’t very likely that he’d be sent to a different family.”

  Simon had taken rooms in a house near the center of town, and I sank down in the chair by the window in his sitting room.

  “I think I could sleep for a month,” I said, leaning back.

  “Go ahead. But before you’re beyond hearing what I have to say, let me tell you what has happened. The police in Winchester have been rather busy. They are looking for and interviewing everyone who called on the Gesslers in the past three months. The list isn’t long—the shop has been closed for some time. But it appears that we’re on it. It seems a neighbor across the street remembers a man and a woman who called rather late and stayed for about an hour. The neighbor had a toothache and couldn’t sleep.”

  “We’re suspects?” I asked, wide awake now.

  “Apparently. The newspapers are carrying a request for this pair to contact them to help with their inquiries. At a guess I’d say we appear to be the last people to see the Gesslers alive.”

  “It’s too bad the neighbor with the toothache wasn’t at his or her window when the fire was started,” I said.

  “Quite.”

  “Should we contact the police?”

  “And tell them what?” Simon asked.

  I sighed. “I can’t see that it would help them if we do. It will only cloud the issue.”

  “That was my conclusion.” He walked away to fetch a blanket and then turned. “Burning two people to death is unconscionable. The killer must have a very strong reason for doing that.”

  “We’ve rather lost sight of Lieutenant Wade.”

  “Someone in Petersfield knows the truth. We need to find that person. If Wade isn’t behind the fire, he may well know who is.”

  He was tired as well. I said, “Simon, go to bed. We’ve done all we can for now.”

  “When does your ship sail?”

  “At ten tomorrow morning.”

  He nodded. “I’ll see you’re awake in time.”

  As my ship moved out into the roads and turned toward the sea, I thought about our conversation over breakfast.

  Simon and I had agreed on one thing.

  Whatever we chose to do in the future, we must make very certain that we didn’t put anyone else in danger.

  We had discussed taking what little we knew to Scotland Yard, rather than the local police in Winchester or Petersfield. But when we had listed what we knew, jotting it all down on a sheet of paper in
black ink that stood out baldly against the white background, it was glaringly little.

  As he was driving me to the port, Simon glanced at me, then said, “I’m going on to Somerset this afternoon. I don’t have to be there at any particular time. It might be interesting to go by way of Midhurst and have a look at the estate agent who has put the property up for sale.”

  “Just be careful.”

  In France I spent long, exhausting days at the hospital to which I’d been assigned. They had tried to collect all their influenza cases in hastily constructed quarters where they could be cared for separately from the wounded. There was no surgical ward here. There was no need for it. Instead, long rows of cots held patients in every stage of infection. I was issued strong soap to keep my hands clean and face masks, then Matron accompanied me through the wards, giving me an overview. We hadn’t learned much about the illness, but a little more about how to care for the patients.

  Tired men, in the filthy living conditions of the trenches and jammed together using the same latrines and drinking the same stale water, were not fit enough to fight off the infection. Or perhaps infection was inevitable. Whatever the case, I worked to save as many as I could, and when that wasn’t possible, I tried to make their deaths easier if I could.

  One of the Sisters working with me watched the burial detail set out one cool, cloudy morning and said, “If a horse was that ill, or a dog, it would be put down as mercifully as possible.”

  I had to agree with her, except for the peculiarities of the infection. Sometimes those who had the least hope of surviving managed to pull through. As I had done. While those who appeared to be on the mend could relapse and die in a matter of hours.

  A new convoy of patients arrived, were sorted, and carried to their cots. Three were dead before they reached us. One of them was an officer whose leg I had set at a forward aid station six months ago.

  And almost on the heels of that convoy came another one. Another Sister was sorting this time, and some of the convalescent patients were moved to a makeshift ward to make room. I had just settled half a dozen men and was starting to work with another ten when I was called to help with a critical case.

  He was in a bad way, and I did what I could to help him breathe more easily. It wasn’t until I was gently lowering him to the cot once more that I noticed the fading scar along his jaw, that faint white line.

  It was Lieutenant Wade. I glanced quickly at the tag that identified him, and saw in a hasty scrawl CORPORAL CASWELL.

  There was not time to report his presence here, even if I wished to do so. And from his flushed face and difficulty breathing, it was unlikely that he would live.

  But when I came back on duty in the early hours of the next morning, he was one of the men the Sister on night duty thought was showing a little improvement. I took around the cups of soup, all that some of the men could keep down in their paroxysms of coughing, and when I came to Lieutenant Wade, his eyes met mine.

  Before I could stop him, he’d reached up and pulled at my mask, and it came down to my chin.

  If he hadn’t been sure before this, it was obvious he knew who I was now. I could read the expression in his eyes. Surprise. Certainty. Despair. For he could see that I had recognized him as well.

  I set down the cup of soup and pulled my mask back into place. Then I held the cup to his lips and let him drink.

  Busy elsewhere for the better part of the morning and then in the afternoon occupied with a new line of ambulances, I came back to the ward in time to help with the evening rounds, and Sister Whitby said, “I think we’ll lose Caswell, bed sixteen. He showed so much improvement overnight that we were hopeful. Now—it’s almost as if he’s given up.”

  And that was my fault, although I hadn’t said a word to him about the past.

  Surely just my presence was enough.

  I felt a surge of guilt, but there was nothing I could do about it. Matron assigned us where we were most needed, and most of us hardly had time to sleep.

  I walked down the line of cots to bed sixteen. An orderly was just changing Lieutenant Wade’s sheets, the sour smell of sweat lingering in the air. Helping to finish the task, I said to the orderly, “I’ll sit with Corporal Caswell for a few minutes.”

  “Yes, Sister. It might be a good idea.” The orderly’s way of telling me that the end was near.

  I drew up a chair close to the bed. Changing the sheets had tired the patient, and he lay there with eyes shut, his breathing labored. But I was fairly certain he could hear me.

  “Corporal Caswell? You were much improved this morning. We had high hopes for you. And now this change. Won’t you fight to live? You have survived much worse, I daresay. You must make the effort.”

  His eyes opened. I’d forgot how blue they were, and the fever racking him made them flash.

  “Easier to die this way than hang.” His voice was a thread.

  “I’m a nursing Sister. I took an oath to save men.”

  “Not this time. Sorry.” He closed his eyes again, stoically waiting for death.

  “If I make you a promise,” I said rashly, “if I swear to you that I will not hand you over to the Military Foot Police or anyone else, if you can walk out of here and return to your sector, it will be worth living, I think.”

  His eyes opened, and he stared at me. “You’re Crawford’s daughter.”

  And in his view, that was enough to condemn him. He knew, better than most, what I must feel about the regiment even now, when it was no longer my father’s responsibility.

  “I’m Sister Crawford. I told you.”

  “Why would you let me walk away?”

  I wasn’t really sure of the answer to that myself. “It seems rather unfair to betray you now. But if you die, I promise you that I shall. To set the record straight.”

  “The record,” he said, a world of bitterness in those two words.

  I rose. “I’ll leave you to think about it. You wanted to live badly enough that you took a terrible risk in 1908. I should think you’d be willing to do the same again.”

  And I walked away.

  I went off duty half an hour later, but I didn’t go back to look in on Lieutenant Wade. I had seen patients will themselves to die—most particularly the amputees. And I had seen others who willed themselves to live in spite of the medical prognosis. If I’d had to wager on the chances of Lieutenant Wade surviving until morning, I would have refused. The odds were impossible.

  When I walked into the ward the next morning, I saw that bed sixteen was empty.

  And I knew I’d lost. Lieutenant Wade—Corporal Caswell—had wanted to die, and so it had come to pass.

  Chapter Twelve

  As soon as I could spare a few minutes from my duties, I went to find Matron. She was in her tiny office, working on a sheet of paper lined with numbers. I saw the frown as she looked up, annoyed at having her concentration interrupted.

  “I’m sorry, Matron. But there’s a patient I need to speak to you about.”

  “Sister Crawford.” She sighed. “I don’t need to tell you we are being overwhelmed. I simply don’t know where to put them all.”

  I could sympathize. We could have put two men to a cot, it was getting to be so bad.

  “How are you holding up?”

  “We’re all very tired,” I said. In the short time I’d worked under her, I’d learned she valued honesty. “But that’s to be expected.”

  “I’ve asked for more Sisters. I doubt there are any to spare. One of our own has come down with the influenza. It must be the same everywhere else.”

  “Sister Browning?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “She wasn’t sleeping well last night. I heard her moving around. And then she began to cough. The orderlies came for her at six.”

  “I promised to look in on her at ten. Now then,
what is it I can do for you?”

  “It’s about Corporal Caswell. There’s something you must know.” I took a deep breath. “He served some years ago in my father’s regiment.”

  “Did he indeed? I expect he remembered you?”

  “I’m afraid he did.” I couldn’t tell her that once he recognized me he’d willed himself to die. “You see, there was some trouble at the time, and I knew about it.” Before I could go on, she smiled and interrupted me.

  “I’m glad you brought this to my attention, Sister Crawford. I’ll see that you aren’t assigned to his ward. It will be more comfortable for both of you.”

  “But—I thought—his bed was empty this morning when I came on duty.”

  “Yes, he was much improved, and we moved him to the convalescent ward. I’m not convinced that he was quite ready for the change, but we needed his bed.”

  I stood there, rapidly reassessing what I had been about to say. I’d almost betrayed my promise—and Corporal Caswell too.

  Matron was eager to return to her numbers. “Is there anything else, Sister Crawford?”

  “I—no, Matron. Thank you.”

  I beat a hasty retreat.

  Why had I been so certain that Lieutenant Wade had died? Perhaps because it would have been the honorable thing to do, in one sense. I could have reported his real name and his crimes, and the past would have finally been closed. The fact that he had escaped justice in India would have been expunged. The mills of the gods, and all that, but he had in the end been caught.

  And I had nearly exposed him, breaking my promise to him.

  With the feeling I’d been tricked, I went back to my ward and set to work again.

  It was nearly nine o’clock in the evening when I went off duty. I could think of nothing but sleeping, because I’d be back on duty at six. But I took a moment to go to the convalescent ward and look for Lieutenant Wade.

  He appeared to be asleep when I came down the row of cots and found him. His breathing was a little easier, but I could hear the rattle in his lungs still. In fact, when the light of my candle touched his face, he began to cough, waking up as he choked on the phlegm in his throat.