An Impartial Witness

by Charles Todd

  Alicia came back with the envelope, and took out a sheaf of photographs. “He found someone who could develop these for him. They cover a year or more. I was so pleased to have them, because now I know what his world is like.”

  But the photographs were not his world as it truly was. It was a tidy look at war that made me want to cry. Had Gareth chosen to spare his wife, or was he afraid that the censors would object to the truth and confiscate these photographs?

  There were tents pitched in neat rows, well behind the lines, like an encampment for troops on parade. Artillery that was silent, the gunners standing grinning in front of a jumble of empty casings. A group of French children, smiling for the camera, their faces unmarked by fear and despair. I turned it over to see the name of the village where this was taken, and it was well south of the lines too. There were several photographs of his fellow officers posing absurdly, as if they hadn’t a care in the world. But I could see the tension around their eyes, belying their antics. There was even one photograph of Meriwether Evanson’s aircraft, with Meriwether standing proudly with a hand on the prop, his face only partly shadowed by his cap. Alicia pointed him out to me.

  “I should have sent that to Marjorie, but I couldn’t part with any of these for a while…” She let the words trail off as she handed me a few more photographs from another envelope.

  Here were another group of officers standing together at a crossroads, a line of soldiers and caissons and well-laden lorries passing behind them.

  I recognized the uniforms—the Wiltshire Fusiliers. And third from the left was a face I knew.

  Staring at it, I said, “Do you have a glass? I’d like to see this one a little more clearly.”

  “I think there’s one in Gareth’s desk.”

  She went away and I tried to contain my excitement while I waited.

  Alicia came back with a small magnifying glass that she said was a part of Gareth’s stamp collection, and I took it from her, holding it above the photograph.

  I’d been right. The third officer from the left was the man I’d seen with Marjorie Evanson at the railway station.

  I turned the photograph over. The caption just read: Friends meeting by chance.

  “Do you know who these friends are?” I asked her.

  “Just the two on Gareth’s right. I don’t know that one.”

  “Could I possibly borrow this, if I promise to return it safely?” I asked. “Just for a few days.”

  She was reluctant to part with it, but in the end allowed me to take it with me.

  I thanked her for my meal and set out for Somerset.

  The light was with me most of the way, the long light of an English summer evening, a warm breeze blowing through the motorcar, the world looking as if it had never been at war. And then I caught up with a field ambulance carrying wounded to a nearby house that had been turned into a clinic, taking the rutted drive in first gear.

  My first thought on leaving Alicia’s house had been to find Michael and ask him if he recognized the man standing at the crossroads with Gareth. But I wasn’t sure that was wise.

  And so I went to the one person I knew would find the answer for me without asking questions.

  Simon.

  It was beginning to rain hard as I drove up the drive and put my motorcar in the shed where it lived while I was in France.

  I pulled the shed doors closed and made a dash for the side door of the house.

  My mother, startled by the apparition meeting her in the passage, said, “Oh. I didn’t hear you coming.”

  “I’m not surprised. It’s pouring down out there. Mother, did Simon come to dine tonight? Is he still here?”

  “I expect he is. Where’s your handsome young artillery officer?”

  “Back where he came from.”

  “You decided not to keep him?”

  I laughed. “His heart belongs to someone else,” I said lightly and went up to change out of my wet clothes.

  At the sound of voices, Simon came out of my father’s study. He greeted me with raised eyebrows. “Have you abandoned young Hart to the tender mercies of The Four Doves again?”

  “Alas, I was afraid he might be taken up for murder,” I responded.

  Simon laughed, but it was wry amusement.

  In fact, I was telling the simple truth.

  “But that reminds me,” I went on, taking the photograph from my pocket. “I’d like very much to know the identity of the man third from the left. It’s important.”

  Simon still had contacts with men he’d known while serving, both in my father’s regiment and in others that had crossed his path. It was very likely someone would recognize that face.

  He looked at the photograph, read what was written on the reverse, noted the uniform, then regarded me with interest. “Where on earth did you find this?”

  “It was quite by accident,” I told him. “A matter of pure luck.”

  “Let me see what I can do.” He pocketed the photograph and turned to speak to my mother as she came into the room.

  I’d always thought she was the only person on earth Simon Brandon would obey without question—next, of course, to the Colonel Sahib. He would have walked through fire for her sake. There were those who whispered that he was in love with the Colonel’s lady, but his devotion had very different roots.

  My father eyed me with interest as I came into his study. “What, no lost sheep? No crusades to lead? You’ve abandoned all hope of saving some poor soul?”

  I laughed. “Sorry. I’m between causes at the moment.”

  “That’s rare,” he said, his suspicions aroused, but he said nothing more, changing the subject with the ease of long practice.

  We were just going up to bed when our village constable bicycled to the house and asked to speak to me.

  I went to the sitting room, where he’d been shown, and my father accompanied me.

  Constable Boynton greeted me and said, “There’s been word from Inspector Herbert at Scotland Yard, Miss Crawford. Someone took a shot at Lieutenant Michael Hart in Little Sefton an hour and a half ago.”

  “Michael?” I exclaimed, bracing myself for bad news. “Is he all right?”

  “He’s unharmed. In fact, he reported the incident himself. He was walking in the garden. No one heard the shot, no one saw the shooting. Inspector Herbert wishes to know if you could put a name to his assailant.”

  My first thought was Serena Melton. I wouldn’t have put it past her to shoot—and miss—with the weapon that wasn’t in the gun cabinet where it belonged. But I’d seen her onto the train. No, I’d dropped her at the station, I corrected myself. I had no idea which train she’d taken.

  On the other hand I could see that Michael Hart could easily have invented the entire incident to take himself off the Yard’s suspect list. And mine.

  “Please tell Inspector Herbert I can’t help him in this matter. I wasn’t there, and I don’t know who could have tried to shoot the lieutenant. I’m sorry. But if I learn anything more, I’ll be in touch.”

  “Thank you, Miss. And my apologies to Mrs. Crawford for disturbing you so late,” Constable Boynton said, and took his leave.

  As the door closed behind him, my father said, “You’re making a habit of being consulted by an inspector at Scotland Yard these days?”

  “Not really consulted,” I said, trying to make light of what had just happened. “I was there, in Little Sefton, only a few hours ago.” But how had Inspector Herbert known that?

  The constable in Little Sefton must have remembered my motorcar and reported that I’d just brought Lieutenant Hart home from London. The fact that Inspector Herbert knew such details indicated all too clearly his interest in Michael.

  Which told me that the murderer from Oxford hadn’t proved to be the Yard’s man. In spite of what the Yard had told Serena Melton.

  “Indeed,” my father was saying thoughtfully. “I don’t believe you were telling the whole truth when you refused to help Constable B
oynton.”

  The Colonel Sahib knew me too well. “I didn’t refuse. I just didn’t want to make false accusations,” I answered him. “Not when I had no real proof to support them.”

  “Very commendable. And is there any remote possibility that we shall be in danger in our own garden?”

  “If in fact someone actually shot at Lieutenant Hart, it would have been a very personal matter. And not one that I’m likely to be involved with.”

  “I’m delighted to hear it. Perhaps I should have a word with this Inspector Herbert. I don’t care to see you dragged into inquiries.”

  “I wasn’t dragged into anything. I happened to be a witness to two people having a conversation in a railway station. I knew one of them but not the other. And the one I knew was later murdered. But hours later, long after I was sound asleep in my flat. The trouble is, the other person, the one I didn’t recognize, could probably give the police a great deal more information—that is, if he could be found. He’s been conspicuous by his absence.”

  There. It was out in the open. The whole story. Mostly.

  “And Michael Hart is involved? How?”

  “He’d known the dead woman for many years.”

  “But he’s not a suspect.”

  I hesitated a heartbeat too long in answering that.

  My father gave me a straight look but said no more. He held the sitting room door open for me. Simon had gone, and my mother was waiting to speak to my father after I went up the stairs. I knew very well she’d have the story of Constable Boynton’s intrusion before they followed me up to bed.

  I couldn’t sleep. I dressed, then went quietly down the stairs and out the door, looking up at the wet night, the trees softly dripping rain, the sounds of night creatures loud in the stillness.

  Simon, wearing rain gear, came up behind me as I started to walk along the stepping-stones that led around the house. I wasn’t going farther than the little gazebo my father had put up in the garden there for my mother, but of course he had no way of guessing that.

  He said, “If you’re thinking of going to Little Sefton tonight, I’ll drive you.”

  I shook my head. “There’s no point in it. I’d come no closer to the truth than the police have done. Did my father tell you what Constable Boynton wanted to speak to me about?”

  “Of course,” he said, grinning. “Your mother had it out of him as soon as you were out of the room. He walked down to see me afterward.”

  “What did she have to say about the shooting?”

  “As I recall, her exact words were, ‘I wouldn’t worry, if I were you, Richard. I think young Mr. Hart is looking for sympathy.’”

  Trust my mother to see into the heart of the matter.

  I said, “If he came to speak to you, what are you doing here? It’s late.”

  “I had a feeling you might decide to go to Hampshire.”

  “This time you were wrong.”

  I could see a flash of something in his eyes before he turned away. “It occurred to me that Lieutenant Hart’s death—if he’d been killed tonight—would bear a striking resemblance to Lieutenant Fordham’s.”

  I hadn’t linked the two. Yet. But Simon was right, in time I would have.

  I woke up the next morning with a headache. Rare for me, because I seldom had them. But I hadn’t been able to sleep until close on four o’clock because my mind was trying to sort out the tangle of events.

  A nurse is trained to observe. It’s her duty to see what is happening to the patient in her charge—she’s the eyes of the doctor on the case. Any changes must be noted, and she’s expected to know what they represent: a sign of healing, of a worsening of the patient’s condition, the onset of new symptoms, or a simple matter of indigestion. We’re expected to know when to summon Matron or the doctor, and when to cope on our own.

  Use that training, I told myself. Don’t jump to conclusions.

  There had to be some evidence somewhere.

  Marjorie had spent five hours that were unaccounted for. She could very well have walked to the nearest hotel and used a telephone to reach someone. But that person hadn’t come forward. She could have taken a cab to the house of a friend. But according to Helen Calder, she had been cut off from her friends—she had told Helen herself very little, for that matter, and then only in the early stages of the affair. She could have confided in a complete stranger in a tea shop, someone who would listen but not judge. That person hadn’t come forward either. She couldn’t have traveled very far between the time I saw her and when she was killed. Perhaps an hour in any direction, if she were meeting the person she’d telephoned. But no restaurant or other public place had contacted the police to say she had been seen.

  Very likely she never left London.

  And Michael was in Dr. McKinley’s surgery. Marjorie knew that.

  Had she walked the streets for a time, working up her courage to talk to an old friend? And then made her way to the surgery after hours, when the doctor was least likely to look in on his patient? She wouldn’t have wished to arrive with her face blotched by tears.

  I could see the police point of view there.

  I wondered who had told them that Michael was in love with Marjorie? Otherwise, they would have interviewed him and moved on, since he had no apparent motive. Was it Victoria?

  Of course police suspicions would have been aroused by the fact that he had said nothing about seeing her that night. Unless he swore she had never come there. Michael could hardly have stabbed her in the surgery. And if he disobeyed orders and left, he risked the doctor finding him gone.

  Where could one go to commit a quiet little murder?

  If someone had intended to throw Marjorie’s body in the river, surely it was easier to do the deed nearby, rather than having to transport a body any distance. It was dark there, with London wary of Zeppelin raids. A well-lit river was a navigator’s delight. That might explain why Marjorie was still alive when she was put into the water—it would be impossible to make sure she was dead.

  Michael had said that he was haunted by the possibility that Marjorie had been killed on her way to meet him.

  If that were true, had Marjorie told someone where she intended to go, and that person had prevented her from reaching the surgery?

  Walk with me for a little while. We can talk by the water, it’s quiet there. Then you can go on to the doctor’s surgery…

  That was a far more realistic possibility than encountering a stranger.

  Back, then, to someone she knew.

  Had she told the man at the railway station where she was going? I hadn’t seen him descend from the moving train, although Inspector Herbert had asked me specifically about that point. But there was the next station.

  First Lieutenant Fordham. Then Michael Hart. The only person I could think of who would have a reason to shoot both men was Serena Melton. She was obsessed, searching for the baby’s father. And I wondered if Jack suspected that, if it had been the reason he’d been afraid of blackmail.

  I’d fallen asleep on that thought.

  Ignoring the headache as best I could, I dressed and went down to breakfast. My parents had already eaten theirs and gone. The sun was out again, the rain only a memory.

  I could imagine my father driving to London to have a word with Inspector Herbert. But he had a good head start, I’d never be able to catch him up.

  I drank a cup of tea, ate some dry toast, and went out to the shed where I’d left my motorcar. It was low on petrol, and I was about to take it to the smithy-cum-garage to see to that.

  Simon was coming around the corner of the house. He had a tennis racket in his hand, and I realized that he and my mother must have been playing. “Who won?” I asked.

  “I did. By the skin of my teeth. Where are you going?”

  I told him.

  “I’ll see to the petrol. Then I’m off to Sandhurst.”

  “Business or pleasure?” I hoped it was my photograph that was taking him there.
<
br />   “I’ve to see someone there on War Office business,” he said. “After that I intend to bring up the photograph.”

  I thanked him, and then asked if he knew where my father had gone.

  “Something came up. He’s on his way to Portsmouth to meet someone. That’s how I was dragooned into a game of tennis, in his place.”

  I wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not. Portsmouth—and London afterward?

  And then I did, when Simon said, “You’ll stay close to home while we’re away? I don’t like the idea of shots flying about in gardens. Besides, your mother wouldn’t mention it, but I think she’d like a little time with you.”

  I’d have liked to go to Little Sefton and ask Michael Hart about the shots fired at him. But I could hardly knock at the Harts’ door and boldly ask about an event that had occurred hours after I left. I persuaded myself that if Simon was successful in identifying the man, I could return the photograph to Alicia as promised. And she was sure to tell me what had happened, and it would seem very natural to speak to Michael then.

  Besides, Simon was right about my mother.

  “I promise,” I told him, and with a nod he was gone.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I WAS JUST coming up the avenue of lime trees later that day when I heard Simon’s motorcar pulling in behind me.

  “Were you able to put a name to that face?” I asked, hope rising.

  “Unfortunately, no.”

  My spirits plummeted. “Oh” was all I could manage to say.

  Simon smiled. “I can’t work miracles, Bess. He’s in a territorial regiment. They come and go, those charged with their training barely getting to know them before they’re shipped to the Front. Besides, it’s not a very clear likeness. And at the moment, I must go up to London.”

  To my eyes it was. Or had I wanted it to be the right man? With his cap on, shading his face—but that’s how I’d seen him at Waterloo Station.

  “Let me go with you.” I put on my most innocent face.