An Impartial Witness

by Charles Todd

  He was instantly suspicious. “Why?”

  “I have some shopping I’d like to do.”

  He nodded. “All right. After breakfast, then.”

  I was ready the next morning when he came knocking at the door a little after seven. My mother had given me a long list of things she needed and couldn’t find locally.

  We drove in silence for a time, and then he said, “Look, Bess. This is all well and good. But you need to spend more time with your family.”

  “I feel guilty enough,” I told him. “But I also feel responsible. Day after day, I watched Lieutenant Evanson cling to that photograph of his wife, and on the long journey home, I helped him count the hours until he saw her again. He was stoic, never complaining. Only, I was the one who saw her—he never did. He wasn’t even well enough to attend her funeral. Then he killed himself, slowly, patiently, until he’d succeeded. He was one of mine, Simon. He should have lived.”

  He reached over and took my hand. His was warm and safe and comforting. “You can’t save all of them, Bess,” he said gently. “That’s the trouble with war. Men die. Your father and I close our eyes and see a thousand ghosts. We know they’re there, but we can’t stare too long at their faces. We have to move on. Put the living first. There are already enough monuments to the dead.” His voice was bitter as he finished.

  I said nothing, too close to tears, and I knew how he disliked tears.

  After a while he released my hand, and then he changed the subject.

  Simon hadn’t particularly cared to see me go into nursing, but when the war came, it was what I wanted to do. If I couldn’t fight with my father’s regiment, as a son would have done, I could at least keep men alive to fight again another day.

  Simon had decided that the rigors of learning my trade would discourage me. But mopping floors, changing dressings and bed-pans, sitting with the dying, and standing by without flinching when horribly wounded men came through the tent flap had toughened me in ways I hadn’t expected. If my father’s son could face death on a battlefield, my father’s daughter could certainly face the bloody ruins of brave men.

  India and the other places where my father had been sent in the course of his career had also helped me cope with the ugliness of what I had chosen to do. Death and disease, poverty and despair were just outside the compound gates in Agra and other places. I had only to ride a mile in my mother’s carriage to see maimed lepers and begging children, ash-covered holy men lying on a bed of hot coals or a starving family covered with sores. I knew early on that life for some was very hard and for others much more comfortable.

  “A penny,” my companion said as we drove through the next small village.

  “I was thinking about India.”

  “I dream of it sometimes. Do you?”

  “Yes—oh, Simon, stop, please!” I reached out, my hand on his arm.

  He did as I’d asked, pulling in behind a baker’s cart. I was out of the motorcar almost as soon as it came to a halt.

  “Captain Truscott!” I called to the Army officer just walking into a bookshop. He turned and recognized me at once.

  “Miss Crawford! How good to see you. What brings you to Maplethorpe?”

  “I was passing through, on my way to London.”

  “I’m leaving for London myself in half an hour. Have dinner with me tonight.”

  “The Marlborough?”

  “Yes, indeed. Shall I come for you?”

  I told him where to find me and that Mrs. Hennessey was the guardian at the gate. “Let her see that you are the most responsible officer in the entire Army, and she’ll come upstairs for me.”

  He laughed. “Seven, then?”

  “Seven.”

  And I was back in the motorcar before the baker had finished his delivery at the tea shop next to the bookstore.

  “You’ve thrown over the dashing young lieutenant for a captain, I see.”

  “He was at the Meltons’ house party. He knew Marjorie Evanson and her husband.”

  “Which explains why you leapt out of a moving motorcar to chase that man into a bookstore and beg him to take you to dinner tonight.”

  “I did no such thing,” I answered indignantly.

  Simon laughed. “That’s how your mother would see it.”

  That was true. I don’t know why I had rushed after Captain Truscott, but it had been a spur-of-the-moment decision. It was a bit of luck to find him again at all.

  We reached London and Simon set me down at the flat, where I went up to look for anyone who might be there. But I had it to myself, and I decided that my first order of business was to speak to Inspector Herbert.

  He was not at the Yard, having been called away to deal with a problem in Bermondsey. The elderly constable who escorted me to his office and back down the stairs again took pity on me when he saw my disappointment. “He’s got a meeting tomorrow at eight o’clock with the Chief Superintendent. If you are here at nine o’clock, he’ll make time for you.”

  I thanked him and left. I’d expected I’d be staying over in London, anyway. The problem would be persuading Simon to stay too.

  By the time I reached the flat again, having stopped along the way to find items from my mother’s list, I discovered Simon waiting for me, leaning against the wing of his motorcar, arms crossed.

  I gave him my packages and he stowed them in the motorcar. Three more he carried inside for me, where Mrs. Hennessey gave him permission to take them up the stairs to the flat, while she watched with an eagle eye. “He’s a very attractive man. Friend of the family or not,” she murmured to me. “And there are standards to maintain. The families of my young ladies expect it.”

  I suppressed a smile. If Mrs. Hennessey didn’t trust Simon, the most trustworthy of men, I wondered what she would make of Lieutenant Hart. Temptation incarnate.

  But dear soul that she was, she did her best to safeguard those of us who lived in the flats above, and we all loved her.

  When Simon came down again, we went to his motorcar and he took me to lunch. I’d wanted to ask him what he’d learned, but he was in a dark mood and I knew better than to push. We talked about other things—where I’d gone shopping, what I’d heard from my flatmates, news of mutual friends, everything under the sun but what was uppermost in my mind.

  And then, at the end of our meal, as the waiter set our trifle in front of us and walked away, he finally said, “I’ve found the name of the man in that photograph. Are you sure you want to hear what I’ve learned? Or shall I send it along to this Inspector Herbert of yours, and let it be finished?”

  “Is it someone you know—or my parents know?” I asked, suddenly worried.

  “No.”

  “Then tell me, please.”

  “He’s Jack Melton’s brother.”

  I sat there, stunned.

  I hadn’t expected the man to be someone I knew. But then I’d never actually met him, I reminded myself. Only his brother. Serena’s husband. Still, it was too close to home for comfort.

  “What is his name?” I couldn’t remember ever hearing it.

  “Raymond Melton. He’s a captain in the Wiltshire Fusiliers. And in France at the moment.”

  I took a deep breath.

  “It can’t be. No, I don’t think he would dare—Serena’s brother’s wife?”

  “You know nothing about the man. What sort he may be.” Simon’s voice was harsh. “Go to Scotland Yard, tell Herbert what you’ve learned, and leave it to him.”

  “But it doesn’t make sense,” I said, dabbing at the trifle with my spoon, not wanting to meet Simon’s eyes.

  “That’s because you don’t want to believe it.”

  “It will break Serena Melton’s heart. She’ll never forgive him. And she will blame Jack as well.”

  “Why?”

  “Because her brother died of grief. She didn’t care all that much for Marjorie, even when they married. But she loved her brother with all her heart.”

  I had wanted
to find this man, to keep the inquiry on track. And as is common with most meddling, what I’d learned would have repercussions. Once Raymond Melton was questioned, Serena would give Jack no peace until he told her all he knew.

  Still, so much fit together. Marjorie would have met Raymond Melton. And if she had run into him in London one day, she would have had no qualms about dining with him. Even Mrs. Hennessey, a stickler for propriety, wouldn’t have batted an eye.

  “Why was he in England five or six months ago? It couldn’t have been an ordinary leave. He must have been here longer than most.”

  “He was seconded to General Haig’s staff, and he was coordinating supply shipments. They were being held up, finding transport was a problem with the German submarines taking such a toll. London was his base. From there he could visit Manchester or Birmingham or Liverpool with relative ease. He also had a staff motorcar at his disposal.”

  “I can’t imagine what she could possibly have seen in him,” I said crossly. “He seemed so—distant. Michael Hart is so much better looking, if it was a fling she was after. And he loved her, he wouldn’t have walked away from her and left her there all alone.”

  “Raymond Melton didn’t kill her. He couldn’t have. I asked. He caught the train and reached France precisely when he should have.”

  But trains were slow. He could have borrowed a motorcar, using the excuse that he’d missed his connection.

  Simon was saying something that I didn’t catch.

  “Sorry?”

  “He’s married, Bess. Raymond Melton is married. They have two children.”

  I recalled the boy and girl I’d seen at Melton Hall the day Mary and I arrived. Raymond Melton’s children? Very likely, though she’d referred to them as cousins.

  “Oh, dear God. What am I to do, Simon? It will ruin their lives.”

  “This is why I didn’t want to tell you.” He signaled the waiter. “I’ll take you back to the flat and then speak to Inspector Herbert myself. He’ll know how much will have to come out during the inquiry, and how much he can keep from the newspapers for the time being. Leave it to him. Then I’ll drive you back to Somerset.”

  He didn’t say, bless him, that I should have handed Gareth Dalton’s photograph to Scotland Yard. Then I’d have been ignorant of the connections. Like the ostrich with her head in the sand.

  “I have a dinner engagement with Captain Truscott,” I answered distractedly. “It would be unkind to break it. Besides, Inspector Herbert is away.”

  “Then I’ll wait and drive you home tomorrow.”

  Rousing myself, I said, “No, that’s not the right way to handle this, Simon. I made a promise to Inspector Herbert. I told him I’d let him know what I discovered. I’ll speak to him myself.”

  We argued that point for a good five minutes, and then Simon capitulated.

  “It may be the best way after all,” he said. He settled the bill and then led me out of the restaurant. “What matters is to put this behind you as soon as you can.”

  We had reached the pavement when I remembered something. Hearing a quick indrawn breath, Simon turned to me. “What is it?”

  “I ran into Jack Melton outside the Marlborough Hotel when I was in London with Lieutenant Hart. I felt an obligation, I don’t know why, to tell him that on the night she died I’d seen Marjorie with a man I didn’t recognize, and I think I said something about the Yard searching for this man, to help them with their inquiries. And he told me that I ought to be looking instead at Michael Hart. Little did he know.” I paused. “Or did he? No, somehow I have a feeling that Raymond Melton keeps himself to himself.”

  Simon swore under his breath in Urdu, thinking I wouldn’t recognize the words, but I did. Bazaar life is very colorful. A child’s ear soon picks up bits and pieces of Hindi and Urdu. I quickly learned which words I could and could not repeat in front of my elders.

  “How close is he to his brother, do you know?”

  “I can’t answer that,” I told him.

  “Then the sooner you get to the Yard, the safer you will be.” He shook his head. “There’s something wrong with this whole affair, Bess. Don’t you feel it as well? Something rather—sinister. You’ve learned too much, for one thing, and for another, the murder of Marjorie Evanson was particularly vicious. Don’t tempt her killer, whoever he may be, to try again.”

  “But Raymond Melton is in France.” I wasn’t as convinced as Simon was.

  “For the moment.”

  “Do you think he knows where she was going after the train left?”

  “Would she tell him? Perhaps she would, to make him jealous.”

  What had been set in motion that rainy evening in the railway station? Was that only the tip of the problem, the more visible half? What about Michael Hart?

  I realized all at once that we were standing in everyone’s way as they came and went from the restaurant, forcing them to part like the Red Sea around us.

  “We can’t discuss it here.” Simon took my arm and led me to the motorcar, holding my door for me. He turned the crank with more than his usual vigor, then got behind the wheel. “We can’t talk in your flat either. Where would you like to go?” When I didn’t answer, he said, “Scotland Yard? Even if Inspector Herbert isn’t there, we’ll tell someone else what you know. It will be finished, Bess.”

  “Yes,” I said. Reluctantly. But I knew he was right.

  As it happened, Inspector Herbert had just returned from Bermondsey, and we had to wait half an hour for him to make his report to his superiors. Finally I heard his footsteps, loud on the bare floorboards, as he came down the passage, and then he opened his office door and was shaking hands. I explained Simon’s presence, and after that we all sat down.

  I had a distinct impression of cold feet—they wanted to carry me back out of the room again as fast as possible. But it was too late.

  “Well,” Inspector Herbert was saying. “What brings you here, Miss Crawford?”

  Simon opened his mouth but I forestalled him.

  Inspector Herbert listened carefully as I told him what I knew about the man at the station. And he asked to see the photograph that I’d given Simon.

  “It belongs to someone. I promised to bring it back to her as soon as possible.”

  He was busy scanning the face of Raymond Melton. After a moment, he reached into his drawer and drew out a looking glass. “You’re quite sure this is Captain Melton?” he asked after a moment, still bent over the picture. He reached up to turn on the lamp at his elbow and brought it closer. I thought to myself that by the time he gave that photograph back to me, Inspector Herbert would have memorized Melton’s face.

  Straightening up, he turned off the lamp, set the glass back inside his drawer, and leaned back into his chair. “What did Marjorie Evanson say to this man, on that rainy evening in London?” he mused. “What did it set in motion, that meeting?”

  “She may have kept her own counsel,” Simon pointed out. “Given his conduct.”

  “Yes, that’s possible. I expect she was too upset to dine anywhere, and she wouldn’t wish to be seen by anyone she knew. We’ve looked into tea shops between the railway station and the river. Churches are more difficult—they’re often empty at that time of day. She could sit quietly in one until she’d recovered, with no one the wiser. It seems unlikely that she’d turn to a friend—no one has come forward, at any rate. I’ll try to bring Melton back to England for questioning. Although since he’s made no effort to contact me, I don’t have much hope in that direction. At least we have a witness who puts him there with Mrs. Evanson. We’ve tried to find others, but the stationmaster tells us it was very busy, and a weeping woman seeing a soldier off is too common. People try to pass by without looking, give them a modicum of privacy.”

  “If he’s Jack Melton’s brother,” Simon commented, “he can’t claim he didn’t know she’d been killed.”

  I confessed, “I’ve told his brother about seeing a man with Marjorie the night she d
ied. But I didn’t know then who he was. I was trying to help Jack Melton get to the truth before his wife did. She’s frantically searching for someone to blame. Serena Melton is likely to do something rash. And it won’t bring her brother back.”

  Inspector Herbert was staring at me, weighing up what I was saying.

  “Yes. Well. I don’t think any harm has been done.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his cluttered desk. “Since you didn’t know his brother, and you aren’t likely to meet him, Commander Melton won’t be unduly worried. The likelihood is that his brother hasn’t confessed his adultery, anyway. Especially if he learned Mrs. Evanson was murdered that evening. Is Captain Melton married, do you know?”

  “Yes.” It was Simon who answered. “So I’ve been informed. There are two children.”

  “All the more reason to keep his—relationship—from everyone. Doesn’t speak well of his character, does it?” Inspector Herbert turned to me. “It’s amazing that you found this photograph. Well done.”

  I said, giving credit where it was due, “It was Sergeant-Major Brandon who put a name to the face.”

  Inspector Herbert smiled. “You can safely leave this matter to us now. Which reminds me, about Michael Hart—”

  I had done enough damage, talking out of turn. “I see no reason for him to lie. If he says he was shot at, then he was. The local people will probably discover it was boys who came across their father’s service revolver and were tempted to try it.” I cast about quickly for a way to change the course of the conversation. “You haven’t told me—has that man from Oxford been found?”

  “He was apprehended in Derby. I don’t think we need to concern ourselves with him any longer.”

  “And Lieutenant Fordham?”

  “Ah. That’s another matter.”

  I waited, and after a moment he said finally, “Lieutenant Fordham knew Marjorie Evanson in London, before she was married. His mother was a friend of her late aunt’s. As he had never married, we wondered if the friendship had been renewed while he was convalescing. Mrs. Evanson escorted him to medical appointments on a number of occasions. He was one of several wounded she volunteered to work with. She would meet a train, see that the patient got to his destination and then back to the train.”