Charles Todd - An Impartial Witness

"She didn't. No. Except of course for the ladies whose husbands flew. That changed from week to week, it seemed. But one of her friends, Mrs. Daly, stopped by, and as I showed her into the drawing room here, I heard her exclaiming, 'Marjorie! At last. I haven't seen you for ages. Come and dine with us tomorrow night.' But I don't think Mrs. Evanson went. I didn't help her dress for such a dinner."

"No letters from strangers? No messages? No-flowers or the like?"

"You mean, was there a man hanging about? I was beginning to wonder myself, when she paid particular attention to how she looked. And then she was at home nearly all the time, morning, noon, and night, refusing all invitations, and sometimes not leaving her room until late in the afternoon. What's more, she wasn't eating properly. Skipping a meal, saying she wasn't hungry and would take only a cup of soup."

"The day she-died," I asked. "What happened that day?"

She turned to me as if she hadn't expected me to have a voice. "Miss?" She shot a quick glance at Michael, and he must have nodded, because she answered, still looking at him, as if he'd asked the question.

"The police wanted to know as well. She was unsettled in the night. Mrs. Hall, the cook, came down to start the morning fires, and she found Mrs. Evanson in the kitchen, her eyes red, and she said she'd been horribly sick before dawn, could Mrs. Hall make her a cup of tea as soon as the fires were going. Mrs. Hall got her the tea and a pinch of salt to put on the back of her tongue to stop the nausea, and she went back to bed. But later she got up, dressed, and went out. She said she had a train to meet. She didn't come home, and we thought perhaps she'd met the train and stayed with the friend she was expecting. I thought she looked very upset to be meeting a friend, but we supposed it was someone from her women's group who had had bad news."

"And no messages came for her, no one stopped here looking for her?"

"There was the note, before she left. Brought round by messenger."

"Did she read it?" I asked, for the first time feeling that we were making progress.

"I don't know if she did or not, Miss. She put it in her purse because she was in something of a hurry."

And her purse had never been found.

I asked, remembering Serena Melton's lie, "Was she wearing any special jewelry when she left that day? A brooch, or a bracelet, a fine ring? Something that might tempt a desperate man to rob her?"

"Of late she hadn't worn much in the way of nice pieces of jewelry," Mrs. White answered. "I'd have noticed if she had."

We stayed another half hour, speaking to Mrs. White for a little longer, and then to Nan and another maid, and finally to Mrs. Hall, the cook, and the scullery maid who helped her. Mrs. Hall told us that if she hadn't known better, she'd have guessed Mrs. Evanson was in the family way, she'd been so ill in the night.

"But of course the cuts of meat the butcher's boy brings us these days, you never know whether they've turned or not."

"Was anyone else ill that night?" Michael asked her.

"No, sir. Just Mrs. Evanson."

No one could tell us who had been on that train. I'd have given much for a name, to hand over to the Yard.

Michael thanked them all for their care of their mistress and promised to see they were given good references when a decision was made about the house. I could see that they were grateful and relieved.

Outside, we found the day had turned from early sunshine to clouds that seemed to hang over the city and hold in the heat like a wet blanket; I was grateful for my motorcar rather than trying to find a cab.

"Take me back to the hotel," Michael said abruptly, in as dark a mood as the day.

I nodded, cranking the motorcar and driving us to the Marlborough. As the man at the door helped him to descend, Michael said, "Find a place to leave this thing, will you, and come in. I'll be in the lobby."

With some misgivings I did as he'd asked, and when I got there, he'd found a table in one corner of the lounge, quiet and private, and had already organized tea for us.

As I sat down, Michael said, his voice low and angry, "If she had to turn to someone, why not me?"

"You were in France," I pointed out.

"Yes. Damn the French and their war. We wouldn't have been drawn into it save for them."

I couldn't point out that it was the Belgians we had come into the fighting to save. He wasn't interested in logic, he was looking for somewhere to lay the blame.

"I don't think she really loved him-" I began, but he gave me such an angry look that I broke off.

"Do you think it makes me feel any better to know that she picked someone she didn't love to give her comfort?"

"I didn't mean it that way, Michael, and you know it. I think she was used-that she was vulnerable and unhappy, and whoever it was saw that and took advantage of it."

"Don't make excuses for her."

I stopped trying to talk to him and lifted the lid of the teapot. It had brewed long enough and I filled our cups.

I didn't really want tea, but it gave me something to do with my hands while he mourned for a love he'd never really had, except in his own heart.

After a time, I asked, "What would you have done, if she'd come to you, Michael? No, don't bite my head off. I'm trying to think this through."

He glared at me all the same, but after taking a deep breath, he said, "I'd have tried to comfort her. I'd have offered her a friendly shoulder to cry on and fought down whatever feelings I had, so that she wouldn't know. I'd have taken her somewhere quiet for dinner and talked to her, tried to make her see that she couldn't do anything about her problem except cry it out, then face it. And I'd have stood behind her, whatever it was, until she was all right again. She wouldn't have wound up in my bed. I wouldn't have done that to her or to Meriwether."

"But someone must have done. Perhaps not that first night. But on another. It's what must have happened. And she might not have foreseen where it was leading."

Or she might have seen it, and needed that reassurance that she was loved and wanted. Swept away on a tide of feeling that as soon as it passed would leave her hurt and ashamed and possibly pregnant.

I knew of three nursing sisters who after a very difficult time in France came home with nightmares and an emotional void that led them in the end to turn to someone to reaffirm that life went on. A love affair, a foolish liaison, and sometimes slashed wrists had been the outcome, and all three had returned to France chastened and quiet. There was often no real outlet for shattered nerves except the courage to see them through alone.

Michael was saying, "I still find it hard to believe. Not Marjorie."

"You've seen her differently, that's all. And part of it is what you wanted to find in her. Only Marjorie Evanson could really know Marjorie."

"I need a drink," he retorted. "Not this damned tea."

"No, you don't. Are you going to fail Marjorie as well? Did she disappoint your expectations, and so you're going to walk away angry and hurt because she wasn't as strong as you'd have liked her to be?"

"Damn you, you see things too clearly," he said, almost turning on me. But then he settled back in his chair. "You have a point. I'm no better than anyone else, am I? It's not Marjorie that I'm crying over right now, it's my own hurt."

"A very real hurt. But it won't help us to find out who killed her."

"No. But when we do find out, I'm not going to the police. They can have him when I've finished with him!"

I left Michael sitting there and walked out of the hotel. Coming down the steps, I looked up in time to see two men in quiet conversation on the pavement not ten feet from me. They shook hands, and the older man, the one facing me, touched his hat politely as he was about to enter the Marlborough. The other moved on. I had seen only his back, but I had a feeling I knew him.