Charles Todd - An Impartial Witness

I had already taken a half dozen steps in the opposite direction when I realized that the other man must be Jack Melton.

I turned and went after him, calling to him. A very forward thing to do-my mother would have been appalled-but I wanted very badly to speak to him.

He swung around, frowned at me, and then said, "Miss Crawford," in a very cool tone of voice as he removed his hat and stood waiting impatiently for me to explain myself.

"I'm so sorry," I said, lying through my teeth-I was no such thing. "Do you have a moment?"

"I'm late for a meeting-but yes, I have a moment."

It would have been better to return to the hotel, but Michael Hart might well still be in the lounge just off Reception.

I said rather too quickly, "I made no mention of it when I was a guest in your home. I thought it out of place to bring it up so publicly. But I think you should know that I saw your sister-in-law, Marjorie Evanson, the evening she was killed. Perhaps this will help you narrow the search before your wife-" I broke off.

His face lost all expression, smoothing into flat planes of light and shadow without any emotion. "Indeed. The police never said anything to me about this. You were with her…?" He left it there, waiting.

"No, I saw her. I'd just come in on the train from Hampshire. She was standing directly in my path." I hesitated. "She was crying. Terribly upset. I couldn't help but notice. And there was a man with her. He boarded the train, and she walked away alone. I lost her in the rain and the crowds. I never saw her again."

"How could you possibly have recognized Mrs. Evanson?" His voice was cold, now, and very hard. "What is it you want, young woman? Is this an attempt at blackmail?"

I was so angry I stared at him, speechless. Then I found my voice. "Commander Melton," I said in the tones of a ward sister dealing with an unruly patient, "I didn't wish to distress Mrs. Melton while I was at Melton Hall, but I nursed Lieutenant Evanson in France and had just accompanied him and other patients to Laurel House the day Mrs. Evanson was killed. Your sister-in-law's photograph was with him day and night. I'd also seen it not half an hour before taking the train to London. I couldn't possibly have mistaken his wife's face, even in such distress."

He had the grace to look ashamed. "I'm-sorry. This has been a terrible business, and my wife is still grieving for her brother. We have both been under considerable strain-" He broke off, aware he was running on. Then he asked, tightly, "Did you also recognize the man with her? Please tell me who he was."

"I'm afraid not. He was an officer in the Wiltshire Fusiliers, and I have a good memory for faces. I believe I'd know him if I saw him again."

He digested that. "And have you spoken to the police?"

"Of course. And I told them what I'd believed at the time, that she was distraught enough to have done herself a harm. Instead she was murdered. I can't help but wonder why she was in such great distress."

"Surely that was obvious. She was saying good-bye to her lover. Who else could it have been?" There was contempt in his voice.

"I don't know," I told him. "We've all assumed…" I realized then that there could be another reason for the officer's coldness. "Perhaps he was sent to offer her promises, or, more likely, considering her distress, to tell her she couldn't rely on the other man. Rather cowardly of him, if that's true, to send an emissary. And what sort of man would be willing to take on such an onerous duty, even for a friend?"

"I liked Marjorie," he admitted after a moment. "If she had turned to me, I'd have quietly found a way to help her, even though I disapproved of what she'd done. But she didn't. I've had to watch my wife suffer through the shock of her death and then Meriwether's death. Just now I find it hard to feel any sympathy for Marjorie's despair."

"Whatever happened on that railway platform, that person bears some responsibility for Marjorie's death. If it hadn't been for him, she'd have been at home, out of danger." My voice trailed off as I looked up at the entrance to the Marlborough at that moment. Michael Hart was standing there glaring at me. He couldn't have overheard what I'd been saying. Not at the distance between us. Could he?

Jack Melton followed my gaze in time to see Michael Hart turning away, walking stiffly back into the hotel.

Serena's husband looked from his departing back to my face, then he said sharply, "If you want to know who Marjorie could have turned to, there's your man." And he started to walk away.

"He was in France," I said, stopping Mr. Melton with an outstretched hand. "Out of reach. Who else-?"

"Was he? Out of reach?" Melton asked. "I would have sworn he was in England."

And he was gone, leaving me there in the middle of the pavement, in the path of those passing by.

By the time I'd collected myself and gone back up the hotel steps and into the lounge, there was no sign of Michael Hart. I asked Reception to page him for me, and then to send someone to his room.

But he was nowhere to be found.

At the flat, Mary was washing up the last of the dishes. I went to my room, murmuring something about letters to finish, and instead sat by the window thinking about what Jack Melton had just said about Lieutenant Hart.

Truth? Or lies?

But why should he lie?

I'd seen the fleeting expression in his eyes when he recognized Michael Hart at the top of the hotel's steps. Antipathy, certainly. Anger as well. But was the anger directed at Michael or what Jack and I'd been discussing?

Impossible to know the answer. Still, I'd made a mistake talking to him about Marjorie. But I'd heard his attempts to rein in Serena's vehement emotions, and I'd believed we might discuss Marjorie Evanson's last hours and look for something, anything, that could lead us to the truth.

I remember my mother telling me as a child, "Bess, my dear, you can't always expect others to see things as clearly as you do." I didn't always remember that lesson.

I'd failed to take into account that the man was also a husband.

But I'd learned something in the encounter with Jack Melton. Marjorie must have met that train with high hopes that she could share the burden she was carrying. And she walked out of the railway station knowing that there was no help in that direction, whether the officer she'd met was her lover or someone she thought she could trust.

What's more, her husband had just returned to England, and she must have felt the pressure of time catching up with her. She might not have known the exact date, but she would have known from Meriwether's letters that it would be soon.

And if she was three months' pregnant, it would be increasingly difficult to hide the fact. Something had to be done. Was she considering ridding herself of the child? Finding a place for it with another family? But that would mean leaving her husband for six months while she hid herself away somewhere. And it would very likely destroy her marriage. Did she expect the father of her child to marry her if she were divorced by her own husband? Did she love him at all?

Impossible to know. But that rejection as the train pulled out most certainly sharpened her need to find help somewhere.

But if she had known that Michael was in London…

I caught up my hat and purse and with barely a word of explanation to Mary, went down to my motorcar.

Marjorie's housekeeper wasn't happy to see me again. It struck me that she thought I was meddling, behind Michael's back. "We've told Lieutenant Hart all we could," she began.

"Yes, of course you did," I answered quickly, before she could shut the door in my face. "He forgot to ask if you could give him the names of one or two of her closest friends? I've come alone because he needed to rest."