Charles Todd - An Impartial Witness

Simon must have read my mind because he smiled grimly and said, "You had better sit over there. God forbid that we should not observe the proprieties."

I sat down on one side of the hearth and he took the chair on the other.

"Mrs. Calder?" I reminded him.

"She had gone to dine with friends. Mr. and Mrs. Murray put her into a cab at the end, and she went directly to her house. That's been established. But she didn't go in. The maid waiting up for her was drowsing in her chair, but she would have heard any disturbance on the doorstep."

"Then it was someone Mrs. Calder knew," I said. "She wouldn't have gone anywhere with a stranger, not after what happened to Marjorie Evanson." I tried to think. "Have the police found the cabbie?"

"They have, and he doesn't recall anyone walking along the street or standing in the shadows of a tree. But he's an old man, he might not have noticed. At any rate, she got down at Hamilton Place, paid the cabbie, and the last he saw of her, she was walking toward her door. An hour later, a constable walking through Hamilton Place heard something in the square, and alert man that he is, went to investigate. He discovered Mrs. Calder lying in a stand of shrubbery, stabbed and bleeding heavily. She's in hospital now and undergoing surgery. No one has been able to question her. But she wasn't robbed or interfered with in any way. Because of the unsolved attack on Mrs. Evanson, someone, probably the Metropolitan police, thought to bring in Inspector Herbert."

"Oh, dear." I put my hands up to my face, pressing them against the flesh, trying to absorb everything Simon was telling me. And then I realized that it was Simon telling me. Letting my hands fall I said, "How is it that you know all this?"

"Inspector Herbert put in a call to Somerset-he must have thought you were going directly home, but he was taking no chances. You father called me at my club. I came directly here." He paused. "Bess. How much did this Mrs. Calder know about Marjorie Evanson's love affair? Did she know the name of the man?"

"She told me she didn't-" But Serena Melton believed Mrs. Calder knew more than she wished to tell even the police. That she found her cousin Marjorie's behavior distasteful and was trying to distance herself from it. "Serena Melton believes she does. And if that's true, someone else could as well." Michael Hart had not suggested we talk to Helen Calder. The thought rose like a black shadow in my mind. Had he believed that if Helen knew the name of the man Marjorie had been seeing, it was possible that she also knew Marjorie intended to meet him that evening?

I pushed the thought away. There could be a little jealousy there, because Helen really was a cousin, and Michael was not. But the thought lingered.

Simon was saying, "The police can't be certain that her attack is related to Mrs. Evanson's death, but they're treating it as likely."

"She must know who it was. She isn't the kind of woman who would take risks. Is she-will she survive?" With critical stabbing wounds, infection was often the deciding factor in living or dying.

Simon shook his head. "It's touch and go, I should think. My first responsibility was to look in on you. To see if you'd also been lured out into the night. Mrs. Hennessey couldn't stop a determined killer."

He was right. If someone knew just what to say-that my mother had suddenly taken ill or something had happened to Simon or my father-I'd go with them. Especially if I thought Mrs. Hennessey had allowed them in this emergency to come directly to my door. It would never occur to me that she was already dead. What, then, had someone said to Mrs. Calder that made her turn away from her door and follow him-or her?

"I'm wide awake," I said. "It's no use going back to bed. Do you think, if we went to the hospital, Matron might tell me about the surgery and what the prognosis is for Helen Calder?"

"It's worth trying."

I left him there in the sitting room and went up to dress. I decided to wear my uniform, though I sighed when I put on the nicely starched cuffs and apron that I'd ironed only hours ago.

Simon drove me to St. Martin's Hospital, where we made our way to the surgical wards. But Mrs. Calder was still in surgery, I was told, and not expected to be brought into the ward until she was stable.

I asked where she had been stabbed, but the sister I spoke with shook her head. "I haven't seen her file. Only that I'm to expect a female patient with repairs of severe knife wounds."

Frustrated, I went to where Simon was sitting in the room in which families awaited news, and said, "She isn't out of surgery yet. It could be some time."

"It was worth a try," he said. "I'll take you home and we'll come again in a few hours."

I was agreeable to that, but we met Inspector Herbert as we walked down the passage. He'd been in the small staff canteen helping himself to a cup of tea. He looked tired.

Surprised to see us there, he said to me, "You're in uniform."

"Indeed."

"I hope you weren't thinking of interviewing Mrs. Calder before the police spoke to her." He smiled, but it was also a warning.

"I was worried. I met her for the first time only a few days ago."

"Did you indeed?" He gave me his undivided attention. "And what did she have to say to you?"

"She couldn't give me the name of the man Mrs. Evanson had been seeing, but she'd been concerned for some time about what she believed to be a developing affair. And she was under the impression that Mrs. Evanson had broken it off several months before her death. Well before she could have known she was pregnant. But I didn't say that to Mrs. Calder."

I went on to tell him what little I knew.

Inspector Herbert nodded. "This time her purse wasn't taken, and so we had her identity at once. Then when the police went to inform her family, her mother said, 'Dear God, first Marjorie and now Helen.' That was when we made a connection between the two women, and I put in a call to Somerset." He looked down at the hat he was turning in his hands. "I must say, I never expected a second murder." He looked up again, and after a brief hesitation, he added, "The constable who found her said that she was barely conscious when he bent over her, but she spoke someone's name. Her voice lifted at the end, as if she were posing a question. 'Michael?' she said."

"Michael-" I repeated before I could stop myself. "Er-what is her husband's name?"

"Alan."

"Oh."

"Oh, indeed."

I said, "If you're thinking that Michael Hart did this, you're mistaken. He couldn't, given his injuries. Ask his doctor." I tried to remember. "A Dr. Higgins." He'd given Michael permission to accompany me to London; he must know the case well enough to make such a judgment.

"I'll be speaking to his physician," he assured me. "But for all we know, he could be malingering."

I thought about the pain I'd read in Michael's eyes, the struggle with the sedatives. The whispers that he was addicted to them. But I didn't bring these matters up. My testimony would be considered biased.

"It will be hours before Mrs. Calder is awake," I told him. "If she's still in surgery now. We might as well all go back to bed."

But he shook his head. "That isn't what the Yard pays me to do. I'll be there the instant she opens her eyes."

Just then Matron came down the passage, calling to Inspector Herbert. "Mrs. Calder is being taken to a private room. She isn't awake and won't be for some time," she said, echoing what I'd just been telling him myself. "But you may go in and see her, if you wish."

He turned to accompany her. I gave Simon a swift glance and followed in Inspector Herbert's wake.

Matron was saying, "The damage is considerable, but we'll know more tomorrow. Whoever her attacker was, he stabbed her twice. She was wearing a corset, and luckily the staves deflected his knife. There is a laceration along her ribs, the bone scraped, cartilage torn, but the blade didn't reach her lung. Then he stabbed her in the stomach, and nearly succeeded in killing her."