Charles Todd - An Impartial Witness

"Hardly the shrubbery. If I'm not mistaken, those are a stand of lilac. What is it you want, Miss Garrison? To gloat?"

"Well, you won't be marrying Michael Hart. I've seen to that."

I stood there stock-still, feeling my jaw drop. I snapped it shut and tried to think of something to say that wouldn't tell her how angry I was.

"Do you mean you were so willing to drive Michael to London because you thought he might be falling in love with me?"

"He wanted to go. I accommodated him. I didn't stab poor Helen, and he did."

"You don't believe that."

Something flickered in her eyes. "How do you know what I feel?" she demanded in a different tone of voice. "How dare you even suggest you know me?"

"You just suggested that you knew me well enough to believe I was in love with Michael Hart and he with me. Well, let me disabuse you of that notion. What drew the two of us together was your sister's murder. Nothing more, nothing less. I liked Michael, I still like him. But if he were freed tomorrow, I wouldn't marry him. I'm not in love with him and never will be."

"Alicia said-" She stopped.

Ah, the power of gossip! And the damage it can do.

"Alicia has been matchmaking. She's a happily married woman, and she wants everyone to be just as happy, because it's all she can cling to with Gareth at the Front. I'm sorry if I've disappointed you."

I got behind the wheel, and she came to stand by my door, pinning me there. "I don't believe you."

"Perhaps that's because you were in love yourself not long ago. And like Alicia, expect that everyone else is looking for someone to care about."

For an instant I thought she was going to step closer and slap me. I could see her hands clenching at her side. A mixture of emotions passed across her face, anger and something else that was barely controlled. I'd wondered if she could kill. And now I knew she could. I drew back a little, but she leaned toward me. After looking around to be sure no one was near, she said through clenched teeth, "Have you ever seen someone die on a gallows? That handsome face will be black and swollen, hardly recognizable, and I hope that's what you see in your dreams for the rest of your life!"

I caught my breath.

Meriwether Evanson had called Victoria evil. And now I knew he was right.

What she had done to her mother and father, to her sister, what she had hoped to do to Michael, and what she had just said to me, spoke of a deep-seated streak of cruelty.

Driving away before she could change her mind and do something rash, I was glad to see the last of Little Sefton.

I was halfway to London before I was calm enough to go over again what I'd said to Victoria Garrison. I'd been angry, and yes, a little frightened by her, so the words were lost at first. In the end, they came back to me. What I'd said hadn't angered her-it was the fact that I knew something she wanted to hide.

If Victoria had had a romantic fling in the winter, it hadn't survived. I couldn't help but wonder if he, whoever he was, had thrown her over for someone else. Married or not.

I turned the bonnet of my motorcar toward London, and when I got there, I went directly to the flat. It seemed a haven, just now. It was late afternoon, and Mrs. Hennessey was out.

I climbed the stairs with a heavy heart, and reached for the latch of our door, but it opened under my hand. Someone was here.

I walked into the flat, and Mary glanced up from the letter she was writing. After one look at me she frowned.

"Have you lost your last friend, or your last penny?" she demanded, and capped her pen before setting it aside and moving into what we euphemistically called our kitchen, to make a pot of tea.

"I'm in low spirits," I admitted. "I've just been very rude to someone who was rude to me first. And I'm trying to save a good friend from hanging, and I am in the early stages of panic, because he goes to the gallows next week."

She looked up from measuring the tea and said, "Who's going to the gallows next week? Anyone I know?"

"Michael Hart. He was convicted of the murder of Serena Melton's brother's wife. Marjorie Evanson. And of attacking a distant cousin of Marjorie's, with the intent to kill."

"You do have an unusual range of friends, Bess," she retorted. "I hope you're saying he's innocent?"

"God knows. The evidence against him was strong, but the feeling was, he could very well be acquitted. He had a very good barrister-Mr. Forbes for the defense-who was certainly sanguine about his chances. And then to everyone's amazement and shock, he changed his plea to guilty in the first minutes of the trial."

"Ah. I remember now. He's extraordinarily handsome. I saw his photograph in some broadsheet or other."

"No doubt. They thought it was going to be a notorious, scandalous trial, and instead he disappointed everyone."

Mary brought the tea to the table, and set out the cups. "Drink this, and then tell me everything from the beginning."

"You know a part of it-"

"Doesn't matter. Start at the start. I won't be able to see any solution if I don't know it all."

I didn't like telling Mary all about the Garrisons and the Harts and the Meltons. She knew Serena, after all. But Mary is the soul of discretion, and what I said to her would be treated like the confidence it was.

The afternoon had faded into early dusk by the time I'd finished, and the teapot was empty, the biscuits she'd found in the cupboard, hard and stale as they were, had been finished as well. There's something about eating a sweet that raises the spirits.

I sat back, tired by the tale and tired from the emotions of the day and the long drive. "Well. There you have it."

She picked up the cups and the teapot to do the washing up, and it was while she was working that she said, "I hesitate to tell you this, Bess, but you're right. The evidence is very strong against your Lieutenant Hart."

"He isn't mine," I said testily, "although everyone is busy insisting that he is."

"All the same."

"Yes, I know. But there's just enough doubt…" My voice trailed away. Then I said, "But why do I have this sense of failure? I'm a fairly good judge of character, Mary. How could I be so wrong about the man?"

"I expect the reason is that you don't believe strongly in his motive. That he killed Marjorie Evanson because she was seeing someone else. But he knew her husband, and it seems to me that a decent man wouldn't kill a married woman because she'd been dithering with someone else instead of him. He was more likely to lecture her on her behavior and make certain that the man was out of her life altogether. Simon would have done that, wouldn't he? If you stood in Marjorie's shoes? Well, you aren't married of course, but you know what I mean."

It was typically convoluted-Mary was good at convoluting-but she was also very sensible and practical. It was what made her an excellent nurse.

"I do see." I was already feeling better. "And even if he went to Helen Calder's house, I can't understand why he would have a reason to kill her. But that's the problem, she can remember that he was coming, but not why, or if he was the one who stabbed her."

"Who knew he was going to her house?"

"His aunt and uncle. Unless of course Victoria was suspicious and followed him."

"Who would Victoria tell?" Mary asked. "If she saw him at the Calder house and was angry enough to do a mischief?"

"I-I'm not sure," I said slowly. "Why would she tell anyone?"

"You said there was speculation that she'd been seeing someone in London. A man. What if he was the same man who killed Marjorie?"

"That makes no sense."

"It would do, if she has made a practice of spoiling Marjorie's chances."

"But he wasn't the one who got Marjorie pregnant."

"You can't be sure of that."