to put it to the floor yet.'
Changing the subject he said, 'I don't know what's happening, Mrs. White. I know Marjorie is dead, that she was murdered. Victoria hardly speaks to me, and she won't tell me what progress the police are making. This is the first time I've been able to come up to London. I want to find out anything I can that will help.'
'There was an inquest, sir. I was there, and horrible hearing it was. Mrs. Evanson's death was put down to person or persons unknown and left open for the police to pursue their inquiries. But I don't think they have any. They came here after her poor body was found and searched the house for evidence, but I don't know what they was hoping to find. And then the solicitor, Mr. Blake, came to look for her will, and he left empty-handed as well. I told him she'd been speaking of changing it, but I doubted anything had come of it. He knew nothing about that. The police came again, asking us more questions about her state of mind, who might have called at the house, who she might have gone out to meet. I gave him the best answers I could, but I really didn't know much. She wasn't herself these past months.'
'How so?'
'She had one of her meetings here. Of the ladies with husbands who fly those aircraft-February, I believe it was. And it upset her. They talked about such terrible things, Mr. Michael. I heard them discussing how burned flesh feels when you touch it, and what it's like to lose fingers or toes to fire, and the like. One of the women arrived in tears, and I think her husband had just been reported dead. Burned alive in his Sopwith.'
I felt a shudder, remembering the pilot of the Albatross going down in flames. As angry and frightened as I'd been at the time, he too had a family somewhere grieving for him.
Before Michael could ask another question, Mrs. White was saying earnestly, 'Mrs. Evanson cried herself to sleep that night. I could see how red her eyes were the next morning. She went out in late afternoon, and although she'd told me she'd be at home for dinner and there would be no guests, she didn't come in until close on to ten o'clock and that wasn't like her to stay out with no word. But I smelled cigarette smoke on her coat as I put it away and helped her get herself into bed. And she didn't tell me anything. Usually it was, 'Oh, I ran into such and such a one, and we decided to have dinner together.' And tell me what she'd had to eat, and how dreary the menu was or how bad the service, or how kind the waiter had been when she couldn't even cut her meat with a knife, it was so tough-she was lonely, she missed the lieutenant something fierce, and I was there to listen if I could. But it all stopped that night. I thought she must have been angry with me.'
A woman beginning an affair? Or one caught up in an emotional tangle, and turning to the first sympathetic ear. And then having to be secretive, unable to speak freely, and so falling back on silence.
That gave me an interesting time frame. February. Her husband was in France, just joining a new squadron, his first and last crashes in the future. I'd been told that Lieutenant Evanson was a very good pilot, with quick reflexes, an understanding of the machines he flew, and the good sense to know when to fight and when to run. Most of the young, green pilots joining a squadron had to be restrained from trying to be heroes before they had even learned the rules of engagement with the very well-trained German fliers. And often they died in their first encounters with the enemy, too easily tricked into doing something rash that exposed them to a sure shot. The Germans liked to hunt in packs, lurking where they couldn't be seen, but ready to come in for the kill when the opportunity arose.
Michael was asking if any of the other staff had found Mrs. Evanson more willing to talk about her days and evenings.
'Nan-you remember her, sir, she's from Little Sefton, Mrs. Evanson brought her to London with her-she remarked to me that Mrs. Evanson was quieter, and later she told me she thought she was worried. That she cried in the night. We put that down to the lieutenant's first crash. But he walked away from that one. Still, it must have frightened her to know how close he came to dying then.'
'Did she bring any strangers to the house? That's to say, women or men you didn't recognize? Someone she hadn't known before Merry went to France?'
'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
