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.
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.
