abandoned all hope of saving some poor soul?'
I laughed. 'Sorry. I'm between causes at the moment.'
'That's rare,' he said, his suspicions aroused, but he said nothing more, changing the subject with the ease of long practice.
We were just going up to bed when our village constable bicycled to the house and asked to speak to me.
I went to the sitting room, where he'd been shown, and my father accompanied me.
Constable Boynton greeted me and said, 'There's been word from Inspector Herbert at Scotland Yard, Miss Crawford. Someone took a shot at Lieutenant Michael Hart in Little Sefton an hour and a half ago.'
'Michael?' I exclaimed, bracing myself for bad news. 'Is he all right?'
'He's unharmed. In fact, he reported the incident himself. He was walking in the garden. No one heard the shot, no one saw the shooting. Inspector Herbert wishes to know if you could put a name to his assailant.'
My first thought was Serena Melton. I wouldn't have put it past her to shoot-and miss-with the weapon that wasn't in the gun cabinet where it belonged. But I'd seen her onto the train. No, I'd dropped her at the station, I corrected myself. I had no idea which train she'd taken.
On the other hand I could see that Michael Hart could easily have invented the entire incident to take himself off the Yard's suspect list. And mine.
'Please tell Inspector Herbert I can't help him in this matter. I wasn't there, and I don't know who could have tried to shoot the lieutenant. I'm sorry. But if I learn anything more, I'll be in touch.'
'Thank you, Miss. And my apologies to Mrs. Crawford for disturbing you so late,' Constable Boynton said, and took his leave.
As the door closed behind him, my father said, 'You're making a habit of being consulted by an inspector at Scotland Yard these days?'
'Not really consulted,' I said, trying to make light of what had just happened. 'I was there, in Little Sefton, only a few hours ago.' But how had Inspector Herbert known that?
The constable in Little Sefton must have remembered my motorcar and reported that I'd just brought Lieutenant Hart home from London. The fact that Inspector Herbert knew such details indicated all too clearly his interest in Michael.
Which told me that the murderer from Oxford hadn't proved to be the Yard's man. In spite of what the Yard had told Serena Melton.
'Indeed,' my father was saying thoughtfully. 'I don't believe you were telling the whole truth when you refused to help Constable Boynton.'
The Colonel Sahib knew me too well. 'I didn't refuse. I just didn't want to make false accusations,' I answered him. 'Not when I had no real proof to support them.'
'Very commendable. And is there any remote possibility that we shall be in danger in our own garden?'
'If in fact someone actually shot at Lieutenant Hart, it would have been a very personal matter. And not one that I'm likely to be involved with.'
'I'm delighted to hear it. Perhaps I should have a word with this Inspector Herbert. I don't care to see you dragged into inquiries.'
'I wasn't dragged into anything. I happened to be a witness to two people having a conversation in a railway station. I knew one of them but not the other. And the one I knew was later murdered. But hours later, long after I was sound asleep in my flat. The trouble is, the other person, the one I didn't recognize, could probably give the police a great deal more information-that is, if he could be found. He's been conspicuous by his absence.'
There. It was out in the open. The whole story. Mostly.
'And Michael Hart is involved? How?'
'He'd known the dead woman for many years.'
'But he's not a suspect.'
I hesitated a heartbeat too long in answering that.
My father gave me a straight look but said no more. He held the sitting room door open for me. Simon had gone, and my mother was waiting to speak to my father after I went up the stairs. I knew very well she'd have the story of Constable Boynton's intrusion before they followed me up to bed.
I couldn't sleep. I dressed, then went quietly down the stairs and out the door, looking up at the wet night, the trees softly dripping rain, the sounds of night creatures loud in the stillness.
Simon, wearing rain gear, came up behind me as I started to walk along the stepping-stones that led around the house. I wasn't going farther than the little gazebo my father had put up in the garden there for my mother, but of course he had no way of guessing that.
He said, 'If you're thinking of going to Little Sefton tonight, I'll drive you.'
I shook my head. 'There's no point in it. I'd come no closer to the truth than the police have done. Did my father tell you what Constable Boynton wanted to speak to me about?'
'Of course,' he said, grinning. 'Your mother had it out of him as soon as you were out of the room. He walked down to see me afterward.'
'What did she have to say about the shooting?'
'As I recall, her exact words were, 'I wouldn't worry, if I were you, Richard. I think young Mr. Hart is looking for sympathy.''
Trust my mother to see into the heart of the matter.
I said, 'If he came to speak to you, what are you doing here? It's late.'
'I had a feeling you might decide to go to Hampshire.'
'This time you were wrong.'
I could see a flash of something in his eyes before he turned away. 'It occurred to me that Lieutenant Hart's death-if he'd been killed tonight-would bear a striking resemblance to Lieutenant Fordham's.'
I hadn't linked the two. Yet. But Simon was right, in time I would have.
I woke up the next morning with a headache. Rare for me, because I seldom had them. But I hadn't been able to sleep until close on four o'clock because my mind was trying to sort out the tangle of events.
A nurse is trained to observe. It's her duty to see what is happening to the patient in her charge-she's the eyes of the doctor on the case. Any changes must be noted, and she's expected to know what they represent: a sign of healing, of a worsening of the patient's condition, the onset of new symptoms, or a simple matter of indigestion. We're expected to know when to summon Matron or the doctor, and when to cope on our own.
Use that training, I told myself. Don't jump to conclusions.
There had to be some evidence somewhere.
Marjorie had spent five hours that were unaccounted for. She could very well have walked to the nearest hotel and used a telephone to reach someone. But that person hadn't come forward. She could have taken a cab to the house of a friend. But according to Helen Calder, she had been cut off from her friends-she had told Helen herself very little, for that matter, and then only in the early stages of the affair. She could have confided in a complete stranger in a tea shop, someone who would listen but not judge. That person hadn't come forward either. She couldn't have traveled very far between the time I saw her and when she was killed. Perhaps an hour in any direction, if she were meeting the person she'd telephoned. But no restaurant or other public place had contacted the police to say she had been seen.
Very likely she never left London.
And Michael was in Dr. McKinley's surgery. Marjorie knew that.
Had she walked the streets for a time, working up her courage to talk to an old friend? And then made her way to the surgery after hours, when the doctor was least likely to look in on his patient? She wouldn't have wished to arrive with her face blotched by tears.
I could see the police point of view there.
I wondered who had told them that Michael was in love with Marjorie? Otherwise, they would have interviewed him and moved on, since he had no apparent motive. Was it Victoria?
Of course police suspicions would have been aroused by the fact that he had said nothing about seeing her that night. Unless he swore she had never come there. Michael could hardly have stabbed her in the surgery. And if he disobeyed orders and left, he risked the doctor finding him gone.
