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.'
We went into the small private ward, and looked down at the patient's wan face. I didn't think she'd be speaking to anybody for some time. She had lost quite a bit of blood, and the surgery had been stressful as well.
I studied her face. She was no longer the vigorous woman I'd seen only a day or so ago. Even with the bandages, she seemed to have shrunk into herself, thinner and somehow vulnerable. I felt a surge of pity. If she had been thrown into the river, as Marjorie Evanson had been, she wouldn't have survived at all.
Matron was saying, 'You'll observe that she was also struck on the head from behind. We saw that injury as we were pulling her hair back.' She gently turned Mrs. Calder's head and parted her heavy hair to show us the wound. 'I would say that she was knocked unconscious and then cold-bloodedly stabbed while she was unable to defend herself.'
'Then there's a chance she didn't see her attacker.' Inspector Herbert bent down for a closer look.
'True.' Matron eased the patient's head back onto the pillow and arranged her hair.
Inspector Herbert then turned to me. 'Any thoughts?'
'You were at her house? The servants' entrance is just below her door-down the stairs behind the railing and into a kitchen passage, I should think.' It was a common enough arrangement. 'If someone waited there, the cabbie wouldn't have seen him. But he'd have had to be quiet.'
'As the cabbie left, it might have covered the sound of his footsteps coming up,' Inspector Herbert agreed. 'I'll speak to one of my men; we'll see if another cab dropped off a passenger earlier. The question is, how did he know she was out? Or when she would return?'
'He may have been there earlier, and seen her leaving. And waited.'
He nodded. 'Whoever it was took a great risk. One cry and someone might have come to a window. Unless he persuaded her to walk into the square, then struck her from behind. That may be why she said the name Michael the way she did. As he came up the tradesmen's stairs, she must have been surprised and called out to him.'
Matron gestured to us, and we walked out of the ward together, closing the door behind us. Inspector Herbert asked that an extra chair be brought to him, and he sat down before the closed door. He pointedly bade me good night.
I left, having pushed my luck as far as I thought it ought to go.
I accompanied Matron back to the hall where Simon was waiting, my mind busy with the problem of why a dying woman had spoken Michael's name. I went over what she'd said to me when I called on her. I hadn't brought up Michael's name-and neither had she.
Simon took me to the Marlborough Hotel and commandeered a breakfast for the two of us. I sat there toying with my food, thinking about Mrs. Calder.
'It makes no sense,' I finally said aloud.
'It isn't supposed to. You aren't Inspector Herbert.'
I smiled. 'I don't think he's exactly happy with this turn of events either.'
'Eat your breakfast.'
I did as I was told. I wanted something from Simon and the easiest way to persuade him was to cooperate. At least the breakfast was better than the dinner the night before and I was hungry.
'How was your evening?' Simon asked, echoing my own thought.
'Captain Truscott is a very nice man. You needn't use that tone of voice.'
'What tone of voice?'
'The one that sounds disapproving and nosy.'
Simon laughed. 'Actually, I think you're probably right about Truscott.'
