him, but he told me to stay there, he wouldn't be gone very long. When he hadn't returned by intermission, I went to look for him. I missed a part of the play searching. The doorman told me he thought he'd seen the lieutenant leave the theater. I couldn't think where he might have gone. I went back to my seat, and toward the end of the last act, he was there, looking as white as I'd ever seen him, his hands shaking. I drove him home, and he had very little to say for himself. I was very angry with him; I thought him selfish, to ask to come and then to ruin my evening.'
'Did he tell you where he'd been?'
'He said he'd walked until he was too exhausted to walk any longer. He found a cab and was driven back to the theater.'
'Did you believe him?'
'I didn't know whether to believe him or not. I wondered if he'd had no interest in the play after all, and had only used me to bring him to town.'
'Could the people who had the seats nearest you swear that you were alone until the end of the play?'
She was angry then. 'Are you suggesting that I wasn't there either?'
I hadn't been, I'd just wondered if she'd been lying, but she was furious and said, 'You won't get him off, you know. However much you try. I tell you, I was lucky that he didn't decide to kill me on the way home. I didn't know then that he was a murderer.'
'But I don't understand why you should think he would harm Marjorie. Or had any reason at all to attack Helen Calder. If he couldn't bear to sit still, he might well have tried to walk instead.'
There was silence for a moment, and then she said, 'There was a dark smear on his sleeve. I pointed it out to him, and he said he'd stopped for a glass of wine and spilled some of it, then tried to wash it out with cold water. The sleeve was still damp; it must have been true.'
I couldn't decide if she was telling the truth about that. Her voice seemed a little different, somehow. Or had I imagined it? 'That still doesn't explain-'
'The next day, a friend telephoned to tell me about Helen Calder. She knew that Helen was a connection on my mother's side. She lives across the square, she'd watched the police come and go from the garden, and she'd sent her husband to find out what had happened. He told her that Helen Calder had been the victim of a knifing, and he thought she must be dead. But his wife had seen an ambulance come and then leave. I expect she hoped that I might know more about the attack. She said Helen Calder's assailant hadn't been found.'
'I still don't see the connection with Michael Hart,' I pressed.
'My friend-Mrs. Daly-told me she herself had seen a young officer with his arm in a sling come to Helen Calder's door, earlier in the evening. He spoke to the maid, then left to sit in the garden for a time before walking away.'
My heart sank. Whether that maid knew Michael by name didn't matter, her description of the caller would be enough. That, coupled with Victoria's statement about the stained sleeve, would be telling evidence.
'Do you really believe he killed Marjorie?' I asked, as soon as I could collect my thoughts.
'Oh, yes. Once the police asked me if I was aware that he was in London on that same day, I knew it must be so. Someone got her pregnant, did you know that? The police told me she was pregnant when she died. If Michael had found that out, I think he would have killed her out of sheer jealousy. I was convinced from the start that she must have written to him in France and confided in him that she'd had an affair. She always had confided in him, why shouldn't she turn to him now? I kept after him to tell me if he knew the name of the man she'd been seeing, and he swore he didn't. I was starting to believe him. Did you know he hadn't even told his aunt and uncle that he was in London that night? But he must have told Marjorie. He'd found a way to get leave and confront her.'
Her voice changed again, and I wished I could see her face. 'He never got over her marriage, did you know that? He always thought she'd marry him. I remember him at the wedding, looking as if he'd like to snatch the bride up and ride off with her across his saddle bow.'
That made a dreadful sense. After the man at the station, Raymond Melton, walked away from her, Marjorie would very likely have turned to Michael.
'But why should he kill Helen Calder?'
'How should I know? Perhaps he's still trying to find out Marjorie's lover's name. For all I know, Michael intended to kill him next.'
But Helen hadn't known who the man was. At least she told me she didn't.
'Someone shot at Michael. Perhaps it was the same person who killed Marjorie and tried to kill Mrs. Calder.'
'You are pathetic,' she said. 'Don't you know what that was about? I knew, the minute I heard about it. Michael was trying to kill himself. And he failed. He couldn't quite bring himself to do it. So he invented someone shooting from the bushes, to spare his aunt and uncle the truth. Someone was bound to have heard the shots.'
I felt ill, unable to think of anything to say. I hadn't considered suicide.
Victoria interpreted the silence and laughed. 'It's rather shocking, isn't it, to realize he's in love with a dead woman. He hasn't let her go. But you're like all the rest, that's why you came to his defense when the police wanted to take him away. Even dead, Marjorie still has him in thrall.'
There was a sudden break in her voice, and I realized that she was talking about her own sense of loss, not mine.
And then before I could answer, she added harshly, her voice hardly recognizable, 'They won't hang him, you know, until that shoulder is fully healed. But hang him they will. Mark my words. And it will be my testimony that will put the noose around his neck.'
There was a click at the other end of the line. Victoria had hung up before she gave herself away.
I stood there for a moment, the receiver still in my hand, then put it up.
Victoria was angry, vindictive. But Michael had sealed his own fate when he lifted the knocker on Helen Calder's door. If the maid knew him by sight or could identify him, the police had all the evidence they wanted.
For a fleeting moment I wondered if Victoria had tricked Michael, and while he was walking off the pain in his shoulder, she had taken advantage of his absence to kill Mrs. Calder herself. From the start I'd been surprised to hear that Michael and Victoria had gone anywhere together, much less London. Why had he asked? Why had she agreed?
Could Victoria stab two women?
I could have asked Michael-but he was beyond reach.
Feeling closed in, I went out into the gardens, thinking to refresh the vases we'd arranged for the dinner party.
Now that he had Michael in custody, would Inspector Herbert still summon Raymond Melton to England to make a statement? Or would that be left to the KC who was preparing the prosecution? I wanted to hear just what had been said at that meeting in the railway station. If Captain Melton had made promises, he had given them grudgingly, and they had provided no comfort. Marjorie deserved better.
I was ready to go back to France, but I wanted very badly to be here when Helen Calder regained her senses. And time was running out.
My father met me as I came through the garden doors into the passage.
'Hallo.' He took one look at me. 'I've seen Pathan warriors with happier faces. Care to talk about it?'
I smiled. 'I just had a conversation with Victoria Garrison. She could probably hold the Khyber Pass single- handedly with a fork.' As he laughed, I went on, 'I've been trying to decide if Lieutenant Hart is the sort of man to want to kill himself.'
'Do you mean before his trial?'
'No, earlier. According to Victoria, no one fired at him as he walked in the garden. The only reason I can think of for a suicide attempt is guilt. And why two shots?'
'It's hard to miss with a revolver if you're serious about using it.' He led me to his sanctuary, the study full of trophies from his years in the Army, and offered me the chair across from his. 'Especially twice. Unless one intends to miss. In which case, it's a cry for help.'
'If it was a cry for help, he covered it up very well indeed.' I stared into the golden glass eyes of a Bengal
