I was on the point of asking him who had told him, and then of course I remembered that he was Jack Melton's brother. Jack would have passed on the news. But had he realized when he did so that the man he was telling was Marjorie's lover? I wondered too who had initiated that telling of events. Had Raymond Melton asked? Or had Jack Melton volunteered? Perhaps a little of both. It was, after all, expected to be a sensational trial and indirectly the Meltons were involved through Serena and her own brother.
'The question is, have the police got the right man? I'm not very sure of that.' I kept my voice steady, interested but impersonal. 'I have to be impartial, and while I don't believe you could have killed her-after all, I saw you board that train-I can't help but think your evidence would be helpful. As mine was, for it told the police that she was alive at five forty-five that day.'
He showed no interest in what I was saying. And so I pressed a little harder.
'Haven't the police asked you to provide proof that you didn't leave the train at the next stop, and then find someone to drive you to Portsmouth so that you reached your transport just before it sailed?'
His head turned, and his eyes met mine. There was fire in their depths, shocking in so weak a man.
'Get out of here.'
'I should like your word that you never left the train. And then I will walk away, even though you've done nothing to help the woman you seduced and then left to deal with the aftermath on her own. I would have believed in her suicide that night. It's amazing that you never gave that possibility even a thought.'
'I never left the train. My word.'
We'd kept our voices low, in order not to disturb other patients or draw the attention of the ward sisters.
I sat there, looking into his eyes, trying to plumb their depths for truth.
'My word,' he repeated, and I had to believe him.
As I rose to walk away, I watched his face. Something stirred there, and I wondered what it was. Satisfaction?
Satisfaction that he'd managed to drive me away with only a portion of the truth?
I wondered how hard Michael Hart's counsel had tried to find this man and establish his alibi, even if the Crown had not. But then, I reminded myself, they might have done, and when it was shown he hadn't left his train, they had not felt it worthwhile to bring him back to England. There was no getting around the fact that Raymond Melton had been in France when Mrs. Calder was stabbed.
I thanked him and turned away as I'd promised, feeling deflated and uncertain. But then I went back to his bedside and said, 'Has anyone told you that Helen Calder was also attacked in the same fashion as Marjorie Evanson, and presumably by the same man? Or woman? The two stabbings so close together are most likely linked, because Mrs. Calder was a Garrison before her marriage, and a cousin of Marjorie Evanson's.'
He stared at me. 'I know Helen Calder,' he said, eyes wide now with disbelief. 'I was at Mons with her husband. Is she dead as well?'
'She ought to be. But she was found in time, in spite of loss of blood and emergency surgery to repair the damage done. There will be weeks of recovery ahead of her, but she's alive.'
He went on staring at me, trying to absorb what I'd said. Then he asked, 'Surely she was able to identify her attacker?'
'She has no memory of what happened. What little she recalls of the hours before she was stabbed point to the man the police took into custody. He's been tried, and will be hanged.'
I fought to keep my voice steady as I said the words.
Captain Melton closed his eyes and lay there, spent. Then he said, 'Poor devil, he must be out of his mind with worry.'
I understood that to mean Mrs. Calder's husband. I couldn't help but think that this man had shown more pity for a fellow officer than he had for the woman he'd used, if not loved.
I left then, walking swiftly down the center of the ward, and in the distance I could hear shouting, loud huzzahs, and assumed that the Prince had finally arrived. A piper began to play, the pipes wheezing and then settling into the melody. I'd always liked the pipes, and listened for a moment to what the man was playing. It was, I realized, 'God Save the King,' in honor of the Prince's father.
I slipped out a side door, in low spirits and not in the mood for a spectacle. For that's what it would be, and rightly so. Men needed to know that the royal family remembered their sacrifice. Reaching the ambulance, I discovered that the sister I'd given my list to had set several boxes in the rear, where the stretchers usually went. Grateful to her, I drove back to my own unit, and turned the boxes over to the nurse in charge of stores.
And then I went to my own quarters and sat there as darkness fell and the rains came again, turning mud to a treacherous slickness and breeding a miasma of odors that seemed to cling to the walls and my sheets and the very air I was breathing.
I could understand now why Inspector Herbert, far more experienced in such matters than I could possibly hope to be, had discounted finding Captain Melton. He had indeed taken the train to Portsmouth and boarded his ship as scheduled and landed in France at the required time. While it had been important to identify the man with Marjorie Evanson and the likely father of her child, the instant he'd stepped into his compartment on the train, his alibi was secure.
Then where was there any small, overlooked fact that would save Michael Hart?
Or was the right man going to hang at the time set for him to climb the stairs to the gallows?
Why was it that I couldn't be satisfied with what was looking more and more like the truth?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The next two and a half weeks were busy. I was coming to realize that this war was producing nothing but dead and wounded men. No glorious victories, no great advances into German-held territory.
There was talk that the Americans would be coming to France, but even so, it would be months before they could take the field and make a difference. By that time, it appeared that England and France would be bled dry.
I was too tired to do the arithmetic, but it seemed to me that for every yard of ground won or lost, the toll was enormous. If I, a nurse in the field, could see this happening, why did the men in staff positions, the men who made both the daily and the long-term decisions about fighting the enemy, not look at the casualty lists and find another way to win?
I was reminded of my great-grandmother at Waterloo. There the English squares held despite charge after charge by Napoleon's best troops. And at the end of the day, in spite of the slaughter, the squares still held, and Napoleon was forced to retreat. Not a very decisive victory, attrition at its worst. And without the backing of Blucher's men, arriving in the nick of time, the tide might have turned the other way. But at least the battle lasted only that one day. And by the next evening, my great-grandmother knew whether or not her husband still lived.
I was coming off duty when I encountered Dr. Hall just coming on. We smiled wearily at each other, and he asked, 'Do you sleep?'
'Not very well,' I answered truthfully.
He nodded. 'Nor I. Well. We do our best.'
'Yes, sir.'
'I've had word we're to be relieved in the next fortnight.'
This was news I hadn't heard. It revived me a little and I said, 'Another convoy home?'
'Very likely. Would you like to be listed as the transport nurse?'
'I would indeed.'
He nodded a second time. 'I'd heard that you had approached Matron about leave some time ago. Was it important? Or perhaps I should ask, is it still important?'
I told him the truth. 'An officer I know has been convicted of murder. I'd have liked to have been at his trial. Since then, I've not received any news of the date he's to die. Either that or no one wishes to tell me when it will be. I keep hoping for some fresh evidence to prove that he's not guilty. I'd like to see him a last time and hear what
