After our meal, against his advice, I went to knock at the door of the Hart house.
A maid opened it and told me that Mr. and Mrs. Hart were receiving no visitors.
'Will you tell them that Elizabeth Crawford has called and would like to speak with them?'
She went away and after several minutes came back to say that the Harts would see me.
Surprised and grateful, I thanked her and was taken to the small sitting room with its comfortable furnishings and a lovely Turkey carpet.
I could see at once that Mrs. Hart's eyes were puffy and red from crying. Mr. Hart appeared to have aged in only a matter of weeks.
He said, as I was shown into the room and the maid had closed the door behind me, 'Miss Crawford,' and indicated a chair to one side of his own.
I answered at once. 'I can't express what I feel. I wasn't allowed leave to come home for the trial. I doubt if I could have made a difference if I had. But I wanted to try.'
Mrs. Hart said, 'Michael expressly forbade us to attend the trial. He told us that it would be distressing and hurtful, and he didn't want us to see that. He didn't want to sit there in the dock and watch our faces. Now I think he knew, even then, what he was intending to do, and that's why he asked us to stay away. And it was the most horrible shock when the rector came to tell us what had happened. I refused to believe it then, and I still do. But most of Little Sefton feels that we stayed away out of shame for what he's done. And to make it all even worse, he won't let us come to see him one last time. I'm unable to sleep, I can't-we had him from a little boy, and there's no meanness in Michael. I want him to know that we love him still and would do anything-anything!-to keep him with us.'
'My dear, you mustn't-' her husband began.
'Don't tell me not to cry! He was like my own child. How shall I go on, knowing what they've done to him?' She turned to me. 'You stood up for him, there in the street, when they came for him. I never said a word in his defense-I was so shocked, my tongue seemed as paralyzed as the rest of me. But you kept your wits about you and defended him. I will always be grateful for that, Miss Crawford. You will always be dear to me because you did what I couldn't.'
I took her hand. 'Let me tell you what I think. It may not ease your suffering, but it could explain what happened in that courtroom. Michael was informed while he was in prison that although his shoulder has healed, he won't regain the use of that arm. I don't know if that's true or not. There are trained people who are doing wonders with such wounds. I do know that he isn't the only solder to feel his life is over because he's lost the use of a limb or an eye. It isn't an easy truth to live with. I'd like to believe that he decided then to protect Marjorie's name and reputation by stopping the trial before it had begun. He's always loved Marjorie. It would be like him to see this as a noble gesture, a very good reason for dying and ending his own wretchedness.'
Mr. Hart stared at me. 'I-If I hadn't been so blinded by my own grief, I would have seen that for myself. It's possible. Very possible.' He smiled for the first time, although there were tears in his eyes. 'That foolish boy. But dear God, what are we to do?'
'I don't know,' I answered truthfully. 'But perhaps if we talk about the people who knew Marjorie best, we might find something that could help.'
'Victoria.' Mrs. Hart's voice was cold and angry. 'She tried to ruin Marjorie's life, and now she's ruined Michael's. Did you know, Miss Crawford, that she went to Meriwether Evanson shortly before the marriage, to tell him that Marjorie was very likely illegitimate? He showed her the door, and said that if she ever said as much to any other living soul, he and Marjorie would take her to court for defamation of character. I think she was a little afraid of him after that. He came to Michael afterward to ask what sort of person Victoria was. And Michael told him how she'd alienated Mr. Garrison and Marjorie, to the point that Marjorie went to live in London. Meriwether swore Michael to secrecy, and he never broke his word until a week before he was taken into custody. He wanted us to know what Meriwether had said-that Victoria was evil. To beware of her.'
'Then why did he let her drive him to London?'
'Because he was desperate to go there,' Mr. Hart replied, 'and I'm really not comfortable driving such distances now.' He put his hand to his heart as if in explanation. 'I asked him to wait a few days, that I'd find someone to take him. But he was impatient, he said there was something he had thought about, that he must ask Helen Calder, although he wasn't about to tell Victoria his real reason for speaking to her. Michael had been rereading Marjorie's letters to him, but he didn't have all of them. He believed Mrs. Calder might remember what he was searching for.'
I leaned forward. 'What was it he was hoping to ask her? I expect to see Mrs. Calder tomorrow. Perhaps I can ask her instead.'
'I wish I knew,' he replied. 'I didn't understand the urgency, you see, or I'd have risked the journey myself. I've regretted that bitterly. I would have been with him instead.' Michael's alibi, which Victoria couldn't-or wouldn't-give him.
'Could Victoria have been suspicious enough to follow him?' I asked. 'If she was jealous of Marjorie, she could have been jealous of Helen Calder as well. She might have jumped to the conclusion that he had used her to see Mrs. Calder.' But even as I said the words, I thought about Mrs. Calder's long, thin face. And she was a few years older. What was there to be jealous of?
But jealousy didn't always heed reason.
Small wonder Victoria was eager to testify at the trial. She would have enjoyed twisting the truth if it put Michael Hart in the worst possible light.
'Just how much did Victoria know about Marjorie's life in London?' I asked after a moment. 'Did she go up to London often, after her father's death?'
'If you want to know what I think,' Mrs. Hart said, 'she went to spy on her sister.'
'My dear,' her husband cautioned, 'we couldn't be sure where she was going when she left here.'
'Well, you saw her often enough at the station in Great Sefton. Where else could she have been going at that hour but to London? It isn't as if trains pass through Great Sefton as often as they do in Waterloo Station or Charing Cross! There are only two a day, the morning train to London and the evening train to Portsmouth.'
'She was fond of the theater and the symphony,' her husband reminded her. 'And Mrs. Toller mentioned that Victoria volunteered there, arranging programs for the wounded. I've told you before.'
'Yes, that's all well and good. It doesn't convince me she wasn't spying on Marjorie.'
I said, 'Perhaps there was a man, someone she cared about.'
But they would have none of that. Not Victoria, they said. They weren't even certain she'd cared for Michael, except for the fact that he belonged to Marjorie.
'She wanted him because she couldn't have him,' Mrs. Hart declared. 'And what she can't have, she despises.'
I tried to pin Mr. and Mrs. Hart down to precise dates when they'd seen Victoria in Great Sefton, but too much time had passed.
When I left the Harts, I wondered if Michael had weighed the grief his decision had inflicted on them. Protecting the dead was admirable, but the living counted too.
From there, I went to call on Alicia.
Her face was cool when she answered the door.
I said quickly, before she could shut it again, 'Please. I'm so sorry that I made you angry on my last visit. It was wrong of me to exclude you when I spoke to the rector's cook. I thought I was being wise, and I was only being selfish.' I stopped, seeing no softening in her expression. 'I've only just come back from France. I couldn't get leave for Michael's trial. And he's to be hanged next week.' I wanted her to know that I hadn't been in England since the day of our quarrel.
'I was shocked by your behavior when he was taken into custody. To argue with the constable and that man from Scotland Yard on a public street was unseemly. It embarrassed me. After all, I'd introduced you to everyone here.'
I didn't think that had bothered her as much as my interviewing the rector's cook on my own. But I said, 'It was the only chance I had to speak up. I had to stand up for what I believed to be true at the time.'
'And he confessed, didn't he? To murdering one woman and attempting to murder another. I couldn't believe it, but I expect he did it to save his aunt and uncle the ordeal of a trial. At least in that he showed some courage.'
