“Not unless better luck constitutes bearing the brunt of rude behavior,” Emma sniffs.
“Come, now,” I say. “We did confirm the exact time of the girls’ arrival on theGlendowerand the time they planned on leaving.”
“True,” she admits begrudgingly.
I am torn between feeling guilty for placing the women in this situation, frustration over their fragility, and irritation over their behavior. If we are to make headway into the fate of May Daniels, then we’ve got to be nimble, tenacious, and smart. Like our detectives.
“Ladies, pardon me for speaking bluntly, but we’ve got to be made of sterner stuff, as Shakespeare admonished inJulius Caesar. We are not actual detectives, invested with authority to investigateMay’s murder, and so we should not be offended when we’re reminded of this fact. But we could take a page from our fictional detectives’ books and use the tools wedohave at our disposal.”
“What, pray tell, are these tools?” Emma asks, her tone arch.
“Our detectives adopt personas and disguises, dig into documents and graveyards, pursue suspects in a variety of uncomfortable settings, all in the name of investigating a crime.” I glance at each woman in turn. “One doesn’t see Miss Marple or the Scarlet Pimpernel or Chief Inspector Alleyn or Albert Campion take umbrage and retreat at the first sign of resistance or offense. And one doesn’t observe these detectives acting in the sort of foolhardy manner that would force them off an investigation before it even begins.”
Ngaio’s eyes drift away from me as if she’s not listening, but I see the bloom of pink on her cheeks. I purposely did not single her out by name because resilience, flexibility, and care are traits we all need as we pursue May’s killer.
“We are capable of everything that we’ve imagined for our detectives. And, in some respects, more,” I say.
“What do you mean?” Ngaio asks.
“We are mystery writers and women. And neither has tried to tackle the puzzle of May’s disappearance. Until now.”
This candid little speech is meant to rouse, but I know it’s risky. After all, my relationship with these women—our identity as a group, in fact—is all very new.
Agatha, God bless her, comprehends precisely what I’m trying to do and asks the right next question. “So if we were to head back up the hill to the rue de Lille to visit the stores where May and Celia shopped, what approach should we take with the shopkeepers?”
“I’m no expert. But at the Gare Maritime, we behaved as though we were officials assigned to the investigation—myself included. And it didn’t go very well. Why don’t we act more like ourselves? A group of ordinary English women tourists concerned about what happened to a poor English girl?”
Ngaio snorts a bit at this simplified description, but I continue undeterred. “The discovery of May Daniels’s body is all over the news; we’d have to be living under a rock to not know about it. It’s only natural that we’re curious as we tour this historic locale. And the townspeople might be more willing to share with us if that’s who they think we are.”
“It is worth a try,” Agatha says.
I turn to the other women and ask, “Ladies?” To which they nod.
As we traverse the quay back toward May and Celia’s next stop—the rue de Lille—we pass a lonely-looking inn and restaurant. The Hôtel Morveaux is a bit shabby but well scrubbed. It is the sort of lodging one might choose if one had to catch a very late ferry into Boulogne or a very early ferry out; proximity is the primary quality recommending it.
“Should we stop in there?” Margery asks.
“Whatever for?” Emma asks, her face scrunched up as if she’d eaten something sour. “It’s dilapidated.”
Dilapidated? The Hôtel Morveaux may not be up to Emma’s standards—and to be fair, it may need a fresh coat of paint—but it is hardly dilapidated. I’ve stayed in far worse, even lived in dingier flats in more marginal neighborhoods. Not for the first time, I wonder how much of Emma’s fastidiousness is authentic. When her family was forced out of their estate by peasants, wouldn’t she have encountered, even stayed in, unseemly accommodations during her time running across the continent? Now is not the time to address it either way, I suppose.
“Perhaps May and Celia popped in to use the toilets. They’d just disembarked from a long ferry ride.”
“There aretoilettesin the Gare Maritime, Margery,” Ngaio says, her tone a bit more condescending than I’d like.
“Did you see the state of them? I took one step in and turned right around. I bet the girls did the same,” she replies, and I’m pleased to hear her standing up for herself. And making an astute observation in the process.
“Excellent suggestion,” I say. “I doubt the authorities would have thought of that.”
Margery pivots away from Ngaio and pulls open the cobalt-blue door to the Hôtel Morveaux. A bell clangs as we follow her inside. A long wooden desk with a rack of keys is the only greeting we receive at first. I stroll around the little lobby, taking in the small restaurant off to the side.
A dark-haired woman of indeterminate age—she could be twenty-five or forty—finally emerges from a room behind the desk. She’s wearing a white apron over her saffron-colored dress and wipes her hands on it as she approaches us.
“Bonjour, mesdames. Voudriez-vous une chambre d’hôtel?”
“Non, merci. Pourrions-nous avoir les expressos?” I answer.
With a reluctant nod, the proprietress leads us into the empty restaurant, pointing to a table for six near a window. As she busies herself at the tiny bar toward the back, I gaze out at the ocean.What a wondrous, unusual shade its waters are,I think. An opalescent teal color, unlike the dark, stormy waters on the English coast. How the young nurses must have marveled as their ferry arrived in the Boulogne harbor. Sadness for the lost life washes over me again.
