Leaving the Gare Centrale, we march back up the blasted hill to rue de Lille in silence. Typically, I cannot bear quiet, but now that I understand the how, my mind is spinning wildly with the why. Why on earth would a young English nurse on a leisure-time jaunt to France feel driven to go such lengths to vanish? Particularly when it meant that her friend and fellow nurse would be stranded, since May had the ferry tickets and Celia had no money? What was she hiding—or fleeing—from?
The silence breaks with Margery. “You’ve solved the locked-room puzzle, Dorothy. That calls for congratulations. A toast over lunch?”
“I don’t feel very celebratory,” I reply.
“Why?” Margery asks. “This conundrum lay unresolved for six months.”
“We may have solved the locked-room puzzle, but that resolution means her disappearance was planned and raises countless questions. Someone or something prompted May to disguise herself and run away, leaving her friend high and dry. What or who? And when one pairs these facts with the way in which her body was arranged, with her purse and the infamous syringe lying nearby, well…”
I leave my sentence unfinished. I do not want to be presumptuousand assume these brilliant puzzle masters aren’t reaching the same conclusions as I am.
Agatha takes up the thread. “The purse contained her identification, so there would be no mistaking her body for someone else’s.” She shakes her head disapprovingly. “And the syringe—”
Emma interrupts. “It’s a supposed explanation for her murder, a drug deal gone wrong or an overdose. But it’s an obvious red herring.”
Ngaio practically snorts. “Almost textbook stuff. So heavy-handed.”
I nod. What a relief to be in the company of these women who speak the same shorthand as I do. “But not to the police and the press, who are looking for headlines and an easy solution. To them, the syringe is a godsend,” I say. “One they’ll cling to unless another solution hits them in the face. And soon. Otherwise, case closed.”
“It seems the authorities and journalists are unbothered by the illogic of two British nurses traveling to France to procure an illicit substance that is readily available in their place of work,” Emma says. “I mean, the girls probably injected morphine into patients every day. Would have been the simplest thing in the world to skim a little off the top.”
“The authorities are utterly unperturbed by the logical fallacy of it,” I say in agreement. “They might be thinking that the girls were selling instead of buying, but that seems far-fetched. They each traveled to Boulogne with only a handbag, an improbable and too-small carrying case for glass morphine vials. The rest of their belongings stayed behind in Brighton where May and Celia stayed the night before heading to Boulogne, and where they’d presumably return for another night when their ferry came back to England.”
“It will be interesting to see how reporters spin the autopsy findings when they get their hands on them. I’m convinced that May’s death had nothing to do with drugs. They won’t find morphine in her system,” Agatha says.
“Not that the facts will stop the authorities or the press frominsinuating that her involvement with drugs somehow led to her demise,” Margery adds.
“If you are going to consort with riffraff, then you’re asking to be treated like riffraff and all that,” Ngaio sneers.
“More troubling to me is that all this planning demonstrates that May was afraid and that there was someone to be afraid of. Someone about to undertake a premeditated murder.”
Agatha nods. “The stakes have just been raised.”
We reach the apex of the cobblestone hill, and just as we are about to turn onto rue de Lille, the pale pink storefront of the chemist’s shop on the corner catches my eye. We’d considered stopping in the Pharmacie Notre Dame yesterday, but when that young reporter spotted me through the millinery window, the plan fell by the wayside. Now that May’s murderer has shown himself or herself to be a deliberate, careful actor, however, we need to proceed accordingly.
Unlike most utilitarian pharmacies, the Pharmacie Notre Dame, proudly founded in 1847, is downright charming, with its rosy exterior and brown-and-white-striped awning. I gesture to the pretty shop and ask, “Shall we?”
Just as I’m about to push open the pink door emblazoned with the wordsHOMEOPATHIEandPHYTOTHERAPIE, Ngaio asks, “Would the young women faff around in a chemist’s on their holiday?”
“I’m not sure this was a holiday for May,” I say.
I’m about to add that we wouldn’t allow our fictional detectives to skip a single store, so we shouldn’t, either. But Agatha answers for me. “We must err on the side of caution. And anyway, it’s most likely a formality.”
We file into the store, empty of customers but lined with crowded wooden shelves painted the same blush shade as the exterior. A beautifully coiffed blonde steps out from the back. She could be in her fifties, but she is so exquisitely made up and outfitted in a bias-cut emerald dress that her age is indeterminate. “Bonne journée. Comment puis-je vous aider?”
This time, I will not be playing the role of innocent tourist. We need to get straight to the point. I just want to tick the box marked “visit every shop on rue de Lille.” No stone left unturned and all that.
Reaching into my purse, I slide out the pictures of May and Celia and hand them to the shopkeeper. “Je me demande si vous avez déjà vu cettes jeunes femmes.”
“Ah, this is the poor Miss Daniels and her friend. First missing, now dead.”
“Yes. I am sure the police have asked you about her.”
“Oh, yes. Terrible business.” She sighs, then gestures down rue de Lille. “All the shopkeepers have been visited by the gendarmes because, of course, this area is popular with tourists. And the young women were tourists.”
“I’m not surprised tourists flock here. It is delightful.”
A tiny grin forms upon her crimson lips, then fades and is replaced by a furrowed brow. “Why are you asking about her? You can’t possibly be affiliated with the police.” We both know that the only positions open to females in the French and English police departments are typists and aides who work with imperiled women and children. Even then, the scope of their responsibilities is very limited.
