“She’s lovely,” I say.
When we settle back into our seats, I launch into the pitch we crafted. “The unfortunate coverage of your poor sister has been disturbing to us both. We would like to write an article showing her in a more flattering light.”
Mrs. Davis dabs at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. The woman is clearly bereft over her younger sister; only Mrs. Lloyd has the wherewithal to converse with us. She says, “Our poor May has been lambasted in the press. The fact that she was a sweet, good girl who loved helping others deserves to be known.”
“It certainly does,” Ngaio says, keeping it surprisingly short.
“Are you willing to tell us a bit about your sister? Her qualities? What she enjoyed about being a nurse? The activities with which she occupied her free time? That sort of thing?” I ask.
The sisters confer quietly, after which Mrs. Davis exclaims, “We don’t want our baby sister to be exploited. So far, everyone involved in May’s case—every official, every reporter, even every neighbor—has done nothing but cast aspersions upon her good name. If that’s your game, you can leave now.”
“That is theoppositeof our game, Mrs. Davis. Miss Marsh and I have been sickened by the coverage of Miss Daniels, and we want to set the record straight. Maybe then her killer can be found. All this unsubstantiated gossip detracts from the real, important taskof figuring out her case,” I say. Although Ngaio and I have fudged our identities somewhat—about which I do feel guilty—everything I just said is true.
Mrs. Davis continues, “Do you know that the French authorities have had the audacity to inform us that, if we disagree with their assessment that the murder was drug-related, we may have to institute a civil proceeding in France and force Celia to testify? They want us—the grieving family—to come up with money we don’t have to force another girl to testify when they could easily make it happen themselves.”
Yesterday, the press reported definitively that the gendarmes may close the case. Without Celia’s testimony or some “utterly dispositive” clue, they’ll presume May’s death stemmed from a drug deal gone wrong or an overdose of some sort. Never mind that the autopsy report was released and that the French pathologist found a fracture near the base of the larynx consistent with suffocation. Strangulation is the official cause of death.
“That is precisely what we hope to change by our work,” I say to reassure them, and this is the truth.
Mrs. Lloyd and Mrs. Davis turn to each other again, exchanging inscrutable glances. Even though they agreed to this meeting, they now appear hesitant and unconvinced, and I don’t blame them. Every scrap of information they’ve offered has been contorted and manipulated until an unrecognizable portrait of their sister appeared. And it is that depiction that the authorities have used to explain away their inability or lack of interest in hunting down her murderer thus far. That and the unwillingness of Celia to submit to questioning in France.
It is time for my final plea. “Imagine if we could turn the narrative on its head and elicit public sympathy for your sister. The authorities would be forced to devote their resources to Miss Daniels.”
Chapter Twenty
MARCH 27, 1931
LONDON,ENGLAND
My final argument is the one that turns the tide, and the sisters open up. Ngaio and I sit back and listen;too rare for both of us,I think. Hands folded in laps, we take an occasional sip of tea or nibble of pastries and absorb all the sisters want to share. Neither of us even takes notes. We want nothing to interrupt the flow of thoughts and information from the two sisters, who have much to say but to date have only been spokenat,not with.
We learn quite a bit about May. The youngest of three sisters—and nearly a decade younger than Mrs. Lloyd—she’d been the much-beloved “pet” of her siblings as well as of her mother and father. When both parents died in swift succession during May’s thirteenth year, the newly married sisters took turns caring for her. It hadn’t been hard, according to Mrs. Lloyd, because May had been “generally happy and cheerful,” a description to which Mrs. Davis added “calm and even-tempered.”
The sisters tear up describing their sister, and, I confess, Ngaio and I do as well. The May I imagined walking the streets of Boulogne on her final day materializes more clearly. And my determination to get justice for her grows while the goal of securing acceptance from the Detection Club members becomes secondary.
“Can you tell us a bit about her decision to become a nurse?” I ask, trying to turn the conversation to May’s adult years.
“We hadn’t really wanted her to become one,” Mrs. Davis says, her voice hardening.
“No,” Mrs. Lloyd adds, concurring. “She did need to work once she finished school, of course. Our parents hadn’t left behind enough funds to support May beyond that, and there was no suitor in the wings. But we hadn’t encouraged her longing to become a nurse. We weren’t even sure how she got that bee in her bonnet, were we?”
“No—we don’t know anyone who’s a nurse,” Mrs. Davis replies. “We pushed her toward a position as a clerk or secretary instead. It’s a bit more respectable and would have the added benefit of introducing her to eligible young men. You know unmarried men are in short supply since the Great War—”
Mrs. Lloyd interjects. “When the neighbors got wind of May’s choice of profession, they had some less-than-savory comments for the two of us. How could we let our baby sister work in such a ‘dirty and gory’ profession? Couldn’t we find something more befitting a nice young woman like May? Did we want her to end up like some surplus women?”
I’m not surprised by the neighborhood gossip. Even though the nursing profession has changed dramatically from its early days—when it was considered unseemly, nasty work for only the lowest class of women—the stigma does cling.
“We begged her to reconsider, but she’d already started her training at the hospital, and the arrangement requires you to give two years of free nursing services in exchange for the classes and instruction. The hospital gave her room and board, of course, but almost no salary for those two years. She couldn’t really leave,” Mrs. Davis adds.
“Not that she wanted to; May loved nursing. She didn’t even care that people were calling her names,” Mrs. Lloyd says, as if an unpleasant taste lingers in her mouth.
“Why would she be called ‘surplus’ for working in nursing? It’snot as if she’s taking a job from a man,” Ngaio asks after an unprecedented period of silence. “Nursing is a career men don’t want. And she was young.”
I flinch at the past tense.
“She might still have chosen to marry one day,” Ngaio replies.
“That may well be true, but the busybodies will talk,” Mrs. Davis says. “And we had to be careful.”
