“Exactly,” Mrs. Lloyd responds. “Could it have been placed in the box by accident?”
I realize the sisters haven’t studied the box’s contents with any attention to detail. Probably they received the box soon after her disappearance and couldn’t bear to examine its contents too closely. Too painful, I imagine. Had the police even inspected it? Someone must have gathered the items from Brighton and sent them to the sisters along with the objects stored at May’s hospital lodging. I know some Scotland Yard minions had been dispatched to offer minimal assistance to the gendarmes, but from what I’ve seen thus far, their review has hardly been thorough.
Ngaio holds up a deep indigo silk dress that had been tucked underneath the emerald one. “I don’t think so. This frock is by the same designer as the green one—Madame Isobel.”
I hear a sharp intake of breath from Mrs. Lloyd. “Madame Isobel? She could never have afforded Madame Isobel dresses.”
Even I have heard of Madame Isobel, though her frocks are far, far outside the range of what I can pay for and much too chic and clingy for me. Celebrities and aristocrats wear her gowns. But I havea thought: Would a run-of-the-mill policeman have recognized the brand and realized how irregular it was for a nurse to own not one but two of these garments?
“Perhaps they are castoffs from a nurse friend,” I offer, thinking back on the many hand-me-downs I’ve sported over the years. One particularly wealthy friend from my Oxford days would occasionally leave a cashmere cardigan on my bed, waving away my protestations with an excuse that it no longer fit. I know what it’s like to be short on funds. But in my childhood and young adulthood, I never felt impoverished: growing up as the only child in a vicarage, I had love, education, a sense of community, and faith. I only ever lacked for companions—until my cousin Ivy Shrimpton returned from America with my aunt and uncle, that is. Then I had the older sister for whom I’d always longed.
As I give the two gowns a final look and fold them, I feel something in the pocket of the indigo dress. Placing the dress down on the table—behind the box to keep it away from the sisters’ view—I reach inside. My fingers make contact with two thick rectangular pieces of paper. Sliding them out as surreptitiously as I can, I look down. They are theater tickets to an August 20, 1930, show of a Noël Coward musical calledCavalcadeat the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
Coughing gently, I get Ngaio’s attention. She makes a quick study of the tickets, then we return them to the indigo dress.
“Perhaps May borrowed them.” Mrs. Lloyd latches on to this explanation, but her tone belies her words. And I share her doubts. Girls from well-to-do families—girls who can afford Madame Isobel—do not work as nurses.
Ngaio and I unfasten a rectangular cordovan case that seems to have served as May’s toiletries and makeup repository. It feels incredibly invasive to handle May’s personal grooming supplies, particularly in the presence of her sisters. So we scan the lipsticks, brush, aspirin, and cold cream quickly, touching the items only when theyimpede our view. Ngaio’s index finger snakes into the case, points out a small glass jar containing a pink liquid, then flips it over: the label readsPEPTO-BISMOL. A stomach remedy.
We exchange a glance. It seems May’s stomach ailments predate her trip to Boulogne. The alarm bells are ringing again, and it seems increasingly likely that our suppositions hold water.
But we are not yet done. At the very bottom of the box is a small leather-bound Bible. Mrs. Davis’s hand rests over her heart. “Look, Jane—May had Mum’s Bible with her at the hospital.”
Tears now stream down Mrs. Lloyd’s cheeks. I feel terrible that we’ve opened the sisters’ wounds. But we must dig into the recesses of their pain in order to glean the truth.
Ngaio pages through the Bible while I look on. Tucked in the back—amid the prophecies of Revelation—are a piece of paper and a photograph. I slide out the picture, and a trio of nurses smiles up at us.
I recognize May at the center, but not the other women. “Who are the other two girls?” I ask the sisters, handing them the picture.
Mrs. Lloyd pulls out a pair of glasses from her dress pocket and squints at the photograph. “Why, that’s Celia McCarthy to the right, but I don’t recognize the other girl. Do you?” She hands it to her sister.
“No,” Mrs. Davis replies. “But she had bundles of chums on the ward.”
As the women study the picture, Ngaio and I return to the paper squirreled away in the Bible. It is May’s nursing certification. I notice a bump in the leather-bound back of the Bible. Running my fingertips along it, I realize there’s an opening in the seam of the binding. Is it big enough for my finger? I inch my index finger between the two leather covers and feel another small slip of paper inside. With great care, I retrieve a worn, folded newspaper article.
With the sisters’ attention still on the photograph, I turn my back to them and unfold theDaily Heraldarticle. It bears the dateof October 2, 1930—around two weeks before May’s disappearance. The headline readsMISSING GIRL CLUES, and a shiver passes through me.
I feel Ngaio peering over my shoulder. After she scans the headline, we stare at each other in astonishment. Why would May hide an article about a missing girl two weeks before she disappeared herself? I slide the article into my own pocket.
Chapter Twenty-Two
MARCH 28, 1931
BIRMINGHAM,ENGLAND
The London, Midland and Scottish Railway train chugs through the countryside, and normally I’d revel in the views through the window. The transformation of the hills and fields from the drab bleakness of winter into the fresh green of spring is a sight that usually lifts my spirits. But not today. Today, the dual weights of work and May’s murder lie upon me, made heavier by the discovery of the newspaper article in May’s belongings yesterday.
I stare down at theDaily Heraldpiece, which I’ve read dozens of times now. Certain phrases leap from the page on each reading—“beautiful young violinist,” “student at Royal Academy of Music and regular performer at West End theaters, symphonies, and cinemas,” “parents frantic,” and “police investigating rumored German beau.” This time, however, I focus on the article’s concluding sentence: “Leonora Denning was last seen at a gathering of theater musicians, actors, managers, and actresses at the West End haunt Café de Paris, and all present have been questioned, including noted conductor Bobby Russell, popular actor Jack Hulbert, and the son of self-made insurance titan Jimmy Williams.”
Why did May keep this article? Did she know Miss Denning or someone else mentioned in the article? Had May met one or some of these people when she went to seeCavalcade? The actor or the conductor? I can’t imagine that May’s paths would cross with aninsurance man. Or did May have a sense that something terrible, something similar, was about to happen to her? Is May’s murder one in a series of killings of young women? What is the link between this missing young woman and May? Perhaps today’s interview will shed some light.
I tuck the article back into my notebook and return to the pages ofHave His Carcasespread before me. Crafting the plot of this book seems trivial compared to the unpuzzling of May’s mystery, and I’m finding it hard to focus. Can I ask for another extension of my deadline? I doubt my editor will acquiesce. He’s already agreed to four more weeks, but that’s nowhere near enough time for me to bring together these unconnected scenes and clues and cardboard characters.
Have His Carcaseopens with Harriet Vane tromping across southwest England during a period of introspection and celebration after being declared innocent, with the help of Wimsey, in the death of her suitor. She discovers a body while trekking across a beach, naturally, and then she and Wimsey spend the rest of the novel in a seaside town investigating alibis, motives, and means of death, enjoying each other and the sleuthing.
Could I weave intoHave His Carcasesomething of my experience digging into May’s death—the emotions that have surged through me? Might that add some meaning and push the story along? I could access my own feelings about seeing the site where May had been found to describe Harriet’s reaction to stumbling across the body on the beach. Perhaps the sorrow I felt following in May’s footsteps on her last day and poring over her belongings could enrich it. I could also weave in the damaging role that the press plays in its depiction of women. Writers are often advised to write what they know, and no one could accuse me of doing otherwise.
A sign in the distance for Stratford-upon-Avon catches my attention, and I’m reminded of a lovely childhood holiday there with family. Our parents in tow, Ivy and I had strolled along the river resplendent with swans and watched a riveting production ofHamlet.Certainly the play sparked my short-lived youthful desire for the stage, but I believe it sowed the seeds for my mysteries as well. After all, who isHamletother than a character on a mad quest to solve the murder of his father? No doubt scholars would argue that the play is about much, much more, but to my young ears and eyes, that was the main thread.
