“Just a little woozy,” I lie.
“Let me get you a cup of tea with lots of milk and sugar.”
“I seem to be swimming in the stuff these days.”
“It is the nectar of the gods,” she says with a smile.
Agatha wobbles off, swaying with the movement of the ferry, and I turn back to the conversation at hand. Ngaio has the timeline—the one I drew and placed on the mantel of the University Women’s Club library—spread out before us on the dinged-up ferry table, with a few new additions to it.
August 20: May and Celia visit the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, to seeCavalcade
October 2:Daily Heraldarticle about Leonora Denning
October 11: May’s last shift at the hospital before her time off
October 12–14: May spends two nights with her sisters in Dollis Hill
October 14, morning: May departs from her sisters, tells them she’s staying with Celia and her sister in London
October 14, afternoon and evening: May’s whereabouts unknown
October 15, morning: May arrives in Brighton by train and meets Celia; they stay the night
October 16, 2:00P.M.: Girls arrive in Boulogne on theGlendowerfrom Brighton
October 16, 2:15P.M.: Girls take tea at Hôtel Morveaux
October 16, 2:45P.M.: Girls stroll to rue de Lille and shop; May visits the millinery alone at some point before or after her break in the park
October 16, 3:40P.M.: May and Celia separate for approximately thirty minutes; May meets man in Jardin Éphémère
October 16, 4:16P.M.: Girls stop in the chemist’s
October 16, 4:22P.M.: Girls walk down to the harbor to catch the ferry back to Brighton
October 16, 4:48P.M.: May stops in washroom at the Gare Centrale while Celia waits outside
October 16, 4:53P.M.: MAY DISAPPEARS
October 16, 5:00P.M.:Glendowerscheduled to return to Brighton
Squinting, Emma stares down at the papers. “Your penmanship is atrocious, Ngaio. What on earth does that say?”
Huffing at the critique, Ngaio reads it aloud, then continues putting pen to paper. She crosses out “May’s whereabouts unknown” after “October 14, afternoon and evening,” and with great care and deliberation writes, “May likely spends the night with Louis Williams.”
“Are these legible enough for you, Emma?” she says with a wry grin, holding up the piece of paper.
“Perfectly,” Emma replies with a little sniff. “All it took was some time and attention to the conventions of proper script.”
“Anything else to alter or add?” Ngaio asks, turning to the rest of us. “About May, not my handwriting?”
Agatha returns with my tea. As she hands me the steaming cup, she glances at the timeline and says, “That thirty minutes when May and Celia separate really stands out.”
“Yes—that window of time is crucial,” Margery adds. “It’s the only period when we know with certainty that May was on her own. It’s too short to have a procedure of any sort, so I think we can rule that out.”
“Who was the man who approached her in the Jardin Éphémère?” Emma asks.
“Yes,” Ngaio says, “and what was she writing so furiously? It seems an odd thing to do at that moment.”
