The two policemen glance at each other, then Officier Durand says, “We can arrange that. If you can show us your identification, of course.”
The Queens had anticipated this, and I hope my solution suffices. Reaching into the depths of my handbag, I place one of the calling cards I took from the sisters’ Dollis Hill home. “My card,” Iannounce, channeling Emma’s imperiousness as I slide Mrs. Lloyd’s card across the desk.
Judging by his expression, I can see that the younger gendarme wants to ask for more official documentation, but Officier Durand doesn’t want to risk further outbursts or tears. He nods, and the two men lead us down a meandering set of hallways. We stop at a door labeledSALLE DES PREUVES.
Here it is,I think: we made it. The evidence room.
Inside are walls of boxes stacked high, each bearing a number. The younger policeman begins scanning them, while Officier Durand clears a simple wooden table at the room’s center. Sliding out a wooden crate from a precariously tall pile, the gendarme places it on the table.
Officier Durand gestures for us to open the box, then the two men stand on either side of the table. It seems the gendarmes will be watching us. This makes our task more difficult but not impossible.
Emma lifts the lid, and I peer inside. Carefully folded, as if May had just removed them for the day, are her black coat, mauve hat, dark-charcoal tweed skirt, violet sweater, black stockings, and oxfords.How smart she must have looked in this ensemble,I think, and I don’t have to conjure up memories of John’s face in order to cry. Tears run down Emma’s cheeks as well.
As Emma and I take out the articles of clothing and fan them out across the table, I note smears of dirt and a few dry leaf shards attached to the fabric here and there.Not surprising,I think, after a violent assault, possible hemorrhaging, and potentially months of exposure to the elements. Only the dark color of the coat, stockings, and skirt spares us further visual evidence of the harm done to poor May.
“These are all the items found on her person?” My voice is shaky; I cannot quite bring myself to say “body.”
“Yes. I understand that all her other belongings—the personal effects she kept at the hospital and the few objects she’d left inBrighton—have been returned to your family. While we would have welcomed the opportunity to examine those things along with this evidence, the English authorities were of the view that English evidence should remain on English soil.”
I nod, and then spy May’s handbag at the bottom of the box. Instead of pulling it out, however, I place my hands deep within the box. It’s the most privacy I’ll be afforded in these circumstances.
Feeling around, I unlatch the handbag and plunge my hands inside. With my fingertips, I make out a brush, a lipstick, some coins, and a small zippered pouch that contains papers—May’s identification, I presume. Then I feel it, hidden in the lining of her handbag. A key.
Chapter Forty-Two
APRIL 14, 1931
BOULOGNE-SUR-MER,FRANCE
“You did it!” Margery shrieks, staring down at the object. “You really did it!”
“Shhhhh!” Ngaio hisses and rolls her eyes, as if Margery is an annoying little sister. “We don’t want to draw attention.”
“You doubted us, Margery?” Emma asks quietly, with a smirk.
“It wasn’t easy.” I don’t mind admitting the truth. “We were extremely lucky that the Gare Maritime policeman wasn’t there.”
“Of course it was difficult,” Agatha offers. She’s the only one who hasn’t squealed too loudly or laughed too much since Emma and I shed our disguises and met them in the rue de Lille café. “Describe what happened.”
Emma takes charge. Step by step, she lays out for them the way we duped the policemen into believing we were May’s relatives and how we discovered May’s key—which resembles the locker keys in the Gare Centrale Left Luggage department. How we slipped away with it, even though the two gendarmes watched our every move and checked every item returned in the box against a master list. It was only possible because the police had no idea the key was there in the first place.
Now the five of us are back at Left Luggage, standing before the locker number inscribed on May’s key: 242. We are somewhatthe worse for wear, having traipsed up and around the hills of Boulogne and back down again. Even Emma’s elaborate, typically immobile coiffure—how does she do it? I often wonder—is disheveled. Probably the black lace dislodged some of the updo. But everyone’s eyes shine with excitement.
We are inside the pages of one of our own novels.
Key in hand, I’m poised to slide it into the lock, and suddenly I freeze. What if everything we deduced is wrong? Or what if it’s true, but far worse?
“What are you waiting for, Dorothy?” Ngaio asks.
“Nothing, I guess,” I say, then wriggle the key into the lock. It’s sticking. I push a little harder, but I’m concerned the key will bend or snap if I’m too rough.
“Oh, I hope this does the trick,” Emma says. “If May’s handbag and the key were indeed out in the elements all these months, it’s possible the deep freeze warped the key.”
“I wish you’d mentioned that earlier, Emma,” Agatha says in an uncharacteristically sharp tone.
“How do you know so much about keys, anyway?” Ngaio asks Emma. “You’re not the actual Scarlet Pimpernel.”
“No, although it’s fun to pretend.” Emma smiles, then determination returns. “But I’ve certainly researched thieves, locksmiths, and locks enough to learn a thing or two.”
