The Queens of Crime

Chapter Eleven

M ARCH 23, 1931

B OULOGNE-SUR- M ER, F RANCE

We retrace our route from yesterday—only in reverse. As we pass through the picture-perfect Old Town, where rue de Lille shines like a crown jewel, our heels clatter loudly over the uneven cobblestones leading down the hill toward the harbor. Along with the screech of seagulls, the odor of fish, salt water, and brine grows stronger as we near the docks. It becomes so overwhelming as we approach the stone building labeled HALLE AUX POISSONS —fish market—that Emma reaches for a lace handkerchief to cover her nose. But while the stench has increased, the sound has not. It is strangely quiet here, save for the birds’ shrieking. Perhaps the fishmongers are breaking for lunch, the fishermen and shoppers along with them. Even the glorious unrelenting sunshine cannot make the stillness less unnerving.

The stone Gare Maritime sits at the end of the quay, craggy and weather-beaten. Ngaio opens the door for us to enter, and my eyes take a moment to adjust to the relative darkness of the ferry terminal after the vivid daylight. As the shapes materialize, I see that the station has only two waiting passengers—an elderly couple seated on a wooden bench with a battered leather case at their feet—and seemingly no workers.

“How different it looks today from when we arrived,” Margery says, her eyes scanning the empty maw of a space.

“Certainly seems a far sight less friendly without the passengers,” Emma says.

“Or bustling staff.” I stare around the terminal. “Where is everyone?”

We’d agreed to procure a ferry timetable while inspecting the Gare Maritime to establish a definitive timeline for the October day May vanished. The newspaper articles are all over the map in reporting the time of events. Finally I spot a single station employee settle in before what looks like a ticket booth. “Why don’t I inquire about the schedules while you all trace May’s steps from the Glendower into the terminal?”

While Ngaio, Margery, and Agatha set off, Emma hangs back. “I’ll join you. I don’t think we need four women to trace one girl’s route. Not to mention that you and I have the best French for any questions.” Emma is right, but I also think she doesn’t relish the idea of skulking around the back side of the terminal. She is a baroness, after all.

We approach the uniformed man sitting in the ticket booth, whose eyes are fixed on the newspaper spread before him. “Excusez-moi?” I ask, and when he doesn’t look up, I use a louder voice. “Excusez-moi, puis-je avoir un horaire de ferry, s’il vous pla?t?”

He points to an easily overlooked rack affixed to the front of his desk and returns to his paper. Offering thanks that falls on uninterested ears, we review the shelves of schedules, finding both ferry and train. Some travelers, I assume, might step off the ferry directly onto a train to another Continental destination. Sorting through them, I finally locate the Brighton-to-Boulogne route that May and Celia took.

According to the police report, the Glendower would have docked around two o’clock, and the girls had planned on returning on the five o’clock ferry. The brevity of their visit strikes me as peculiar. But then, if the rumors I heard last night are true—that the girls took the trip on a whim, after spending the night at a beach hotel in Brighton—perhaps it’s attributable to the capriciousness of two young nurses on a rare break from rounds.

An image washes over me of the dark-haired May and the fair-complected Celia giggling as they alight from the Glendower and step into this ferry terminal. I can almost hear their happy chin-wagging as they speculate on how to spend the last carefree hours of their time off. Should they shop or indulge in French pastries? I imagine they debated, settling on both. The freedom of a one-day adventure to another country must have been intoxicating. A glimpse into a different life from the one they could anticipate. They’d likely spend years laboring in hospitals and living in hospital housing while a few lucky friends managed to land one of the scant few eligible men and set up their own homes.

Surplus women, the press calls girls like May and Celia. While the Great War opened up doors for women, enabling them to take on employment previously out of reach, those jobs were meant to be given back to soldiers upon their return, and the women were meant to marry—their “natural state.” But nearly two million men died in the war, and this meant that prospective husbands were in short supply for years to come. Many unmarried women have had to support themselves in perpetuity, almost always at low-paying jobs. Rather than compassion, however, these “surplus” women elicit scorn. Headlines like THE SUPERFLUOUS WOMEN ARE A DISASTER TO THE HUMAN RACE routinely run in newspapers such as the Daily Mail, and so-called surplus women have come under additional attack as the worldwide economic situation has declined. Mac and I had one of our rare quarrels over the abject unfairness of the press’s depiction of these poor women. As if they have any other choice. As if they selected these paths.

I return to the schedule. Although the print is impossibly small, I determine that the Glendower does not arrive or depart at the exact times indicated in the official report.

Emma must be musing over the same questions, because she marches back to the ticket office, her steps tiny but her stride strong. She doesn’t bother with a quiet, ladylike volume this time, and her aristocratic command is on full display. “Is it possible that the ferry schedule in October is different from the current one?”

“Of course,” the ticket agent answers with a curled lip, as if we are thick to even ask. “ The schedule changes depending on the season and the weather. The ferries are far more plentiful in the summer—that is our busy tourist period. And there is a stretch in the winter when the ferry does not run at all.”

“Do you have a record of the Glendower ’s schedule last October?” she asks, doing her level best to ignore his patronizing tone.

“Let me guess. You are looking for the chart from October 16?”

“Yes. Do you happen to have it handy?”

“You are hardly the first to ask questions about that day,” he answers, fishing underneath his desk, “although you do not look as though you have the authority to inquire.”

His comment is a critique of Emma’s gender, I suppose. But she doesn’t let the ticket agent rattle her. I’m not certain I could have repressed my irritation and rage so well.

She keeps her hand extended, and he eventually passes her the Glendower schedule from October. We scan it together, finding that it confirms the times from the police report rather than the times in some of the newspaper articles.

“May we keep this?” she asks.

“Of course not. It is my last copy, and I need to keep it for those in charge.” His expression is smug, and his message clear: she is no official, unworthy of his time and documents. And while he has a point, his tone is unbearable. “I cannot be distributing this document to just anyone. ”

At this, Emma seems to have reached her limit. Her cheeks bloom red, and her shoulders square as if facing off against an enemy. It is my turn to step in.

Sliding him pictures of May and Celia, I say, “You may have seen these photographs before. Were you on duty on October 16, the day these women arrived on the ferry?”

“Oui.”

“Do you recognize either of these young women?”

As he studies the photographs and newspaper clippings—which I borrowed from Mac’s files—a horn bellows. Through one of the arched windows on the wall opposite, I see sailors laying a gangway from a ship to the terminal. Suddenly, other uniformed station workers appear, readying to receive the hundreds of passengers assembling on the gangway and the deck of the ship.

In this morass, I spot Agatha, Ngaio, and Margery. They are being ushered out of the Gare Maritime customs area, a uniformed staff member at each of their elbows.

What have they done? I’m tempted to race over and see what sort of jam they’ve gotten themselves into, but duty to May requires that I finish with this boor first.

“No, I do not recollect either of these faces.” He pushes the pictures back to me. “Now if you will be so kind as to excuse yourselves.”

How rude, I think, but I say nothing, lest I risk missing out on whatever minuscule crumb he might be willing to share.

“You are certain?” I push one last time.

“Madame.” His lip curls again as he looks to the dozens of people streaming into the station. “As I told the gendarmes, one plain English girl looks very much like another, especially in a crowd.”