Chapter Twenty-Three
M ARCH 28, 1931
B IRMINGHAM, E NGLAND
The nursing schedule. The route from the hospital to Celia’s lodging. The familiarity with our subject’s appearance. The proximity of the tea shop to our “collision” on the street. How unexpected is today’s undertaking, and how unexpected is Agatha. How handily she’s orchestrated a meeting that even the police couldn’t manage.
“Thank you for agreeing to talk with us,” Agatha says in her softest voice as we settle into stiff-backed wooden seats around a nicked wooden table. The chain of Lyons Tea Shops is known for its strong tea and signature Battenberg cakes, not always its elegant ambience. Not this particular one, in any event.
“Did I have a choice?” Celia asks, and I detect in her flat vowels a West Yorkshire accent. Did her people move from rural areas to the Yorkshire towns of Leeds or Bradford for jobs in industry? It would be in alignment with her career in nursing.
“There is always a choice, dear,” Agatha reassures Celia, then signals for a waitress. Before any conversation can ensue, she orders tea and cakes all around. “Now, I am certain you are wondering why we have hunted you down. Whether you know who I am or not—”
“I know who you are,” Celia interjects. “I remember you vanished, and your face was all over the newspapers. My mum was positively obsessed with the story.”
“Good. Then you know that I understand what it’s like to be hounded by reporters and governmental authorities.”
Celia is quiet, staring at Agatha. As am I. Agatha’s surprising sleuthing skills notwithstanding, the most astounding element of the day is her frankness. For a woman who has spent the better part of the past five years refusing to discuss her own very public disappearance, her behavior today is shocking.
“Your reluctance to talk makes perfect sense, given how you’ve been treated and how your friend May has been maligned. I wouldn’t open my mouth unless compelled, either, if I were you. And in fact, that’s the very tactic I’ve taken for five years. But we are not journalists, and we are not representatives of the police. I am a writer of mystery fiction—as is my friend, Miss Dorothy Sayers”—she points to me—“and we are interested in justice for Miss Daniels and privacy for you. If that is something you would like to pursue, then I’d advise you to break your silence and talk to us .”
Celia slides off her nursing cap, looking even younger now than her twenty-one years. And very, very pale. “How do I know I can trust you? You are writers, after all. What’s to stop you from publishing everything I tell you in some magazine or article?”
Her point is well taken. How can we possibly assure this young woman that the information we seek will be used only for the purpose of uncovering May’s murderer? What can we offer her other than our word?
“Would you be willing to tell me all you know about Miss Daniels and about the day leading up to her disappearance if I share something with you about my own vanishing? Something that no one else knows? We would be the keeper of each other’s secrets and thus protect them at all costs.”
Celia does not answer immediately. She studies my face, then Agatha’s. “Why are you so determined to help May? To help me? You don’t know us, and I don’t know you, other than having read a couple of your books.”
Agatha squares her shoulders. “Because for too long, young women like you and your friend have been judged in the court of public opinion. Whether you’re considered ‘surplus’ or damaged in some other way, your safety and your needs have been neglected. Nowhere is this more evident than in the instance of Miss Daniels, whose case is not being pursued properly because the press has dragged her through the muck. Miss Sayers and I have been through this ourselves—as have the characters in our mysteries—and we want to prevent it from happening again.”
No one moves. Not to sip tea, not to nibble cakes. Even though I’m desperate for a bite of that Battenberg, I stay still.
“I will tell you what you want to know,” Celia finally says.
I stifle an exhale.
“And I shall tell you a secret in return,” Agatha offers.
“You needn’t tell me anything, Mrs. Christie. It’s enough that you’re willing to do so,” she says, and my heart sinks. I wanted to hear Agatha’s secret. “Where should I begin?”
“At the beginning,” Agatha says.
With Agatha’s gentle encouragement, Celia paints a watercolor for us, a dappled-light impressionist landscape with two portraits at its center. Within the frame, we observe two nurses who become close, bonding over long shifts and difficult patients, bunking near each other at the hospital accommodations, and spending their not-so-copious free hours at cafés and shops. We watch the lark to Brighton unfold, with a giddy jaunt to France added at the last moment—all as we surmised. At the edge of this particular painting is the terrible aftermath of the trip, and Celia’s eyes well up with tears when she describes the awful night of May’s vanishing. Worried sick about her friend, Celia had been left without money or tickets and had walked to a convent several miles away for lodging and a phone so she could ring her parents when the police seemed uninterested in her plight or May’s.
The brushwork completed, Celia finishes. She is well-spoken and forthcoming. Nothing about her straightforward presentation of the facts around the girls’ trip to Brighton and Boulogne—and May’s disappearance—deviates from what we’ve already ascertained.
But there are so many shadowy corners left. Must I be the one to dig into them? So it seems. Glancing over at Agatha, I seek something like permission to take over, but her face is, once again, inscrutable.
“Did you two generally spend all your leaves together?” I ask.
“No, not all of them. Often we’d return home to our families, but we would occasionally travel or arrange outings in London,” Celia answers.
“Like the theater plans you made for the night before you headed out to Brighton? When you and Miss Daniels stayed at your sister’s flat and saw a show?” I ask, thinking back on my conversation with May’s own sisters.
Celia’s brow furrows. “I don’t know what you mean. I don’t have a sister who lives in London; mine lives in Leeds near my parents. May and I met in Brighton. She came from visiting her sisters, and I’d been with my parents.”
“Apologies; I must be confused,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm and even. But my heart is racing at the contradiction between what May told her sisters and what actually transpired. The day and night before her disappearance are unaccounted for. The secret, darker scene at the corner of the pleasant, vivid painting is becoming clearer.
“We did go to the theater in August,” Celia says.
My heart beats even faster. “Did you happen to see Cavalcade together?”
Her mouth forms a circle of surprise. “How did you know?”
“We found the tickets among her belongings. Good show?”
Agatha shoots me a look; she must be disappointed that I hadn’t shared this with her. But when did I have the opportunity for a full debrief? While we scampered about the streets of Birmingham, attempting to collide with Celia? And anyway, I hadn’t thought that the information we’d unearthed at May’s sisters would become relevant so soon.
“Brilliant.” Celia’s eyes well up with tears. “It was our last outing before Brighton.”
“They were excellent seats. How did you afford them on a trainee nurse’s budget?” I ask.
“Someone had given them to May.”
“As a gift? For her birthday or Christmas?”
“No, just a kind gesture from a friend.”
“Did she mention who the friend was?”
“No,” Celia replies, but the word is somehow unfinished. As if she’s weighing whether to add more. “But she did mention that the friend had asked her to pop backstage to thank someone for the tickets.”
“Did May tell you who this backstage person was? The friend of her friend?” I ask. “Perhaps you joined her?”
“No!” Celia snaps. “She was adamant that she go alone. And by the time she finally emerged from backstage and joined me on the street outside the theater, I’d nearly given up on waiting for her.”
“Did she say what took her so long?”
“No. She didn’t want to talk about it. We had a very quiet tram ride back to the hospital housing.”
I nod, as if this all makes perfect sense instead of setting off alarms left and right. Then, in an offhand manner, I ask,”Did she mention anything about a newspaper article she’d read about a missing London girl right before you left for Brighton?”
Celia’s eyes are wide. “Of course not! I would have remembered that when she went missing herself.”
I sense there is more she could tell me about this theater outing, but her face is closed off now. Given that I have other important questions to ask, I decide to move on.
“I have a few follow-up queries about your trip to Brighton and Boulogne. Once you reached Boulogne, were you two together the entire time?” I’m thinking about the account by the British expatriate.
“Yes,” she answers quickly, but then pauses. “Actually, no. May wasn’t feeling terribly well, so she did take a rest in a park near rue de Lille while I shopped. It was brief, though, perhaps twenty to thirty minutes.”
Nodding as if I’d expected this reply, I then ask the question that’s been preoccupying me. “I know you’ve been asked about this before, Miss McCarthy, but did Miss Daniels have a suitor?”
She hesitates before answering. “Not that she told me.”
In that pause, I sense a world of suspicions. Conjectures that Celia has been reluctant to voice given the sordid public innuendos to which both women have been subject.
I push further, hoping for a name. “Perhaps she didn’t tell you about a beau, but perhaps you had a hunch based on something you saw? The theater tickets to Cavalcade, perhaps?”
Sipping my tea, I wait. As if I have all the time in the world. As if nothing hinges on what she may tell us.
“Well, not that it really matters,” Celia ventures, “but May had a few dates last summer and early autumn.”
“With the same person?”
“She never said who the man was—even when I pressed—just that he was established and could afford nice dinners and West End performances. Cavalcade was one of several shows she saw that summer and autumn.”
“Any other details you remember?”
She’s quiet for a long moment, then adds, “She had these two gorgeous silk dresses that she’d wear on those dates. They looked really expensive, and I asked her how she afforded them. I knew money was tight.”
“What did she tell you?” I ask.
“She didn’t answer. The only reply I got was a very satisfied smile.”