The Queens of Crime

Chapter Thirty-Eight

A PRIL 14, 1931

O XFORDSHIRE, E NGLAND, AND THE E NGLISH C HANNEL

“So you are feeling fit as a fiddle?” Agatha asks over tea and toast at Ivy’s the next morning. Her expression is as soft, unassuming, and kind as ever. Why, then, am I bracing myself?

“Nearly,” I answer after I finish a bite heavy with glistening ruby-red jam. Food in the country always tastes fresher and more flavorful, I think. Or does it just remind my of my upbringing in Bluntisham, where the fruits and vegetables came straight from our own garden and the jams were made at home?

“Up for travel again?” Ngaio asks, keeping her eyes on her plate. She’s more bleary-eyed than the rest of us. Had she not gone to bed when the women retired to the inn?

“I think so. Ivy and I were just discussing my imminent return to London. My tardy manuscript is calling, a feeling you all know well,” I say. “I think I’m ready for the train and the bustle of the city, although I’ll miss Ivy.”

I dare not say that it will be John I’ll miss most of all. This is the most number of days in a row that I’ve ever been able to spend with him, and saying goodbye will be difficult. The presence of the Queens will not make it any easier.

“I think Dorothy is worlds better than when she arrived. The odd nagging headache is all. But she is always welcome to stay,” Ivy adds.

The Queens nod, after which Margery turns to me and asks, “Do you think you could manage a ship ride as well as train travel? Say, on the open ocean?”

Why on earth is she inquiring about a sea voyage? In fact, now that I think about it, why are they all asking me about my ability to travel? I get the distinct impression that I’m being set up.

“Why do you ask?”

Before they can answer, the children scamper into the dining room. “All ready for school?” Ivy asks, scanning each to make certain they are dressed for the classroom and have their bags slung over their little shoulders.

“Yes,” they call out in unison.

“I’ll miss each and every one of you,” I tell them, ruffling their hair. Lingering on John’s silky locks and downcast expression, I know emotion could easily overtake me. So I say, “Ivy will keep reading The Three Musketeers to you in the evening.”

“Will you be back soon, Cousin Dorothy?” John asks.

“Of course,” I answer, kneeling down to meet his gaze and wrapping my arms around him one last time. Then with a bullishness and lightheartedness I absolutely do not feel, I call out, “Now, off to school with the lot of you!”

The image of John’s crestfallen face flits through my mind as we cross the English Channel by ferry once more. Once the children had left for school, the Queens admitted their motive for asking about my capacity to travel. They wanted the five of us to visit Boulogne one more time in the hopes that we might shake loose some final clue definitively linking Louis and May. Not to mention that they worry about additional threats to my person that might be orchestrated in London. But will I really be safer in Boulogne? I don’t think so, not until we have the leverage of proof. Still, here we are.

“Are you feeling well? You look peaked,” Agatha whispers in my ear. She’s leaning over the bolted-down table on board the ferry where we have gathered to strategize.

How can I tell her that I’m not physically ill but heartsick? I’d have to reveal my deepest secret and my darkest shame. Never, I think, could I share the truth about John with these women, whom I respect beyond measure. Even if they’d keep my confidence—thereby preserving John’s status and my employment—they’d never look at me the same way again.

“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 see Cavalcade

October 2: Daily Herald article 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, 2:00 P.M .: Girls arrive in Boulogne on the Glendower from Brighton

October 16, 2:15 P.M. : Girls take tea at H?tel Morveaux

October 16, 2:45 P.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, 3:40 P.M. : May and Celia separate for approximately thirty minutes; May meets man in Jardin éphémère

October 16, 4:16 P.M. : Girls stop in the chemist’s

October 16, 4:22 P.M. : Girls walk down to the harbor to catch the ferry back to Brighton

October 16, 4:48 P.M. : May stops in washroom at the Gare Centrale while Celia waits outside

October 16, 4:53 P.M. : MAY DISAPPEARS

October 16, 5:00 P.M. : Glendower scheduled 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.”

The women grow quiet, contemplating this possibility. Poor May, I think. I remember well the very second I realized I was pregnant, the terror and turmoil I experienced. Every potential outcome raced through my mind at once—abortion; having the baby and giving it up; having the baby and keeping it. I recall running to my toilet to vomit, more from fear than morning sickness. And I did not have a married paramour pressuring me, as I imagine Louis pressed May. The father of my child ran for the hills the moment I told him my news, never to be seen or heard from again.

I sit back to study the timetable, which seems to prompt the other Queens to do the same. The terrible injustice done to May unfolds before me. Anger and anguish course through me in equal measure, and I will not allow her to go unavenged. Like so many other women who’ve gone before her. Like me.