Chapter Twenty-One
M ARCH 27, 1931
L ONDON, E NGLAND
The box is battered and dented, yet my fingers itch to lift off the top and start pawing through it. Why am I so hopeful that an undiscovered clue might be found here, in the objects stored at her communal hospital lodging? Or brought with her on her leave? This isn’t one of my novels, I remind myself. More likely to be inside are May’s toiletries, day dresses, pajamas, and perhaps the odd letter from one of her sisters. The everyday remains of a life ended too soon.
I wait for a nod from Mrs. Lloyd and Mrs. Davis. Like a surgical assistant, Ngaio stands at my side, ready to receive each object as I pull it out. We remove the item on top and examine a nurse’s uniform. The gray dress, white apron, and nursing cap all spotless and perfectly pressed, as if May were ready to start her shift. How terribly sad, I think of the dashed hopes and plans.
Suddenly I wonder: Have I ever had my detectives experience these emotions as they study the belongings of the victim? I fear I’ve created cold and calculating investigators who don’t recognize the humanity of the deceased and feel a sense of loss at their death.
“Ah, remember when she first got her uniform?” Mrs. Lloyd asks Mrs. Davis, overtaken by the memory of their little sister.
With a sniffle, Mrs. Davis answers, “Of course. She was so very proud.”
“Didn’t she look pretty in it?” Mrs. Lloyd comments, mostly to herself. I don’t sense that it’s a question she expects her sister to answer. “So grown up.”
The parlor grows uncomfortably quiet as Ngaio slides out a luxurious emerald silk dress with a plunging neckline and a cinched waist. The sisters’ mouths are agape at the sight of this gown.
Noticing their stares, Ngaio says, “I’m sure your sister looked lovely in this as well.” It’s a surprisingly sensitive remark, given the awkwardness of the moment. Perhaps I have underestimated her.
“I don’t remember that dress,” Mrs. Davis says, her tone wary.
“Neither do I,” Mrs. Lloyd adds. “It doesn’t seem May’s style at all. Too formal. Too sophisticated. Too…” She hunts for the right word.
“Mature?” Her sister fills in the blank.
“Exactly,” Mrs. Lloyd responds. “Could it have been placed in the box by accident?”
I realize the sisters haven’t studied the box’s contents with any attention to detail. Probably they received the box soon after her disappearance and couldn’t bear to examine its contents too closely. Too painful, I imagine. Had the police even inspected it? Someone must have gathered the items from Brighton and sent them to the sisters along with the objects stored at May’s hospital lodging. I know some Scotland Yard minions had been dispatched to offer minimal assistance to the gendarmes, but from what I’ve seen thus far, their review has hardly been thorough.
Ngaio holds up a deep indigo silk dress that had been tucked underneath the emerald one. “I don’t think so. This frock is by the same designer as the green one—Madame Isobel.”
I hear a sharp intake of breath from Mrs. Lloyd. “Madame Isobel? She could never have afforded Madame Isobel dresses.”
Even I have heard of Madame Isobel, though her frocks are far, far outside the range of what I can pay for and much too chic and clingy for me. Celebrities and aristocrats wear her gowns. But I have a thought: Would a run-of-the-mill policeman have recognized the brand and realized how irregular it was for a nurse to own not one but two of these garments?
“Perhaps they are castoffs from a nurse friend,” I offer, thinking back on the many hand-me-downs I’ve sported over the years. One particularly wealthy friend from my Oxford days would occasionally leave a cashmere cardigan on my bed, waving away my protestations with an excuse that it no longer fit. I know what it’s like to be short on funds. But in my childhood and young adulthood, I never felt impoverished: growing up as the only child in a vicarage, I had love, education, a sense of community, and faith. I only ever lacked for companions—until my cousin Ivy Shrimpton returned from America with my aunt and uncle, that is. Then I had the older sister for whom I’d always longed.
As I give the two gowns a final look and fold them, I feel something in the pocket of the indigo dress. Placing the dress down on the table—behind the box to keep it away from the sisters’ view—I reach inside. My fingers make contact with two thick rectangular pieces of paper. Sliding them out as surreptitiously as I can, I look down. They are theater tickets to an August 20, 1930, show of a No?l Coward musical called Cavalcade at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
Coughing gently, I get Ngaio’s attention. She makes a quick study of the tickets, then we return them to the indigo dress.
“Perhaps May borrowed them.” Mrs. Lloyd latches on to this explanation, but her tone belies her words. And I share her doubts. Girls from well-to-do families—girls who can afford Madame Isobel—do not work as nurses.
Ngaio and I unfasten a rectangular cordovan case that seems to have served as May’s toiletries and makeup repository. It feels incredibly invasive to handle May’s personal grooming supplies, particularly in the presence of her sisters. So we scan the lipsticks, brush, aspirin, and cold cream quickly, touching the items only when they impede our view. Ngaio’s index finger snakes into the case, points out a small glass jar containing a pink liquid, then flips it over: the label reads PEPTO-BISMOL . A stomach remedy.
We exchange a glance. It seems May’s stomach ailments predate her trip to Boulogne. The alarm bells are ringing again, and it seems increasingly likely that our suppositions hold water.
But we are not yet done. At the very bottom of the box is a small leather-bound Bible. Mrs. Davis’s hand rests over her heart. “Look, Jane—May had Mum’s Bible with her at the hospital.”
Tears now stream down Mrs. Lloyd’s cheeks. I feel terrible that we’ve opened the sisters’ wounds. But we must dig into the recesses of their pain in order to glean the truth.
Ngaio pages through the Bible while I look on. Tucked in the back—amid the prophecies of Revelation—are a piece of paper and a photograph. I slide out the picture, and a trio of nurses smiles up at us.
I recognize May at the center, but not the other women. “Who are the other two girls?” I ask the sisters, handing them the picture.
Mrs. Lloyd pulls out a pair of glasses from her dress pocket and squints at the photograph. “Why, that’s Celia McCarthy to the right, but I don’t recognize the other girl. Do you?” She hands it to her sister.
“No,” Mrs. Davis replies. “But she had bundles of chums on the ward.”
As the women study the picture, Ngaio and I return to the paper squirreled away in the Bible. It is May’s nursing certification. I notice a bump in the leather-bound back of the Bible. Running my fingertips along it, I realize there’s an opening in the seam of the binding. Is it big enough for my finger? I inch my index finger between the two leather covers and feel another small slip of paper inside. With great care, I retrieve a worn, folded newspaper article.
With the sisters’ attention still on the photograph, I turn my back to them and unfold the Daily Herald article. It bears the date of October 2, 1930—around two weeks before May’s disappearance. The headline reads MISSING GIRL CLUES , and a shiver passes through me.
I feel Ngaio peering over my shoulder. After she scans the headline, we stare at each other in astonishment. Why would May hide an article about a missing girl two weeks before she disappeared herself? I slide the article into my own pocket.