An Impartial Witness by Charles Todd Read Free Book Online

realized he’d sworn aloud and was busy apologizing.
    “Did you know his wife?” I asked.
    He smiled. “If you knew Merry, you knew Marjorie. She’s all he ever talked about. I’m surprised he didn’t name that bitch in the stables for her.” And once more he realized he’d put foot in mouth. “Sorry—I didn’t mean it the way it came out.”
    “I’d seen her photograph. She seemed to be such a lovely woman. In every sense.”
    “Yes, well, she most certainly was pretty.” He smiled, remembering. “But it hadn’t turned her head. Do you know what I mean? She was a thoroughly nice person. That’s what makes it so hard to believe she was murdered. I mean to say,” he went on, frowning now, “one doesn’t think of murder touching nice people.”
    Before I could stop myself, I spoke in defense of Marjorie Evanson. “I don’t think murderers care if one is nice or not.”
    “Oddly enough, Serena asked me yesterday if I thought Marjorie had fallen in with the wrong sort of people. I couldn’t imagine what she was getting at. Marjorie wasn’t like that.” He took a deep breath. “Is there something worrying her?”
    “I expect she’s also having trouble understanding murder,” I said. “Grasping at straws—the wrong sort of people, money, debts, secrets—anything to explain what happened.”
    “I doubt if it was money or debts. Marjorie was comfortably off in her own right, but not rich. As I remember, she and her sister shared the inheritance from their father.”
    Someone—Inspector Herbert?—had mentioned a sister.
    “As for secrets,” he went on, “Marjorie was hopeless there. Merry told me she couldn’t wait for an anniversary or a birthday, and was forever asking if he wanted to know straightaway what she was giving him.”
    And yet she had kept a very different secret from her husband and everyone else.
    Lieutenant Bellis began to pace restlessly. “How did we get on such a morbid subject? The weather is wretched enough.”
    Taking the hint, I said, “It does seem a little lighter in the west.”
    “Your imagination,” he replied, grinning, coming to stand by me at the windows. “It’s still as black as the bottom of a witch’s kettle out there. This could go on for hours.”
    But it didn’t. A tiny square of blue grew to the size of a counterpane, and then spread quickly, offering us the spectacle of a rainbow as the sun finally burst through.
    The grass was too wet for sport, and so we collected in the study for our tea.
    Jack was looking tired, as if he rather regretted inviting so many guests for the weekend. Watching him, I thought perhaps he was feeling the strain of his duties. It must be a burden to know the truth about what was happening in France or the North Atlantic and say nothing. I’d noticed several times that when he was asked for his views on the course of the war or the prospect for the Americans to come in, he evaded a direct answer, giving instead the public view we could read for ourselves in any newspaper.
    My own father had told me privately that if the Americans didn’tcommit themselves soon, we would run short of men. I’d asked him if the Germans were in the same state, and he’d answered gravely, “We’d better start praying they are.” It was a worrying possibility that we could lose the war. That so many might have died in vain.
    The men drifted off to the billiard room, and the women settled down to read or knit. We were all expected to do our share with our needles, and most of us were thoroughly tired of the drab khaki wool intended for stockings, scarves, gloves, hoods, and even waistcoats to keep men warm in the trenches.
    Serena came to join us after seeing to matters in the kitchen, and I noticed the shadows on her face as she sat by one of the lamps, rolling yarn into a ball.
    Cynthia Newley said, “Serena, is there any news regarding Marjorie? Has the Yard learned anything more?”
    “Apparently not,” she answered coldly. “At