Mrs. Pope was in full flow at Friday craftwork. The wives were surrounded by cut-out felt Easter bunny pieces that they were assembling for the orphanage. There were separate ears and tails, as well as little gray rabbit bodies, but no one had touched them. They had barely touched their coffee, either. “You mean,” said Daphne Ginger, “she is not who she said she was?”
“That is exactly what I mean.”
“How do you know, Mrs. Pope?”
The expectation in the room was as sharp as lights. It was like stepping onto a stage. Mrs. Pope took her cue.
In brief, there had been another significant development. She had heard from the Natural History Museum. Or, more specifically, the Natural History Museum had heard from her. Frustrated with waiting for a reply—and frustrated also by her Valentine’s Day party, which had been a disaster: barely anyone had come, let alone bothered with fancy dress; worse, Maurice was openly flirting all night and had even disappeared for a while down in the garden—Mrs. Pope had taken matters into her own hands. She had made use of her British consulate connections and requested a long-distance trunk call to London.
No one from the Entomology Department of the Natural History Museum had heard of Margery Benson. No one had sent her on an expedition. There were no women working in the department. As for New Caledonia, they weren’t entirely sure where it was.
The wives collectively gasped.
“You mean,” said Daphne Ginger at last, “that they are not real?”
“Of course they are real, Daphne. They are here.”
“Are they spies, after all?”
“No.”
“Are they Communists?”
“I doubt they have one political bone between them.”
The British wives continued to stare at Mrs. Pope with open mouths, like helpless chicks waiting to be fed. “What are they, Mrs. Pope?”
Mrs. Pope put down her sewing. She drew her head tall. She paused, she paused, she paused. Then she delivered her line: “They are Nancy Collett and Woman With No Head.”
The wives sat, stunned. Even more stunned than before. Mrs. Pope took advantage of their shock to produce a dossier of newspaper clippings. She had got hold of every British journal she could find; fortunately everything was delivered to the consulate, even the lower-class rags. She swept aside the craftwork from the table, and where there had been needles and thread and pieces of cut-out felt, she now laid out her articles, side by side. A picture of Nancy Collett getting married; another with her husband at a chimps’ tea party; a third in a hat with cherries. The women peered closer.
“It’s terribly difficult to tell who it is,” said Coral Pepper. “There isn’t really a close-up of her face. Mostly she’s hidden by other things.”
“And who is that other one? The cartoon?” asked Daphne.
“That is Miss Benson.”
“But she has no head.”
“It’s an artist’s impression.”
Mrs. Pope thumbed through her newspaper cuttings, searching for the only one that actually revealed Miss Benson’s full name. The wives picked it up and read, and passed it round, then the other articles, one by one. They took in the headlines carefully, the details of the crime, the witness accounts, the stories from Nancy Collett’s lovers.
WHERE IS NANCY COLLETT?
THIS WOMAN MUST HANG.
BRITAIN’S MOST WANTED CRIMINAL.
What should they do? Go to the French police? Phone the British government? Write to the king?
Mrs. Pope said, “These women must be arrested. They must be taken back to Britain. They must be tried. They killed a war hero. We simply cannot sit here and allow them to get away with it.” The women nodded.
Then a girlish voice said: “Victoria.”
A sudden hush. You could have cut through it with craft scissors. No one ever called Mrs. Pope by her actual name. Not even Maurice used it—though presumably he didn’t call her Mrs. Pope in bed. But if anyone had that thought, they ran away from it. It wasn’t something anyone wanted to dwell on.
The voice came again. A little bolder. “Victoria, you are getting carried away.”
Mrs. Pope turned. “Mrs. Wiggs? Are you questioning my judgment?”
Dolly had flared the red of a tulip. Even her neck was red; so were the lobes of her ears. “Victoria. I’m sorry. But when Daphne suggested this a few weeks ago, you warned us all to be sensible.”
“That’s right, Mrs. Pope,” murmured Daphne, terribly quietly. “You did say that.”
“We need to stop, Victoria, before we make complete fools of ourselves. Remember the knitted rockets? You need to let this go before we become a laughingstock. What have those women done to any of us? They’re just looking for beetles.”
At the mention of the knitted rockets, a further silence fell over the women. This one was more like British snow—the kind that doesn’t settle, just creates a thin, slippery mess. Suddenly Daphne Ginger and Coral Pepper realized it was time to go. They had matters to attend to at home. Within half an hour all the wives had remembered things that required their attention. They were picking up their summer coats and hats and handbags.
“But we have to do something,” said Mrs. Pope. “We can’t let those women get away with it….”
Too late. Not even Dolly stayed. Friday craftwork was over and no one had touched their Easter rabbits. She had been thwarted and made a fool of, and she was furious. She would show them all, not just the wives but Margery Benson and Nancy Collett. She would show them all she was not to be slighted.
Mrs. Pope took the car straight to the British consulate. Maurice was in a meeting about an extension to the golf club. She had to wait for over an hour. Afterward he said he could not see how two British women wanted for murder could have made their way as far as New Caledonia. For a start, they wouldn’t have got past customs. He asked if she had remembered that the Dutch minister was coming for canapés and drinks at six.
At the door, she paused. “Will you be dining at home?”
“Not tonight.”
“Shall I wait up?”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Of course,” she said. “Of course.”
Mrs. Pope drove to the French police station. It was packed. Not just people, but their dogs and baskets, even a pig.
At last it was Mrs. Pope’s turn. A police officer beckoned her forward. She explained very clearly in French what must be done. The British citizens wanted for the break-in at the Catholic school had escaped to Poum. She knew who they were. They must be brought back immediately. They must be handed over to the British government. They were the murderers Nancy Collett and her accomplice. She had to say it several times. The French policeman had no idea what Mrs. Pope was talking about.
“They are wanted in Great Britain.” Mrs. Pope produced her dossier. She took out her press cuttings. They trembled in her hands like paper flags. “This is a matter of extreme urgency.”
The police official tried to make sense of Mrs. Pope’s newspaper cuttings. He was obviously having difficulty.
She repeated in French, “You are looking for a large woman with big brown hair, aged fifty plus. The other is small with bleached hair. Very thin. There might also be a man with them. I’m not sure.” She added that the large woman had no dress sense, but he didn’t seem to think that made any difference. He didn’t even open his notebook.
She pulled out her last stop. She said, “Don’t you realize? They have no visas. These women are in New Caledonia illegally, without visas. My husband is the British consul and he could not help them.”
At last the police official shrugged. He said, “Bien sûr.” He would send a car up to Poum.