• 41 •

OUTSIDE THE INFIRMARY, Nurse Cartwright was waiting off by herself, leaning against a solitary birch that served as a kind of informal camp message board. Notices of lost items were posted there, and offers from the more enterprising campers (Fleurette not among them) to mend stockings and hems for a fee. The nurse made a show of appearing to read the notices, but came rushing over as soon as Constance walked out.

“Everyone’s talking about a gunshot,” she said. “I heard it myself, but I thought it was only an auto misfiring. Do I have another patient?”

Constance glanced down the camp’s wide central avenue, with tents arrayed on either side. Discipline was starting to fall apart. With the show over, and no one to order them to bed, the campers were running between the tents, a sort of frenetic buzz in the air about the gunshot that brought the performance to an abrupt end. Constance could hear the rumors floating toward her: Hack shot an intruder. May Ward was followed to camp by a jealous lover.

She motioned for the nurse to follow her. They walked a little ways away, behind the infirmary, far enough to be out of earshot.

“You don’t have another patient,” Constance said. “There was a gun, but it didn’t find its mark.”

“And who was its mark, may I ask?”

Constance hesitated. Who else could she tell, besides Norma? “You mustn’t say a word.”

“If it concerns my patient, I’m duty-bound to keep it quiet.”

Of course, Nurse Cartwright didn’t know her patient’s true identity — and Constance wasn’t about to tell her that. “I will say only that a gun was fired in the general direction of Mrs. Ward’s husband, but he wasn’t hurt.”

Nurse Cartwright squinted at her in the dim light. “A girl shooting at another woman’s husband? I’ll wager she had a good reason to put a bullet in him. I wonder if she’ll tell me what it was.”

“That’s for her to decide,” Constance said.

“Oh, she’ll tell me,” the nurse said. “They all do. If you’re through with her for the night, I’ll mix her up a sleeping powder. She needs her rest.”

“Why should she sleep tonight?” Constance said. “She stole a gun and tried to shoot a man. That ought to keep her awake. Mr. Bernstein was very nearly murdered.”

“And then you stopped it,” the nurse said, with cheerful aplomb. “That’s a job well-done.”

“But it isn’t over yet,” Constance said. “Mr. Bernstein’s going to want to press charges. I’ll have to call in the police, and testify myself. I’m the only eyewitness. I’ve no choice but to give evidence.”

The weight of what had happened was descending upon her. She could picture all too clearly what was coming next: the police arriving, the interviewing of witnesses, Beulah put in handcuffs, taken away to jail . . . and then the reporters, and a round of scandalous stories about Beulah Binford and the National Service Schools. Beulah’s life would be ruined a second time. Constance’s own past would be resurrected: the disgraced lady deputy, bringing dishonor to another institution.

But even worse, the cause of women’s war work would be set back a decade. A camp meant for wartime preparation, descended into a tawdry feud between a notorious harlot and a vaudeville showman. No mother would ever send her daughter to such a place again.

Nurse Cartwright was watching her: she saw the despair move across her face.

“It’ll be a mess, with the police here,” she offered.

“It will,” Constance said, “but I can’t ignore the law.”

Nurse Cartwright gave a startled little cough. “The law! What business is that of yours?”

“It used to be my business,” Constance said.

Nurse Cartwright stepped back and looked her over. “Oh, I see it now. You have that air about you. What were you? Jail matron? Police lady?”

“Something like that,” Constance admitted. Her former profession hung about her like a uniform.

“But you’ve given it up?”

“You might say it gave me up. But that doesn’t change the fact that a crime has been committed, and I have a duty —”

Nurse Cartwright interrupted. “This Mr. Bernstein — what did he do to that girl? Was it lawful?”

“It might not’ve been,” Constance mused. Was he guilty of fraud? Misrepresentation? “Whatever he did, though, the punishment isn’t a bullet through the head.”

“No, the punishment is a good fright, and that’s all he’s had,” Nurse Cartwright said.

They’d walked around the infirmary three times now, their heads bowed, hands clasped behind them.

Nurse Cartwright blew out a puff of air and looked up at the stars, considering. “You must know the inside of a jail cell, if you’ve been in police work.”

“I slept in one myself, alongside my inmates,” Constance said.

“Then you know what’s in store for her. Would it help that girl to go to jail?”

“Not at all,” Constance admitted. “In my old position, I could put a troubled girl under probation, and keep an eye on her myself. But I can’t do that anymore.”

The nurse glanced back over at the infirmary and said, thoughtfully, “She does need looking after.” Then, turning back to Constance, “There are times when I find the law to be more of a hindrance.”

Constance sighed, thinking of her illicit late-night trainings and how dull life had been without them. “I’m getting rather tired of laws and rules myself, but consider the position I’m in.”

“It seems to me,” the nurse said, “that a great deal depends upon Mr. Bernstein. He’s the only one with a grievance. If he has an ounce of shame, he’ll scuttle out of here and never say a word.”

“That doesn’t sound like Freeman Bernstein,” Constance said. “And what am I to tell the campers about that gunshot? And the parents, and Miss Miner, when she finds out?”

Nurse Cartwright patted her shoulder and turned to go back to the infirmary. “I told a few of them that it was only a prop, shooting blanks. It works marvelously. Give it a try. Can I mix you a sleeping powder, too? You could use one.”

Constance declined the sleeping powder. She made her way back through the tents, ushering girls to the latrines or the water pumps one last time, issuing stern warnings about curfew.

A girl of only seventeen, her hair in two long braids, popped out of her tent in her nightgown.

“Go on to sleep, Roberta. Reveille’s at six,” Constance said.

“But, Miss Kopp — is it true? Are you the one who fired the gun? I heard there was a bear in the woods. Did you kill him?”

“I heard it was Hack, shooting at a thief who was going from tent to tent while we were at the show” came a voice from inside Roberta’s tent.

A little crowd gathered around, most of them wrapped in blankets against the nighttime chill. Constance looked around at their faces, some anxious, some mirthful. This was little more than a bedtime story for them — a bit of adventure, a story to be passed around for a few days until the next bit of drama gripped them. The newspaper-reading public would treat it that way, too, if word got out: an entertainment, to be tossed about the way a cat tortures a mouse, until a more enticing plaything comes along.

Never mind what happens to the mouse. Constance looked back at the infirmary and marveled again at the fact that the notorious Beulah Binford was secreted away there. What had to be going through her mind at that moment?

“It was a gun, wasn’t it? It sounded more like an automobile firing.” The question came from a girl named Sally who’d attended her wireless class. She had a bit of garish lip-stick still smudged across her lower lip. Constance pulled out a handkerchief — here was one rule she could enforce, anyway — and wiped it away.

“It was nothing but a theatrical prop meant to sound like a gun,” she told them. “Flash powder, for dramatic effect. I’m sorry if it startled you. It went off unexpectedly.”

Whether they were satisfied with that explanation or not Constance couldn’t guess. At least they went obediently back to their tents.

Now she had Freeman Bernstein to reckon with.