She came to with a start. It was two longs and a short, her ring pattern on their party line telephone system. “Oh. I think that’s mine. Do you mind?”

  Kenny waved her through to the sitting room where the instrument sat in splendour on a doily on a side table. The little-used room was about twenty degrees colder than the kitchen.

  “KC 431, Lane Winslow speaking.”

  “Horrors! Can you believe this? I’ve been here for five winters and I still can’t get over it. This is the worst by far!”

  “Hello, Angela. Did you get the children off to school? Oh, I can hear you haven’t.” Angela’s three boys all seemed to be shouting at once in the background.

  “I tried. Once you get onto the main road it’s not quite as bad as long as you have chains. I struggled up the hill to the school and the place was as dark and cold as a grave. I had to bring them all back. On the way down I met Mrs. Laurie from that cottage near the lake and told her not to bother. We both agreed that it was funny that we hadn’t been telephoned to say school was closed. Only about six or seven families send their kids there.”

  “I’m sure you secretly like having the boys around,” Lane said, smiling. “Don’t they have a new teacher?”

  “Oh, yes. Have had for a little more than a week. Miss Scott is off to be married. She’s well over thirty. It was about time we got someone younger, though I will say, the boys were terrified of Miss Scott. They never misbehaved with her. I wish I had some of what she has!”

  “No, you don’t. You don’t believe any more than I do that children ought to be terrified into submission. Anyway, they learn, don’t they?”

  “Well, they can all read, if that’s what you mean, and do a little arithmetic. And they do like the new teacher. She seems to be terribly kind.”

  “There you are, you see.”

  “I suppose they can learn anything else they need once they’re up at the high school. But that’s still a few years away. Oop, they’re off!” Lane heard a crash and a wail in the background as Angela rang off in a hurry to deal with whatever emergency had arisen.

  “The teacher at the Balfour school hasn’t turned up and didn’t phone anyone, so Angela’s got the boys all day. I know she’d been planning to paint today. From the background row, I don’t get the feeling she’ll get much done!” Lane sat down and looked gratefully at her cup, which was being refilled by Kenny. Eleanor was up at the counter with an enormous bowl and was stirring the contents with some difficulty.

  “I met the new teacher,” Kenny said, dropping a bit of toast on the floor for Alexandra. “Miss . . . Miss. Damn. Something to do with the navy. Keeling. That was it. I stopped by Bales’s store on Friday to gas up the truck and pick up some things for her majesty here, and Miss Keeling was in there. She was sent out by the government right away, she told me, when Miss Scott announced her plan to marry. In fact, I think she’s staying there. At Miss Scott’s, I mean. Of course, it’s a cottage for the local teacher, so it’s not really Miss Scott’s. She’s not marrying anyone local, and there seems to be some sort of holdup in the wedding proceedings, so they both are staying there for the time being.”

  “You’re a veritable fountain of knowledge. I only sent you to the store to pick up flour and treacle,” Eleanor said. By this time, she’d given up trying to mix the fruit with a spoon and was up to her elbows, mixing with her bare hands. “Anyway, I’m happy to hear poor Miss Keeling isn’t there on her own. It must have been very lonely for Miss Scott, all that time racketing about in a cottage by herself. Mind you, I don’t know how Miss Keeling will be managing that mob of Angela’s, and I hear a couple of the other families have rowdy children as well.”

  “Angela says her boys already like her because she’s kind, so they are not complete strangers to finer feelings,” Lane said, watching with a sense of deep contentment as Eleanor continued the mysterious process of creating Christmas cake. She was now sifting flour and spices onto a metal tray. Then Lane sat up, her brow furrowed. “I wonder if Angela has tried to phone Miss Scott’s place? What if there was some sort of trouble and one of them has had to rush the other to town?”

  A quick call to Angela established that she hadn’t phoned the teacher’s cottage, and that Rafe had fallen and was having a bad scrape attended to, and would Lane mind telephoning for her? Lane put a call through to the exchange, which was situated at the back of Bales’s store on the Balfour hill. It was manned by Lucy Prevost, who was on duty and in good form.

  “How can I connect you?” Lucy said with pert professionalism. And then, “Is that you, Miss Winslow?”

  “Yes. How are you, Lucy? No trouble getting in to work today?”

  “Oh, not me! I love a good slog through the snow! Who would you like to speak to?”

  Lane could hear in Lucy’s voice that she was dying to ask about the honeymoon. Lucy was known to eavesdrop on people’s conversations and had followed Lane Winslow almost from the moment she’d arrived, what with the murders and the thrilling romance with Inspector Darling of the Nelson Police. Lane had come to King’s Cove to get away from the violence of the war, after a career with the Special Operations Executive in intelligence in London, and almost immediately had come to the notice of the local police when a body was found in her creek. Since then she had applied her considerable skill and knowledge to helping the police with several other murders.

  “Please put me through to Miss Scott or Miss Keeling, the teachers,” Lane said firmly, not about to indulge the telephonist’s worst instincts.

  “One moment, please.”

  After a lengthy pause in which there was absolute silence, Lucy was back on. “Nope. The line is still dead. I’m not surprised, mind you, in this snow.”

  “What do you mean, ‘still dead’? How long has it been down?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe since Saturday? I know it worked Friday.”

  Lane rang off and stood thoughtfully for a moment before going back into the bustle and warmth of the Armstrongs’ little kitchen. “You know, I wonder if I hadn’t better go along and make sure everyone is all right. The phone line seems to be knocked down, and I don’t like it that Miss Keeling didn’t turn up at the school. I don’t know where she’s from, and she may not be used to these conditions. She could have run her car into a snowbank or something.”

  “Should I come with?” offered Kenny.

  “No, no. If something is amiss, I can contact people from the store telephone. No point in two of us floundering about in this stuff.”

  The trip out onto the main road to Nelson was eased somewhat by the fact that both Darling and Kenny Armstrong had left tracks for Lane’s little car to travel in, and the main road had become densely packed and quite negotiable with chains. She didn’t encounter any real difficulty until she reached the drive down the hill, past Bales’s store, to the teacher’s cottage, which was a good two hundred yards from the lakeshore on a slight rise. It was clear no one had been on it since this last heavy fall of snow the night before.

  She drove slowly down the narrow drive, and as she rounded a small stand of trees, the green cottage came into view. The cottage had an air of having been abandoned, its green paint incongruously cheerful in the almost arctic landscape around it. No smoke from the chimney, no lights, no sign of traffic up and down the steps. It took her a moment to register that there was no car parked next to the house, though there was evidence that one had been there at some prior time. Did Miss Keeling have a car, or did they share the one Miss Scott always drove? Regardless, there had clearly been no traffic to or from the cottage since at least the previous afternoon, if not longer. Undecided about her next move, Lane turned off the engine and sat in the sudden silence, looking at the front door. Why would both teachers go away and not let the parents know there would be no one at the school today? She should go knock, just in case.

  The snow came up over the tops of her boots, and she could feel it settling down inside them. The soft pitted mounds of new snow on the porch indicated there’d been a good deal of coming and going on the porch before the snowfall. She knocked on the door, calling out, “Miss Scott? Miss Keeling?”

  She looked around and down toward the lake. Neighbours were far enough away, across fields and stands of trees, that they were barely visible. They would certainly not hear if anyone were in distress. Almost as an afterthought, Lane turned the doorknob as she was about to go back down to her car. The door creaked open as if it had been expecting her. She knocked again, looking into the darkness through the crack she had opened.

  “Hello? Miss Scott? Is anyone here?” Hearing nothing, she pushed the door open, and even in the murky light sifting through the closed curtains, she could see that things were very much amiss. Books had been thrown to the floor, a chair knocked on its side, and a small wooden table overturned, broken crockery on the floor where it had slipped off in the melee. It was at that moment that she heard a faint and agonized groan.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “HELLO?” LANE CRIED IN ALARM. She pulled the curtains back so that she could see better, saw no one in the shambles of the sitting room, and rushed to what she assumed was a bedroom door. She pushed it open. The bed was made, a clean chamber pot visible under it, and the room was empty and appeared undisturbed. She had no time to register what this might mean. Pushing open the next door, she saw with horror that a woman was on the floor, lying partway under a quilt she had evidently pulled off the bed.

  “Miss Scott!” Lane stooped down and put her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “What happened? Where are you hurt?”

  Miss Scott’s eyes fluttered momentarily, but she could not seem to open them. She made a sound like attempted speech, and then lay still, wheezing, her breath coming with difficulty.

  Lane looked frantically around the bedroom, which she saw had also been knocked about, and pulled a folded blanket from the floor where it had fallen, adding it to the quilt around Miss Scott. It was clear the teacher could not get up. With infinite delicacy Lane lifted the woman’s head and positioned a pillow under it. The side of Miss Scott’s head felt ominously sticky. With a lurch of anxiety, Lane saw there were smears of dark blood on her hand.

  “There. I’m going to phone for an ambulance, Miss Scott, and I will try to make something hot for you to drink.” Lane was reluctant to leave her, even for a moment. “I’m just going into the kitchen to telephone and see about that drink,” she said again, trying for a tone of efficiency and confidence she was far from feeling. Propping the bedroom door open, so that Miss Scott would know she was nearby, Lane looked around the battered sitting room. There was a small wooden desk in the corner. The phone had been knocked onto the floor. She restored it to the desk and then lifted the receiver and clicked several times. It was dead, just as Lucy had said.

  Swearing under her breath, Lane pulled at the cord. It came away in her hand, dangling uselessly where it had clearly been pulled violently from the wall. She leaned back against the desk, her hand over her mouth, beginning to take in the enormity of the situation. It looked very much as though Miss Scott had been attacked. She had to get her to the hospital. Could she get her up on her own and down to the car? She tried to imagine negotiating those slippery front steps with the dead weight of a woman unable to move. She went out onto the porch and looked about. Which neighbour was closest? She could see smoke rising above the stand of trees just to the south. Someone was home there, at least, and she could but pray that they would be on the telephone. She had a momentary panic at the prospect of finding the neighbour had no phone and having to drive from house to house till she found one. Why wasn’t every house on the telephone? It was 1947, for God’s sake! She could drive up to Bales’s store, but that would take a good fifteen minutes there and back in these conditions.

  Back inside she saw that the house was equipped only with the wood cooking stove so common among the houses up and down the lake. It would take ages to light it and get a kettle to boil. She rinsed her hands and found a glass in the cupboard above the sink and ran some water into it. A quick glance through the cupboards revealed no brandy.

  Relieved to find Miss Scott still breathing, she said gently, “Try to drink a little water, Miss Scott.”

  The eyes fluttered again, and a slight movement of the head suggested the woman was trying to lift it. Lane tucked her hand underneath the pillow and gently raised Miss Scott’s head to an angle where she might take a sip without choking. Miss Scott swallowed desperately in tiny gulps until water ran down her chin. Lane put the glass down and wiped her chin with the edge of the quilt.

  “Your phone is down. I’m going to have to go to your neighbour to phone for an ambulance. The people on the other side of the trees, do they have a telephone? Can you nod or shake your head?”

  Miss Scott’s eyes moved under her closed lids, and Lane thought she could see the imperceptible movement of the head signifying, what? Yes? No?

  “They do have a phone?” Lane tried again, nearly in despair. But instead of another attempt, Miss Scott’s head turned heavily sideways and lay still.

  With horror, Lane said the teacher’s name and put her fingers to her neck. She can’t have died, Lane thought desperately, she just can’t. She focused on her fingers and felt a wave of relief. There was a faint thrumming. She had passed out.

  How long would it take for Lane to drive next door, perhaps only to find there was no telephone? Miss Scott was not a large woman. She was relatively short and quite slender. Could Lane lift her?

  She flew outside, found a shovel half buried and leaning against the wall by the porch, and hurriedly scraped the snow off the steps. Then she got into the car and drove it as close to the house as she could.

  She could not imagine how she managed it, as she turned the engine on and set the heat up to high. Especially with her own recent injury, a bullet-grazed rib that objected strenuously to the bending and heaving required to get Miss Scott into the car. The ache was a reminder of the day she’d been shot by a bad-tempered killer while on her honeymoon in Arizona just the month before. Was there someone equally lethal watching her move Miss Scott to the hospital? Trying to still her anxiety, she backed carefully away from the house and onto the drive up to the main road with Miss Scott, wrapped in the quilt and blanket, laid out on the back seat with the pillow under her head. She prayed the teacher would not die. It had been plain from the condition of her clothes that she had lain for at least a day and night, maybe longer, abandoned in the near freezing cold of the unheated cottage.

  What had happened in there? She saw again the overturned sitting room, the bedroom ransacked. It must have been a robbery. Such a situation was almost unthinkable. A violent robbery like that, the householder left for dead. There had been murders in the area, to be sure, usually stemming from some personal history of the individuals involved, but they, on the whole, did not present a threat to the population in general. A random robbery and attack would raise fear and anxiety in everybody. She’d been in the area under two years herself, but no one had ever mentioned a violent attack on a householder during the course of a robbery, including her police inspector husband.

  She glanced at the rear-view mirror. The bundle that was Miss Scott still lay securely on the back seat. Then the real anomaly hit her. Why was the second bedroom completely untouched? It didn’t make sense. Someone breaking into the house, pulling out the phone line, knocking out the woman—if that was what happened, they would mean business. They would ransack the whole house, not leave one bedroom untouched. Had they been scared off by something? But no. Of course not. Anyone scaring them off would have rescued poor Miss Scott.

  She was frustrated, after an agonizingly slow drive of nearly an hour, to find that the ferry into town was just pulling up to the opposite side of the lake. It would have to unload cars going into town, load up cars coming out. “Damn!” she said aloud. She turned off the engine and jumped out of the car to open the rear door and check on her patient. She could still hear the faint hiss of her stertorous breathing. A truck pulled up behind her. The driver was smoking a cigarette, filling his cabin with smoke. Lane gave him a wave and got back into the car.

  “We’ll be there in no time, Miss Scott. We’ll soon have you right as rain.” She wanted to add, “Then you can tell us what happened,” but in the event that somehow Miss Scott could hear and understand what she was saying, she didn’t want her alarmed just at the moment by what must be a horrible memory.

  Finally, the ferry docked with a loud clanking of chains and the metal ramp being let down. Even the short trip across the lake seemed interminable. Lane made her way along Nelson Street as quickly as she dared, and up the long, curved drive to the hospital emergency entrance. She ignored the man who told her she couldn’t park there, that it was for emergencies only, and ran into the hospital. She explained what she could about the condition of Miss Scott and watched, relieved by the cleanliness and efficiency of it all, as a gurney was rushed out, and Miss Scott was rushed in, disappearing with her medical entourage through the green double doors to help.

  “I’ll just get my car out of the way and come back,” Lane said, when the receptionist asked her to help with the paperwork. And when she’d done what she could of the paperwork, she decided to head straight to the police station. Darling had been complaining that things were rather dull at the moment.

  O’BRIEN, THE DESK sergeant, looked up when Lane came in, kicking snow off her boots. “Good morning, Mrs. Darling. Come to report a crime, have you?” Not for O’Brien any newfangled notion of a wife keeping her maiden name. He smiled genially, and then realized that she looked troubled. “Shall I call the inspector, or will you go up?”