The Red Door Part 24

As he drove, he asked himself again, as he had on the journey to Lancashire, what had become of the cane's head? It was the last piece of crucial evidence, and he wanted very badly to find it.

If it had been taken away and dropped from a bridge, as Satterthwaite had suggested, it would never come to light. Which meant that the rest of the evidence against Peter Teller had to be d.a.m.ning.

"He'll have a verra' good defense," Hamish agreed.

The house was just ahead, first the roof and then the hedge coming into sight on its knoll. He left the motorcar on the road and walked through the gate, intending to dig around in the flower beds with his fingers, to see if the cane's k.n.o.b was there. It was hopeless, he knew that very well, but he had to try.

But someone had watered the plants, and pulled out any weeds that would mar their appearance. He bent down to touch a leaf.

It was still wet.

Instead of opening the door, he went out the gate again and walked around the house to the gardens by the kitchen door.

The man squatting beside one of the beds leapt to his feet with surprise as Rutledge suddenly appeared, braced for anything that might come at him.

It was Lawrence Cobb, his trousers stained from working the earth and pulling weeds. A pile of wilting debris lay on the gra.s.sy path next to his boots.

"Oh-it's only you, then," Cobb said in relief. "I've come here to keep the gardens for her. Until someone knows what's to happen to this place. It's the least I can do. Her flowers shouldn't die too."

Rutledge could read the unspoken words in his eyes-and it brings her closer, as if she were still alive and somewhere inside.

"I see nothing wrong with it," Rutledge answered him. "A pity you weren't out here working on the day she was attacked."

"Don't you think I dream about it at night?"

"If your wife hears of it, it will be on your head."

Cobb said, "If I had been here, she might still be alive. But that's hindsight. I hear you found that walker. Was he the man?"

"As it turned out, he was a witness and a very helpful one. He saw the motorcar by the hedge and the man who was driving it."

Cobb dusted his hands, nodding. "I knew it. Someone from his family, most likely, with an eye to the property."

"Someone from his family, yes, but I don't think this property entered into it. I think he'd come to see her, and decide what to do about her. What I don't know is whether or not she invited him in. It must have been a shock to her to see him there. She wouldn't have known what to say."

Cobb stared up at the bedroom windows, as if he could see the answer written there on the gla.s.s. "She stopped looking for him-waiting, listening for the door-over a year ago. She told me he must be dead, but you could tell she hadn't really started to believe even then. I think she expected some miracle, and then when it never happened, she lost hope. The logic in her head told her one thing, her heart something else."

"Was he good to her?"

Cobb brought his gaze back to Rutledge. "It depends on how you define good, of course. She never wanted for anything-food on the table, wood for the fire in the winter, clothes to keep her warm. He never struck her or called her names. This was the place she wanted to live in and bring up her son. Just as she'd grown up here with her aunt. And he made no objection. Of course, if he'd asked her to go wherever his regiment was sent, she would have, just to be with him. No matter what the hardships were. But the truth is, he wasn't here as often as he should have been. There's the Army, I understand that, of course I do. But I'd have moved heaven and earth to come home if she'd been mine. I'd left the Army and found other work to do, digging ditches if I had to, anything to be near her."

"You knew her well," Rutledge said quietly.

"I loved her. And so I listened to her, and read between the lines sometimes. But she saw me as her friend. And I was scrupulous about keeping it that way. I'd have lost her, otherwise."

"I think you would have," Rutledge said.

He rubbed his forehead with his gloved hand and left behind a long streak of rich earth. "I was here when Timmy died. Not in the house. I meant, in Hobson. I thought she'd lose her mind. She stopped coming into town, stopped eating, stopped looking out for herself. But some of us saw to it that she had whatever she needed. Mrs. Greeley. Satterthwaite. Others People would bring her food, for fear she wasn't cooking. I chopped wood that winter and piled it outside the kitchen door there, within reach even on the worst days, and kept it covered with a tarp. When she didn't milk the cow, because it reminded her too much of feeding the boy those last days, I took it down to Mrs. Greeley to keep until she was ready to have it back. I've never seen so much grief as she felt."

"I saw the photograph of her son in her room."

"That was the only photograph she had. And I took that for her. She said that Teller never cared for pictures set about. But she was glad of it. You'd have thought Teller would have understood something like that."

"There was never a photograph of her husband? Not even a wedding picture?"

"There was a small one of the wedding couple. She kept it safe somewhere, out of sight and out of mind."

With his letters very likely, Rutledge thought. And gone with them.

Cobb took off his gloves and swatted at an insect busy about his ears. "I want to know. Have you found her killer? Don't lie to me, I want to know. I can't sleep nights, sometimes, thinking about everyone who knew her, anyone who could have done such a thing, and I need to know know. I come into Hobson sometimes and look at the faces of people I meet on the street or in a shop or sitting next to me on a Sunday. And I think, could that be him? Or that one? My uncle tells me I'll drive myself mad doing that, but it's the only way I'll have any peace, finding him before the police do."

"I can't tell you how the inquiry is progressing. I will say that it's possible that we know who it was."

"And the bird? He's been no help? My mother-in-law told me you'd taken Jake. I was glad. I thought she might do it a mischief with its squawking so loud she couldn't sleep. And Betsy wanted no part of it."

"The bird hasn't said much. So far." He hesitated, then said, "If you found something unusual-out of place-tell Satterthwaite, will you?"

He left Cobb there and went into the house, walking through the empty rooms, listening to the sounds of his own footsteps in the silence. Hamish, in the back of his mind, was busy, but he could find nothing to trigger a sudden thought or offer a glimmer of light.

Nothing had changed. He hadn't expected it to.

And that was the problem. Nothing had had changed, he could see only what he had before. With the eyes of the past, not the present. changed, he could see only what he had before. With the eyes of the past, not the present.

He considered what to do about Cobb coming to tend the flowers, and decided he was doing no harm. And it gave him something to think about besides taking the head off whoever had killed Florence Teller.

Without speaking to Cobb again, he left the house and drove back to Hobson.

Rutledge and Satterthwaite ate their dinner together at a pub in Thielwald. The food was heavy, suitable for men who did physical labor, filling and satisfying. As Satterthwaite promised, the pudding was excellent, and as they were finishing it, he said to Rutledge, "You're quiet."

"I was thinking about a birthday celebration. Tonight in Ess.e.x."

"Did you want to be there?"

"I wasn't invited. I just have a feeling that I shouldn't have stayed over. I should have gone directly back to London."

"One day won't matter."

Chapter 24

Rutledge was putting his valise and a packet of sandwiches prepared by Mrs. Greeley into his motorcar, when Lawrence Cobb came down the High Street and nodded as he walked up to Mrs. Greeley's door.

It was then that Rutledge saw the left side of his face. There was an angry welt along his cheekbone. It was oozing a thin line of fluid and blood.

Shutting the driver's door, Rutledge said swiftly, "What's happened?"

"Nothing. I'm leaving Betsy. I told her as much last night. That this marriage is a pretense and we're both better off out of it. I came to see if Mrs. Greeley will give me a room for a few days, just until I can make arrangements."

"Why not stay with your uncle?"

"He's old. I don't want him caught up in my troubles."

Rutledge said, "Work it out. Florence Teller is dead."

"Look, I'm tired. Working in Florence's-Mrs. Teller's garden yesterday I could see my way for the first time. I'm still mourning her. I will be for a very long while. It's not fair to Betsy, it's not fair to me, pretending I have deep feelings for her. We've no children. That's a blessing. And so I've told her. I also told her that she could have the farm. I won't send her back to her mother. They don't get on." He smiled grimly. "I should have waited until she'd set down the hot bread tray. The corner of it clipped me. She's gone home to her mother. But she'll be back. She likes the house. It will matter more than I do before very long."

He'd thought it all out, just as he said.

But Rutledge persisted. "You're doing to Betsy what Teller did to his wife."

"No. I married a Betsy who didn't exist. The true woman is nothing like the one I courted. She's not sweet and loving and caring. She's like her mother, mean-spirited, discontented, selfish. The day after I married her, I knew it was a mistake. This has nothing to do with Florence. I was expecting to be happy. I really believed we could be happy." He shook his head. "You can't make love happen when there are lies to start with."

Hamish said, "It willna' do any guid. He's made up his mind."

Rutledge silently acknowledged that. "I'm just leaving. Mrs. Greeley will be glad to offer you my room, I'm sure."

Cobb looked sharply at Rutledge. "You aren't coming back. What about her killer?"

"I'm going to take the killer into custody. I won't be needing the room again."

Cobb thanked him and was about to turn away. Then he said, "What becomes of Jake? When you've made your arrest? I'm offering to take him. I can now. He sometimes speaks with her voice. It would be a comfort."

"Even when that voice says good night to her husband?"

"That doesn't matter to me. It's her voice. Close enough. I'll hear it again."

"I'll see what can be done," Rutledge promised, thinking that Frances would be delighted to hear that Jake had a permanent home.

And with that, Lawrence Cobb opened the door to Mrs. Greeley's house as Rutledge turned the bonnet of his motorcar toward the south.

Chapter 25

On his way into London, Rutledge made a detour to Chelsea, but the Channing house was quiet, the drapes still pulled across the windows, as they had been for days. The long golden rays of the setting sun touched them with brightness, but it was only a shallow reflection, not the lamplight he had hoped to see. He couldn't bring himself to walk up to the door.

She was in good hands, wherever she was. He could only wish her a speedy recovery. And time would see to that. He could still remember the shock of recognition as she lay there injured in the broken and twisted wreckage of her carriage. He'd been too busy then to deal with the image that was burned into his memory. Seeing her whole again would change that.

"Aye," Hamish said. "But she isna' coming back to London straightaway. She was already leaving it, ye ken."

a.n.a.lyzing his own feelings, he realized that the uppermost emotion that day had been fear. Fear that she was terribly injured. Not pity or compa.s.sion or anger at the waste of a life.

He had been in love once. And it hadn't worked out. Just as Lawrence Cobb had said. He'd seen the look on Jean's face when she finally visited him in hospital and realized what he'd become. He had done the only thing he could do in that single appalling moment: he'd released her from her promise to marry him, so that he wouldn't have to face her rejection. The relief on her face as he spoke the words had stayed with him long after her first horrified view of him sitting there, a broken man, had begun to fade.

Once was enough. He said as much to Hamish, his voice sounding overly loud in the cacophony of traffic as he turned toward the Yard.

Gibson greeted him with the news that Billy had killed again.

"There's been another murder. Of the same ilk. And this time Billy has cut his throat. The victim was on the bridge, walking, minding his own business. And he was robbed."

"How can you be sure it's our friend Billy?"

"The past week, we've had constables in street clothes walking over the bridge and along the river late at night, and we've been watching them with field gla.s.ses. But nothing happened." He paused. "None of them looked like you from a distance. They were a different shape. Different height. And nothing happened to them. And then this poor sod was attacked."

"Billy was elsewhere. Or recognized them for policemen."

Gibson said, "We don't think so. His victims are usually near the bridge. And out late at night. They could have pa.s.sed for you, walking off a mood. You do that, you know."

Rutledge hadn't realized that he was so predictable. "All right. Go on."

"You nearly caught him. He's afraid of you. And he wants you dead, for luck."

It wasn't unheard of.

"He won't come back tonight. Not with the police everywhere, looking for evidence."

"No, sir. I suggest you get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow night you'll be on that bridge, and we'll be watching you."

"Whose idea was this?" Rutledge asked, curious.

"Inspector Mickelson, sir," Gibson replied, his voice neutral. "But we have to catch him, sir. There's no other way."

"Yes, I understand. All right. But only tomorrow night, Gibson. I must drive to Ess.e.x on Monday morning, unless Captain Teller returns to London sooner."

"I hope you'll be taking someone into custody soon. Old Bowels is getting impatient."

"Bowles isn't going to like it when we do. Peter Teller, Walter Teller's elder brother, seems to be our man."

"My dear lord." Gibson whistled softly. "I hope your evidence is rock solid. Or none of us will have any peace."

Rutledge left, intending to visit his sister. If Jake hadn't said anything of importance-and he was not antic.i.p.ating hearing that he had-then he would carry the bird back to Lancashire and give it to Lawrence Cobb.

He caught Frances just returning from dinner with friends and hailed her as she was going inside. She turned and smiled at him.

"Ian. Come in. I've had a lovely evening. What brings you here? Don't tell me it's Jake. I'll be jealous."