The Red Door Part 31

Rutledge put food on a plate without thinking about what he had chosen.

He was remembering Captain Teller, when Rutledge asked about Walter Teller's will during his disappearance, saying that it would be time enough to read it when they knew his brother was dead.

And Rutledge had never pursued the question, because Walter turned up alive and well.

He went to the telephone and gave instructions to the constable at the Yard who answered. He had just put up the telephone when there was the sound of a vehicle coming down the drive.

He waited outside for it to reach the steps. Leticia pulled up the hand brake, turned off the motor, and stepped out.

"You seem to bring trouble in your wake. I see Dr. Fielding is still here. Where is my brother?"

"I haven't seen him this past half hour."

"He'll be with Jenny, then," she said decisively and went briskly past him and up the stairs.

Fielding came down shortly afterward and said, "I asked if he'd like to speak to the rector. He said he'd prefer my company. He won't let me give him anything. He said that G.o.d was punishing him, and he couldn't escape that."

"There's breakfast in the dining room."

"Thank you. It's been a long morning for all of us. I could use some tea." He nodded and disappeared down the pa.s.sage.

Rutledge was standing very close to where Peter Teller had been found at the foot of the stairs. He looked at the spot, remembering the sprawled body and the family in distress. It had seemed to be genuine distress.

Amy, first to reach Peter, had said he had tried to speak her name.

Mee . . .

Rousing himself, Rutledge was about to walk back to the study when he heard another vehicle on the drive. It was the local police. Inspector Jessup said as Rutledge opened the door, "Dr. Fielding asked us to wait before coming. Who's here now? I see the other motor."

"Miss Teller, Walter Teller's sister."

Jessup nodded. "Was she here last night?"

"I telephoned her earlier. She arrived not five minutes before you."

Rutledge led the way into the study. "It appears to be a straightforward case of accidental overdose." He told Jessup what he had seen and about the spilled milk in the kitchen. "At this stage, I can't see a case for suicide."

"Or murder?"

"Not at this stage," Rutledge repeated.

Jessup said, "Sometimes people aren't careful enough counting out their drops. Are you comfortable with accidental death?"

"At the moment. I'll listen to what other family members have to say."

"There seems to have been a rash of them in this house. I hope this is the last. Bad things come in threes."

"Teller and his sister are upstairs. To your right, second door. Or the master bedroom, farther along the pa.s.sage."

"Any marks on the body?"

"None that Fielding or I saw. He'll know more later."

Jessup nodded and went up the stairs two at a time.

Another motorcar came rapidly down the drive, and Rutledge opened the door to find a constable already standing there on duty, his cape wet with rain.

"Morning, sir."

"Good morning, constable. I think that's the deceased's sister just arriving. Let her come in."

"Thank you, sir."

Rutledge went back inside and into the study, leaving the door ajar. He could hear Mary Brittingham speaking to the constable, then hurrying up the stairs.

A moment or two later, he heard a m.u.f.fled cry as she must have reached her sister's room.

It was sometime later that Walter Teller came down the stairs alone.

He walked into the study, nearly turned about as soon as he saw Rutledge there, then went to the window.

"The women are doing women things. I can't think about what she's to wear. I can't face putting her into the ground. Tomorrow it may be easier. Jessup seems to be satisfied. He's in the kitchen questioning Mollie. Something about milk spilled in the night."

"Where did your wife keep her laudanum?"

He sat down, took a deep breath, and said, "Oddly enough, on a shelf in the kitchen. She was terrified that Harry might find it. I told her he'd have better sense, but she wouldn't hear of keeping it anywhere else."

"Did she take it often?"

"She only took it once before. When she'd hurt her back and couldn't sleep. I'm surprised it hadn't dried up long since."

It made sense. Fumbling with the pan, spilling the milk, then miscounting her drops . . .

Rutledge said after a moment, "Why did she need them last night?"

"I expect it was Peter, the sound he made as he fell. She said she could still hear it. It was a shock for all of us. I don't know how Amy held up. She watched him die."

Rutledge let another silence fall. Then he said, "Do you think your brother's death might have been intentional? Rather than facing trial and the publicity that will come in its wake, affecting the whole family. He couldn't have foreseen he'd have been exonerated."

"If Peter had wanted to escape anything, he would have gone somewhere quiet and private and shot himself. There are enough grounds here at Witch Hazel Farm for him to do that."

"A good point. Who was Florence Teller? In truth?"

That brought Walter Teller out of his chair. "Now that Mary is here, we must break the news to my son. If you will excuse me?"

And he was gone.

Jessup came to say that he was ready for the body to be taken away. But Leticia Teller had asked him to wait until her brother and his wife arrived. Pulling out his pocket watch, he stood there considering time and distance. "Another hour, at best. I've told Dr. Fielding that he can leave."

"Yes. Thank you."

Jessup said, "You're sure there's not something more I ought to know?"

Rutledge answered, "There was an inquiry in Lancashire. As it happened, Captain Teller was an unwitting witness. He called on someone there, and shortly afterward, she was murdered. The woman who killed her is now in custody. We shan't have his evidence at the trial, but I don't think we'll have any worries about a conviction. Two policemen heard the murderer confess."

"I didn't know he was recently in Lancashire."

"It was during the time when his brother was ill."

"I'm beginning to think there's much I haven't been told." "Walter Teller's disappearance was a London matter. The murder took place in Lancashire."

"And I've got two deaths here."

"So you have."

"Fielding said something about Teller's illness worrying his wife as well as her husband's disappearance. What was the nature of his illness? Was there any diagnosis?"

"Worry," Rutledge said succinctly. "His mission society would like to see him back in the field."

"I'm sure they would. Good publicity for them, with Walter Teller back in harness, perhaps another book in the offing. What does Teller think?"

"You must ask him. He may be needed here now, with a motherless son."

"True enough. I'm not one for traveling in places where I'm not wanted. I've never seen the good in telling other people how to live and how to believe. Still, I admire those who can do such things."

Jessup was fishing, Rutledge thought, and knew his business.

"His role in the Lancashire affair didn't prey on Captain Teller's mind, did it?"

"It's more likely that a bad leg and his refusal to use a cane killed him rather than events in Lancashire."

There was the sound of new arrivals outside the study. Rutledge said, "Edwin Teller and his wife."

Jessup stood. "Let's be clear. Is this my inquiry or the Yard's."

Rutledge smiled grimly. "At this stage it's yours. I'll give your people a statement. I was here just before the doctor came. So far, I'm a witness. But I know this family better than you do, and you'll find me useful."

"As long as we understand each other."

They went out into the pa.s.sage in time to see Edwin and Amy walk in and then climb the flight of stairs. Behind then was the elder Mrs. Teller. Gran's face was drawn, as if it had aged too fast.

"Who is that?" asked Jessup.

Rutledge explained, adding, "She's a little vague, but I wouldn't discount her information, if I were you."

It was not long before Amy brought a weeping Gran down the stairs and took her into the dining room.

"Don't fuss, Amy," she was saying when Rutledge walked in. "I'm quite able to put milk into my cup on my own." Looking up, she said, "It's that handsome young man who walked by my window. I didn't know you were invited for the weekend as well?"

He came to take her hand. "I'm sorry to meet you again in such sad circ.u.mstances."

"Yes, there's Peter dying, and now Jenny. I don't know what to make of it." Her face puckered again. "Two funerals. I thought the next might be my own."

"You've many years ahead of you," he a.s.sured her.

Amy said quietly, "Go away. Let her drink her tea and cry a little, if that's what she needs to do. Then I might persuade her to lie down for a bit."

He ignored her. To Gran, he said, "You must be prepared to work with Harry. He will need your support and your care."

"To be sure," she told him impatiently. "What I don't understand for the life of me is why Jenny took laudanum."

"Captain Teller's death unsettled her."

"Oh, my dear, I could hardly bring myself to walk up those stairs. I can't think what Jenny must have felt. But there are the arrangements for Peter. The flowers, the food, airing the beds. Who is to see to them now?" she demanded fretfully. "Why didn't Susannah come with us? But I expect Leticia will know what to do."

"Why would Jenny not have taken laudanum to sleep?" he pursued. "It must have seemed to her the sensible thing to do, so that she'd be rested."

"But they gave her laudanum before," Gran said, "and she didn't like it. It made her so deathly ill."

Amy started to speak, but one look from Rutledge and she held her tongue.

"When?"

"When I was here, of course. She'd hurt her back, and I came to stay. She found it hard to wake up. She felt all muzzy. She didn't like it because of the baby."

Amy said, "But Harry was away last night."

Gran took another slice of cold toast. "Is there any of that nice jam left, dear? The one I like so much."

Amy brought her the pot of strawberry jam.

"Thank you, my dear." She spread it across half a slice of toast. "Has anyone told Susannah we're here? I don't understand why she didn't come down with us."

"Mary is here. You've always liked Mary," Amy pointed out.

"No, I haven't. Just because she's Jenny's sister, she thinks she's invited everywhere. I much prefer Jenny." Frowning she began to cry again. "It's so sad, you know. First Peter, and now Jenny. It's very trying."

Rutledge prepared to go. "Mrs. Teller?" he said to Amy. "I'd like to speak with you privately, if I may."

"If it's about Jenny and the laudanum-"

"No."

With a glance at Gran, happily spreading jam on another slice of toast, Amy rose. He led her out of the dining room, but Leticia was in the study, sitting at the desk, making a list, and at the top of the stairs, he could hear Walter speaking earnestly to Mary.

As she answered him, Rutledge caught the words, " . . . your fault, Walter. You must accept that."

Rutledge said, "Will you find your coat? There's no privacy here."