Patricia Lawrence answered Rutledge’s knock. She was clearly pregnant, her maternity smock hardly concealing her condition. When he’d explained his business, she said doubtfully, “My husband’s grandmother is a lovely old lady, but she can be quite dotty at times. I don’t know if you’ll have much luck.”
The elder Mrs. Lawrence was reading in a small parlor on the first floor. Her glasses were perched on her nose, but her eyes were shut, and a soft whistle accompanied her breathing, just skirting a snore.
“Grandmama?” Mrs. Lawrence said, touching her shoulder lightly.
“Eh?” the old woman said, looking bemused. “I’m reading, can’t you tell?”
“There’s a policeman to see you, if you’re up to speaking with him.”
“Not that bold as brass constable, is it?”
“No, Grandmama. Inspector Rutledge is from Scotland Yard.”
Watery blue eyes moved to Rutledge, standing just behind the younger woman, and she looked him up and down. “He’s no policeman I know.”
“I’m here for a short while, until the constable recovers from his surgery,” Rutledge said, stepping forward. “I’m sorry to disturb your reading,” he added, pulling up the chair nearest to hers. “But I’m told that if anyone knows the history of Dudlington, it’s you.”
Sarah Lawrence smiled, delighted. “On my good days, I can tell you what it was like to see the old Queen married.
A pretty slip of a girl she was, then. Hardly came up to the Prince’s shoulder, but running to plumpness, if you ask me. I never saw that wicked Scotsman she was so fond of, but even as a small girl, I was quite taken with her Prince.
Pity he had to die, but there you are.”
“Yes.” He glanced up at Patricia Lawrence, indicating that he’d like to speak to her husband’s grandmother alone.
She nodded and said, “I’ll just fetch some tea. You’d like that, I think?”
Sarah Lawrence squinted her eyes to see the mantel clock. “Is it teatime already?”
“No, Grandmama, but we have a guest.”
“Yes, indeed. Very well, young man, tell me why you’ve come. It isn’t about the Queen, I’m sure. She’s dead.”
She was swathed in shawls, but her hair, pure white, was beautifully brushed, and her black dress was of good quality. Her grandson and his wife, Hamish noted, were taking good care of her.
“I remember my own granny,” he added, “and how she ruled the house.”
Rutledge said to Mrs. Lawrence as the sitting room door closed, “I’m looking for a man who went missing many years ago. Perhaps as early as 1881. Do you remember gossip about that?”
“What was his name?”
“Sadly we don’t know it.”
She stared at her lap, thinking. “In 1881, you say? That was the year we put in the pear tree, my husband and I. The one blown down in the storm of 1894. A pretty thing it was too, white clouds of blossoms covering every limb. I was that fond of the pear tree.”
“What was happening in Dudlington that year?” he prodded gently.
“When the storm came?”
“When you put in the pear tree.”
“Ah. I told you, that was 1881.”
He tried another tack. “Who was the doctor in 1881, Mrs. Lawrence? Do you remember his name?”
“It was Blair. Dr. Blair. I never liked him. Thought he knew more about children than their mothers did.”
“And who was the rector?”
“That would be Mr. Anderson, I think. Or, no, Mr. Anderson came in the next year. It was Mr. Fellowes.”
He walked her through the village, asking about the postmaster, the greengrocer, and every other person he could think of, to jar her memories.
“Do you remember Mrs. Ellison’s marriage? It must have been quite a social affair.”
“Pooh! She wasn’t married in St. Luke’s, too small by her lights. Connected with the Harkness family, you know.
Her aunt in Northampton arranged the wedding. There weren’t that many invited from Dudlington, though her husband had family here at the time. They’re gone, of course. That’s why he sold the farm. Mr. Shepherd owns it now. He wanted cattle, not sheep. Said his name would become a byword, if he ran sheep. They lost their only son in the war. Sad.”
“And who owned the baker’s shop?”
“Simpson’s father. He would let us have treats on our birthday.”
“What do you remember about the Christmas of 1881?” he asked, guiding her slowly.
But she frowned. “Was that a special Christmas, do you think? I don’t remember much good coming of it.”
“Why?”
“There was a typhoid outbreak that autumn. And my best friend died of it. I wasn’t intending to celebrate because of it. But Mr. Lawrence, my husband, told me we must think of the children. And the rector told me I mustn’t forsake God.”
He sat there for another ten minutes, priming the pump of her memory, to no avail. After all, it was many years ago, for a woman who must be well into her eighties.
But his questions had jarred some of the tangled threads in her mind, and as Patricia Lawrence brought in tea on a pretty painted tray, Sarah said, “Oh, do look, I’d forgot!
The teapot! I broke the spout on mine, and Mr. Ellison found me a match for it in London. He was there a number of times in ’82, and he said it might take my mind off Sally’s death. My friend, you see.”
“That was kind of him,” Rutledge replied, taking his cup as the younger woman passed them around.
“Yes, he was a kind man. I never knew what he’d seen in Mary Clayton. Except that she was cousin to a Harkness and pretty as a picture.”
She was off again on another line of thought, recalling that her own father had known old Mr. Harkness, “who died of a broken heart when the manor burned to the ground. He collected butterflies, you know. His niece kept some of the trays at her house. That’s The Oaks, of course.
It’s seen a sad comedown since her day, let me tell you.”
He finished his tea and rose to take his leave. Sarah Lawrence seemed disappointed, as if she had expected him to entertain her for another hour or so.
Rousing herself, she made an effort to hold his attention. “You were asking me about ’81. Except for the typhoid, it wasn’t an unusual year, you know. But ’82, now, that was a year of tragedy. The rector’s wife died, Gerald Baylor was nearly trampled to death by one of his bulls, and Mr. Ellison died in an accident in London. A runaway horse, that was. And him leaving behind that dear little girl. Beatrice was such a suitable name, you know. I can remember her christening as if it were yesterday.”
Rutledge left soon afterward and found himself walking toward St. Luke’s Church. It was a place of tranquillity, with no echoes of Constable Hensley, Emma Mason, or Mrs. Channing.
Inside it was chilly, the stone walls already letting go of what had briefly passed for the winter sun’s warmth. He pulled up his coat collar as he chose a chair set near the pulpit, his mind working.
Hamish said, “It’s nae use, it willna’ all fit together.”
“Somehow it does. In the end I’ll see my way clear.” His voice startled him, ringing hollowly through the empty church.
“You were sent here wi’ only the ain duty.”
“Murder is my duty.”
“Aye, but no’ a corpse long dead before you were born.”
Rutledge didn’t answer him.
Hamish persisted. “It willna’ serve. There’s nae proof.
You canna’ find it after a’ this time.”
“I must speak with the rector.”
“He’s no’ the man to burden with such a tale.”
It was true. The rector, for all his experience of the world, was also a little unworldly. He wouldn’t believe what Rutledge had to tell him, and the gossip mill would soon have part of the story if not all of it.