“We went to school together. Look, she and her father are estranged, but if it’s important—”
“Very important.”
“All right then. She’s taken a small house about five miles from Partridge Fields. No one’s lived at the house since Mrs. Parkinson’s death. But Rebecca keeps up the gardens. If you go to the crossroads, and turn left instead of right, you’ll find her at a place signposted Pockets.”
He thanked her and went back to the motorcar.
The house was where the young woman had said it would be, small and well kept, the thatch overhanging the door and a pot of heartsease in tall stands on either side of it. The gardens surrounding it were filled with spring blooms.
He went up the front walk and knocked lightly.
After a few minutes, a young woman of perhaps twenty-four, blond and attractive, opened the door to him.
“My name is Rutledge,” he said. “I’m from Scotland Yard—”
Her face went white, as if the blood had drained away and left only the flesh.
“What do you want?” she asked, holding tightly to the door, her voice low and husky.
“I’m trying to find your father. It’s police business.”
“I don’t know where he lives. I don’t care.”
“I’m told you came to visit him once not long ago. A young woman of your description was seen knocking on his door.”
Where she had been pale, she flushed now. And he thought it might be anger.
“I haven’t knocked on any door of his. I can tell you that. He killed my mother, and I hate him.”
She tried to shut the door, but he prevented her with a well-placed shoe.
“Miss Parkinson. I have reason to think your father is dead.”
She stared at him, as if trying to read something in his face. “Dead?”
“It’s very likely.”
“Well, then, he’s in hell, where he deserves to be. Go look for him there.” And she shut the door with some force.
He stood there, on the tiny porch, and waited, thinking that she might be curious enough to want to know more.
But apparently she had meant what she said, and after a moment, he went back to the motorcar.
He had just reached for the crank when he thought he heard raised voices from the house. Only for an instant, and even then he wasn’t certain whether Miss Parkinson was arguing with someone or venting her own anger—or her grief.
17
Rutledge found a telephone in a small hotel along the road back to Uffington, and put in a call to the Yard. Gibson couldn’t be found right away, and it was a good quarter of an hour before the telephone rang and Gibson was on the line.
Rutledge gave him a list of names and asked him to learn what he could about each.
Gibson said, “It will take a while.”
“I’ve got all the time in the world,” Rutledge said with irony and told the sergeant when he expected to call the Yard again.
He ate his lunch at the hotel, and then traveled back to The Smith’s Arms. There he found Smith eager to hear what had transpired at the cottages.
Rutledge said only, “Inspector Hill is dealing with it. Willingham is dead, that’s all I can tell you.”
“Willingham?” Smith seemed surprised. “I thought perhaps you’d found Mr. Partridge.”
Rutledge let it go. But Smith was starved for information and said, “But how did he die? His heart, was it?”
“You must ask Inspector Hill.”
“Pshaw, his like never show up here, at the Arms. I’ll ask Andrew, when he comes for a pint. Care for a late lunch, Mr. Rutledge?”
Rutledge refused, thanking him, and went up to his room. Taking out paper and pen, he sat down and wrote an account of what he’d seen and done that morning at the Willingham cottage, signed it, and set it aside.
After that he went to stand by the window, looking out across the yard and the road, watching the wind dancing through the high grass there.
There was a letter, only just begun, that he’d found in the basket beside Parkinson’s desk.
“My dear” was as far as he’d got before crumpling it up.
Had that been written to his daughter? Apologizing for whatever he’d done to make her hate him with such venom? Trying in some small way to make amends for the loss of her mother? Or asking her forgiveness for whatever role she felt he’d played in his wife’s death?
And yet Parkinson had died as his wife had died, using gas. That would seem a bitter irony to Rebecca Parkinson, when she learned what had become of her father.
“Unless,” Hamish pointed out, “the lass herself murdered him.”
That had to be taken into account as well.
Except that the body had been found in Yorkshire…
Hamish said, “’Ware!”
And Rutledge turned to see Andrew Slater walking up the road toward The Smith’s Arms.
Minutes later, Slater was mounting the stairs.
Rutledge had the door open, ready for him.
“Why did you leave?” the smith asked, aggrieved. “You left us to the mercy of Inspector Hill. He’s half convinced that I killed Willingham. I ask you, why would I come and tell you I’d heard a cry, if I’d done the deed myself? It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“Hill is doing his duty. And he’ll begin by taking a long hard look at the dead man’s neighbors. If you’ve done nothing wrong, if your conscience is clear, you’ll see that’s true.”
“Yes, well,” the smith said, gingerly lowering himself down in Rutledge’s chair. It groaned under his weight. “If I survive, I’ll applaud myself for my clear conscience.”
“Who do you think might have wanted Willingham dead?” Rutledge had promised Inspector Hill to stay out of the case, but Slater had come to him.
“God knows. We didn’t much care for him, and if we didn’t, who did? He’d never spoken of a family. Who’s to mourn him, then?”
“A good question,” Rutledge answered.
“I can tell you Mrs. Cathcart is taking it hard. And so is Mr. Allen. Death came too close last night for his comfort.”
“And the others?”
“Miller doesn’t give a damn about any of it. If we all dropped dead in our shoes, he’d probably be pleased. Mr. Brady is trying to make himself very inconspicuous. He was drunk as a lord before he went to bed last night, and I doubt he’d have heard the angels’ chorus after that. But he doesn’t want it known to the world.”
“Did Mr. Partridge have better luck with Willingham? Did they talk, do you think?”
Slater shook his head. “Where’s a beginning for friendship? I expect I spoke with more of my neighbors than anyone else. I’m too thick to notice when I’m being ignored. Besides, I’m lonely sometimes.”
“No one ever came to call on Willingham?”
“If they did, I never saw them. Mrs. Cathcart is afraid someone might visit her. That’s sad.” He looked down at his large hands, lying idle on his knees. “I wish I hadn’t grown so. But there’s nothing I can do about it. Just as she can’t help being afraid. And I don’t know if Quincy is his first name or his last. I never feel right, calling him ‘Quincy.’ Mr. Allen is dying, and there’s no one to comfort him. I expect he doesn’t want to be comforted. There’s something stoic in that. Mr. Partridge had demons, and didn’t know how to rid himself of them. And Singleton wants to be a soldier still. You have only to look at his carriage and how tidy he is. Hair clipped short, clothes immaculate. Mr. Brady is tormented too, because this isn’t where he most wants to be. And Mr. Miller is the strangest of the lot, because I think he wants to be here.”
It was an intriguing summation of the inhabitants of the leper cottages. Sometimes, Rutledge thought, a simple man saw more directly into the heart than one who was burdened with the sophistication of social behavior.