Slater got to his feet. “You won’t let them arrest me, will you? I don’t want to be taken into Uffington and put in a cell, with everyone staring at me. I think I’d go mad, locked up, and tell the police anything just to be let go. Even lies.”
He went back down the stairs heavily, like a man carrying an enormous burden. Outside he turned to the Smithy, not back the way he’d come. It was odd how he seemed to find comfort and even acceptance there.
Slater hadn’t been gone five minutes when Hill came looking for Rutledge.
He said, seeing the door open into Rutledge’s room, “I’d like to have your statement now, if you please.”
Rutledge turned to the desk and picked it up. “It’s ready. I wanted to put it on paper while my memory of events was still sharp.”
Hill took it and scanned it. “Fair enough. Any thoughts on who might have done this murder?”
“I leave that to you. But I will say, if I were in your shoes I’d be no closer to an answer.”
“You were right, they’re a stubborn lot. Won’t come to the door, won’t say more than yes or no when they do, and no one has seen anything. Granted, it was in the middle of the night, but I have the feeling that not much happens in those cottages that the rest of them don’t know. I could feel the window curtains twitching like a palsy, eyes watching every move I make. Fairly gave me the willies, I can tell you. But if I had to pick one of that lot, it would either be the smith or the ex-soldier. Did you know he’d been cashiered from his regiment for dereliction of duty? Some years ago. That’s the story I was given, anyway.”
“By whom?”
“One of my men had seen him about and heard something of the sort. I’ll look into it, find out if there’s any truth in it. As far as I can tell, there’s nothing missing from the dead man’s cottage. So I have to rule out housebreaking. Although that might have been the original plan, come to think of it.”
“Willingham’s wrist was slashed,” Rutledge said neutrally.
“Yes, probably while fighting off his killer. You saw for yourself how the room was wrecked.”
“You don’t think someone was trying to make the death appear to be a suicide?”
“No, no. Too preposterous. I talked to the man who calls himself Quincy. Seems a levelheaded sort. He thinks this murder is connected with Partridge’s disappearance. He predicted they’d all be killed in their beds if I’m not quick.”
“Willingham by all accounts was an unpleasant man who had probably made himself a pariah long before he came to the Tomlin Cottages. His murderer could have come from his past.”
“I’d considered that too, and will be looking into it.” He’d been standing leaning against the doorframe, nonchalant as if Rutledge’s opinion carried no weight with him. He straightened, preparing to go.
But Hamish believed his coming to the inn was a fishing expedition.
Rutledge tended to agree with that summation.
“You’ll be returning to the Yard?” Hill asked from the head of the stairs. “I’m of the opinion your man Partridge is dead. That’s Mr. Brady’s view as well.”
“I expect he may be right,” Rutledge answered.
“Well, at least I have a body to be going on with. That’s more than you can say—so far.”
He turned and ran lightly down the stairs.
Rutledge watched Hill leave the inn and walk briskly back the way he’d come.
In the afternoon, he drove back to Pockets, to speak again to Rebecca Parkinson.
She was there, in the house. He could sense it. But she refused to answer his knock.
He tried to sense how she had responded to it—whether she was stock-still, waiting for him to go away, or hiding behind the stairs, where she couldn’t be seen. Or lying on her bed, looking at the ceiling, telling herself that she didn’t care.
And he found himself wondering if Meredith Channing, if she were standing next to him under the overhang of thatch, would have been able to tell him if he was right.
Unwilling to leave, Rutledge waited in his motorcar for over an hour outside the house. But it was a stalemate. He couldn’t go in, and she couldn’t come out.
Finally he gave up and drove away. The house at Partridge Fields drew him, and he went there to sit in the gardens for a time. This time the house felt empty, and he knew there was no one inside. He was about to leave when a motorcar turned in the gates and followed the drive round to the kitchen yard.
He realized it must be Rebecca Parkinson, and he walked swiftly toward the shrubbery, to catch her before she had gone inside.
But she must have seen him, or perhaps glimpsed his vehicle where he’d left it, behind a shed. She gunned the engine, swung the vehicle in a circle to turn it, tires spewing gravel and earth as they bit for a grip, and then sped away down the drive before he could stop her.
He stood there, winded from dashing after the motorcar, and swore.
It was useless, following her back to Pockets. By the time he retrieved his own motorcar and started after her, she would have a head start, enough to be safely inside again before he could get there.
But he was angry enough to try, and drove after her anyway, flying down the lane in her wake.
When he got to Pockets, there was no sign of the car or of Rebecca.
He realized that she must have expected him to follow her and instead of going directly home, as he’d anticipated, she had foxed him again and disappeared.
Rutledge drove back to Berkshire, his mood dark, and found the inn full of drivers stopping for dinner or the night.
Avoiding them, he went directly to his room. Tomorrow he would call Gibson again and see what, if any, information he’d come up with.
In the event, it was very little. Although Hill had been right about Singleton. He’d been cashiered from his regiment but not for dereliction of duty. He had lost his temper once too often, and been asked to resign after he’d struck a fellow officer.
The reason for the argument wasn’t clear, but Gibson believed it was the excuse Singleton’s commanding officer had been looking for.
Mrs. Cathcart’s nasty divorce had been as bad or worse than she’d told Rutledge. Her husband, in Gibson’s view, had set out to make her life wretched, and succeeded beyond his wildest expectations. After the divorce, he’d cut her off without a penny, and she had had to scrape a living as best she could. The rent at the cottages was cheap enough, and she had inherited just enough from an aunt to live there frugally.
Allen, who in fact was dying, had gone off like a wounded animal to spend his last days away from friends and family. The general belief was that he’d wanted nothing to do with surgery or cures, and expected to die within the first six months. He hadn’t been that fortunate.
There was no information on the man who called himself Quincy, and none on Miller or Brady. Gibson suggested that Brady was using a name other than his own, and there were too many Millers to be sure which one was living in the shadow of the pale horse. And with only one name to go on, Quincy hadn’t turned up in the files or memories of the policemen Gibson had spoken to. Rutledge found himself thinking that perhaps Quincy had spoken the truth, that he was a remittance man back in England and careful to conceal that fact.
Willingham had a rather sordid past, as it happened. He had been involved in dubious schemes designed to leave the investor poorer and himself richer. Skirting the law carefully, he had managed to avoid trouble, but in the end, bitter and running out of money, he’d come to a place where he felt safe from persecution as well as prosecution. Although a few of his former clients had threatened to sue him over the years, the general consensus had been that in doing so they would reveal their own avarice and their willingness to bend the rules to their own advantage. Still, more than one had voiced physical threats.