“What did he offer as a reason for coming here to live?”
Slater brought in the tea tray. “How should I know? But she told me he was looking for a quiet life.”
Deloran had been very clever. First the sizable bequest, and then someone there to take the cottage off Miss Chandler’s hands at the right moment.
Rutledge took his cup from Slater, and said, “Did Partridge have any contact with Miss Chandler?”
“Fancy your asking that. I’d quite forgot. She was a typist, and the week before she left, he took her a handful of papers to type up for him. He had a machine and she told him she knew how to use it.”
“Do you know the direction for Mrs. Deacon’s house?”
“It’s in the Cotswolds, a small manor house just outside Fairford. It’s called Thornton Hall. I took Mrs. Chandler there in my cart, with her boxes and trunks. Why are you interested in what she typed for Mr. Partridge? Why is it important?”
Rutledge finished his tea. “There’s no way of telling what’s important and what isn’t. Until all the information is in hand.”
But Slater wasn’t to be put off. “Why is it that people think I can’t understand what’s happening? Why do they think I’m easily distracted, like a child?”
Rutledge set his cup on the tray. “Mr. Partridge had another life before he came here.”
“They all had other lives. Except for me.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not right. I’d lived in Uffington, hadn’t I? I don’t like remembering my life there. Still, I depended on the smithy for my livelihood, and I couldn’t go very far.”
Hamish was saying, the soft Scots voice just behind Rutledge’s shoulder, “He’s puzzled, and no one has the time to set him straight.”
“Sometimes it isn’t distance that matters. For Partridge I have a feeling it was the White Horse that brought him here, not the miles from where he’d lived before this.”
“You don’t believe that Brady killed Mr. Partridge, do you?”
“Let’s say I’m keeping an open mind until all the facts have been collected.”
“It’s a waste of time going to Miss Chandler.”
“Possibly. But I won’t know until I speak to her.”
He left, dashed through the puddles to where Slater had left his motorcar, and drove to the nearest road that would carry him up to Fairford.
Hamish kept him company along the way.
As it happened, the house he was looking for was three miles outside of the pretty little town, set just beyond a small grove of beech that had been planted sometime in the eighteen hundreds, judging from their size. Age had begun to take a toll, and three closest to the road looked to be near collapse.
Thornton Hall was a handsome stone house built in classical style, with a portico and dormers on the slate roof. A porch to one side had been closed in with long windows looking out over a large garden, and beyond that, fallow land rolled into the distance.
Mrs. Deacon wasn’t what he’d expected.
A maid in crisply starched black that rustled as she walked led him through the hall to a small sitting room at the back of the house. A tall, spare woman with auburn hair rose to greet him and offer him a chair by the cold hearth. She took the other and nodded to the maid.
When they were alone, she asked Rutledge what his business was with Miss Chandler.
“I’m afraid it’s private,” he told her with a smile.
“Miss Chandler is a woman of means, but she’s lonely and easily taken advantage of. I’d like to know that you won’t upset her.” Her gaze was sharp, her eyes detached.
“I have no designs on her wealth,” he said. “The question might be, do you?”
A red flush flared across her cheeks. “I’m not in the habit of taking advantage of my guests, Mr. Rutledge. They are here because they have nowhere else to go. And I am here because this is my home, and the only way I can afford to keep it is to take in such guests. The property isn’t productive now, and I have no other means of seeing that the roof’s repaired, much less the plumbing functioning. Now I think you’d better leave.”
“I’m sorry,” he apologized, and meant it. “The business I have with Miss Chandler has to do with some typing she did for a man in the cottages where she used to live.”
Her eyes didn’t waver. “Then you’ll have no objection if I stay while you speak to her.”
“None at all.”
Hamish said, his voice soft, “The dragon at the gate.”
She rose again and led him down the passage to the enclosed porch where several women, most of them between their early sixties and late seventies, sat dozing or gossiping. They looked up with interest as Mrs. Deacon came into the room, smiling up at her as if pleased to see her. Then their eyes went directly to Rutledge, curiosity rampant.
“Is this the new doctor, then?” one asked.
“I’m sorry, no. A guest. Miss Chandler?” She spoke to a small woman swathed in shawls and seated in a large winged chair near the French doors. Needlepoint pillows at her back and on either side made it more comfortable for her, and Rutledge could see that she was well dressed, her clothes and hair and skin well cared for. Her eyes were a bright blue and still very clear. He hoped that her memory was as well.
She leaned forward a little, as if hard of hearing, and Mrs. Deacon said, “This young man is here to see you, Miss Chandler. Would you like to speak to him?”
“Is it my cousin from Australia?”
“No, this is Mr. Rutledge, Miss Chandler. He’s here to ask you about a little typing you did for someone he knows.”
She was crestfallen to discover it wasn’t her cousin, and Rutledge spared a moment to think of Deloran’s deception. But she brightened again as she said, “My fingers are getting a little stiff for the typing, young man. What is it you need?”
He took the chair across from hers so that she wouldn’t have to look up at him. Mrs. Deacon remained standing. “I wonder if you recall Mr. Partridge? He lived in the Tomlin Cottages near the White Horse for a few weeks before you moved here.”
She searched through the cobwebs of her mind and finally nodded. “Mr. Partridge. Polite, as I recall, and very pleased to learn I could type. Yes, I do remember him, now that you speak of him.”
“Do you perhaps recall what it was you were asked to type for him? It appears to have been lost.”
“Oh, that’s a shame, truly. But I’m afraid my brain is a little addled these days. I’m sure I couldn’t remember what I did well enough to type it again from memory. That must have been all of two years ago.”
Hamish was saying, “It wilna’ help.” But Rutledge persevered.
“Was it a letter? Memoirs?” He tried to think of anything else that Partridge might have worked on. “Reports? Papers for a professional society?”
“Oh, yes, that’s precisely what it was! How clever of you, Mr. Rutledge. Yes, indeed, it was a paper for a professional journal, I recall it now. He promised to send me a copy of the journal, when the paper appeared. I suppose he forgot. I never received it.” There was disappointment in her face as she considered the matter. “I daresay it wouldn’t have mentioned my name, I only typed it, but still…”
“Was the paper difficult to work on?”
“Quite so. A good many symbols had to be carefully inserted by hand. I didn’t know what all of them represented, but I do remember how he insisted that they must be absolutely precise. He told me that others duplicating his work must know exactly what he knew, or it would be useless to try. It appears he’d made an interesting discovery in his laboratory just before he left his firm, and he wanted to report it to some society or other. As a last claim to fame and glory.” She frowned. “Although truly, I thought he might be joking about that. He said it in such a wry way.”