It hadn’t occurred to him to question that at the time, but it struck him as odd now. Why had she really come? To see how he was mourning Jean? Or to be certain that the news hadn’t eroded his narrow margin of safety, his tenuous grip on sanity? He wasn’t sure how much Meredith Channing knew about his war. Sometimes it seemed that she guessed more than he was prepared for anyone to know. But then she’d been at the Front, a nurse in the forward aid station closest to his section. She had seen men in every state between living and dying and somehow managed to keep her own sanity intact. There was a well of something there, understanding perhaps or sympathy, even knowledge. But no pity. He couldn’t have borne that from anyone.
A rooster crowed in the distance, and Rutledge reached for his watch, lighting his lamp long enough to glance at it. Dawn would be breaking soon.
And with it, what? Another murder? Another day of chasing a truth that didn’t want to be discovered?
Sometimes he thought that Gerald Parkinson would be happier in an anonymous grave rather than one where he wasn’t wanted.
After a time he drifted again into sleep, his last thought one that had grown out of his conversation with Meredith Channing.
A murderer would have put Parkinson’s body in Wayland’s Smithy and called his death a suicide.
When he came down the next morning, Mrs. Cathcart was eating her breakfast at the table that was usually his, but he made no move to join her. She seemed to be in better spirits, and Mrs. Smith had been carrying on a running conversation with her as each dish was brought in. The subject under discussion was affairs at the cottages, and they had reached the point of debating whether Partridge was one of the victims or not.
“He’s not been seen for some time. But the police were there, in his cottage, and nothing was said about finding him,” Mrs. Cathcart was saying.
“He would come here sometimes to talk with the lorry drivers. The distance to this place or that, what accommodations might be had, what kind of weather he might expect. I didn’t know for the longest time that he was from the cottages—I thought he’d come in from Uffington. Horrible to imagine him murdered. Are they quite sure of that?” Mrs. Smith asked over a rack of toast.
Rutledge asked, “Did he ever talk about his visit to Liverpool?”
It was Deloran and his men who had tracked Parkinson there. And Rutledge had never been satisfied that Parkinson hadn’t lured them there, to keep his watchers from guessing what he’d really done during his brief absences.
But neither Mrs. Cathcart nor Mrs. Smith could answer that question.
Mrs. Smith was called away by two drivers just in, and Mrs. Cathcart was still sitting over the last of her tea when he left the inn.
Hamish said, “She believes her husband willna’ think to look for her here.”
It was true—The Smith’s Arms was hardly a place where the Mrs. Cathcarts of this world spent their days. But she seemed less anxious this morning, as if she had slept well enough.
Rutledge drove as far as the foot of the lane and pulled the motorcar to the verge. The sun was watery as he walked up to the cottage occupied by Mr. Allen. The smith had fashioned a wrought-iron SIX in a Gothic script for Allen’s door, giving it a distinction the other cottages lacked.
The curtains twitched in the front window before the door was opened to Rutledge’s knock.
“Taking precautions,” Allen said in explanation as he moved aside to let Rutledge inside the small entry. “I’m dying but have no interest in hurrying the process.”
“Miss Chandler, who once lived in Brady’s cottage, sends you her regards. She was pleased to hear that you’re still alive.”
He smiled. “She didn’t belong here. But beggars can’t be choosers. I’d wondered if her good fortune was truly that.”
“It appears to have been.”
“I wish I were well out of here myself. This business of murder practically on one’s doorstep is not good for any of us, I expect. I’ve found it hard to sleep. I spoke to Miller this morning, and he agrees, if we had anywhere else to go, we’d be off. I’m not up to travel, sadly. I’ll have to take my chances.”
“What does Miller think about events?”
“He’s a rather timid man, and he overcomes it with bluster. Once you get past that, he’s all right. Though I don’t count him a friend, you understand. He’s not convinced that Brady is our man. He favors poor Slater, telling me that he’d not be predictable in taxing situations. Miller says he grew up with one such and there was murder done because of a misunderstanding that got out of hand. I can’t say that I agree. I’ve never seen Slater violent.”
“That leaves you, Singleton, and Quincy to be cast as murderers.”
Allen smiled. “I daresay I’m not in Inspector Hill’s sights, given my health.” The smile faded. “What’s become of Mrs. Cathcart? I haven’t seen her today. Has someone looked in on her?”
“Yes, she’s fine. She was enjoying breakfast earlier.”
“Is Partridge dead, as Brady claimed?”
“Yes, I’m afraid he is. But under rather different circumstances than Willingham’s murder. It will take some time to learn what Brady’s role was in his death. If any.”
“I must say, I’d have not thought it of Brady. He was a weak man, in my view, troubled by his drinking and whatever it was that brought him here to live.”
Rutledge prepared to take his leave, watching Allen’s face sag with fatigue, one hand clutching the arm of a chair with white-knuckled fingers.
Allen was saying, “I’ll tell you something about Partridge. For what it’s worth. I wouldn’t have, if there was a chance he was still alive.”
Rutledge waited.
“I don’t think that was his real name. I’d seen him at a party in Winchester several years ago, and although we weren’t introduced, he was pointed out to me as one of the people doing some sort of hush-hush work for the government. There were a number of important guests at the dinner, and he seemed to know most of them. I never asked him about this, partly respecting his privacy and partly because I heard later that he’d fallen from grace and was in bad odor with the government. You can imagine my surprise when I looked out my door one morning and saw him walking down the lane. He was calling himself Partridge then, but for the life of me I can’t remember how he was called at the party. Something similar, but I’d have remembered Partridge if it had been that. It’s not a common name.”
“And you said nothing about this to anyone else?”
Allen responded with irritation. “I told you. I respected his privacy.”
“Later on, did you tell the friend who’d first pointed this man out to you that you’d seen him here in Berkshire?”
Allen’s face flushed. “Only because I thought it might reassure him that all was well. I was in Winchester to see my doctor when I ran into him.”
“How long after that did Mr. Brady come here to live?”
“A month, possibly less. There can’t be a connection. I’d have sworn they didn’t know each other.” But Allen was no fool. “You aren’t trying to say there’s a connection, are you? That word spread, and that’s why Brady came here? I refuse to believe it.” But the dawning realization was shattering. “If your charge is true, why did the man wait so long to kill Partridge? Answer me that?”
“Brady’s dead, and there’s no way we can ask him.”
Allen said again, “I refuse to believe my casual comments had anything to do with Brady or the murder of Partridge.” He stepped forward, forcing Rutledge to move back outside the door, and shut it with firmness.
“That was how Martin Deloran found his missing scientist,” he said to Hamish as he walked back the way he’d come.