A Pale Horse Part 31

"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 cla.s.sical 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 pa.s.sage 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."

"Was he a man given to joking?"

"Far from it. He seemed withdrawn, as if he had a habit of living alone and had to remind himself sometimes to be jolly in company. Don't misunderstand me. He was quite professional, very clear in his instructions, and he went through the typed pages with great care to be sure everything was exactly as he'd set it out. I asked him if this discovery of his, however small, might be something mankind would be grateful to know about. 'In some quarters, perhaps,' he replied, 'it will be highly regarded.' I thought perhaps he meant in the medical field. He'd mentioned once working in a laboratory, you see. I was a great admirer of Madame Curie, and told him so. He answered that he could never aspire to her greatness, and I found I believed him."

Mrs. Deacon, standing to one side of the chair, put in, "Did you make a carbon copy for Mr. Partridge, my dear? If the original went to the society."

"No, he told me that wasn't necessary. There was only the original."

"And he paid you for this work?" Rutledge went on.

"Of course, with a nice little bit extra for finis.h.i.+ng it quickly as well as accurately. I was planning to leave the cottage, you see. And he didn't want me to take the information with me. I suspect he felt someone else might see it and steal his idea. I told him it was safe with me. I knew nothing about science, and it was difficult enough, making certain I was exact, word for word."

Hamish noted that as she traveled back into the past, the strength of her memory grew. But could it be totally trusted? Rutledge ignored him.

Miss Chandler leaned back in her chair. "I thought he might find me and ask me to do other typing for him. I've missed it, and it kept my fingers nimble. He had a very nice machine, but it was borrowed, he said, and must be returned on time."

From the laboratory, very likely. But what had become of the paper? Knowing that Brady was watching him-and might even from time to time search the cottage-it would have been foolish for Parkinson to keep anything valuable there. And not at the house, where his daughters came and went. What would have felt like a safe place to him, where his work wouldn't be found?

It was possible that he'd long since taken the paper with him on one of his forays and put it in a bank vault or left it with someone he'd trusted. He hadn't had it with him in Yorks.h.i.+re. And Rutledge hadn't found it in the cottage.

Hamish said, "Why did he write whatever it is doon? Much less gie it to someone to type."

A good question. A red herring? Or something Parkinson had been working on and hadn't quite finished, but knew that in time his earlier research might hold the key? A better way of killing armies was always a marketable commodity.

Miss Chandler was tiring. She made a little gesture with her hand, as if to apologize for failing him. "That's all, really. I wish I could do something to help. Mr. Partridge must be beside himself."

"It has been worrisome," Rutledge answered, sidestepping the issue of Partridge. "Thank you for seeing me, Miss Chandler. I wish you a pleasant evening."

"You won't stay and have tea with us?" She looked around the sunroom at the other women seated there, avidly listening. "We seldom have the pleasure of a young man's company."

"I'm afraid I've a long drive ahead of me."

"I have hoped against hope that someone from my cousin's family might come to England so that I can tell them how grateful I am to their father. But they haven't. I expect it's a long journey to make, just for an hour or so with an old woman."

He d.a.m.ned Deloran in his mind, yet could see that this woman was pleased with her good fortune and would be bereft if told the truth, that it was the need for her cottage and not an interest in her well-being that lay behind the sums she'd been given. He wouldn't put it past her to refuse the money.

"I'm sure they wish you well, even if they can't visit."

"How are my former neighbors?" she asked him then, searching for a reason to hold him there a little longer. "Will you give my regards to Mr. Allen and Mrs. Cathcart in particular? I've missed them, please tell them that. Mr. Miller was always kind to me as well."

"Yes, most certainly." He had reached the door when he turned and asked a last question. "Has anyone else come to ask you about the work you did for Mr. Partridge?"

"No one," she answered him, "knew about it. I've told you, he feared someone might steal his discovery."

He thanked her again, and Mrs. Deacon followed him to the foyer. "You can see that my guests haven't been cheated. Nor have I. I have my house still. And I would do it again, if I had to." She looked around her at the high coffered ceiling of the foyer, the pineapples in each square flecked with gold, at the paneling on the walls and the parquet flooring. "This is where I lived as a child. My brother inherited the house, you know. But he's dead, in the first fighting at Mons. I've been a widow for many years, and I longed to come back here. But his wife and I didn't see eye to eye." A brief triumphant smile touched her face. "It took every penny I possessed to buy her out. But I managed it. I don't know why I should feel required to defend myself to you. I expect it's because you doubted my motives. That was unkind of you."

He was reminded of the sunroom, a comfortable place for old bones on an April day when the rain had brought damp with it.

He smiled in return. "I misjudged the circ.u.mstances. I had reason to believe that perhaps Miss Chandler's good fortune was suspect. But I see it isn't. Do you remember the name of the solicitor who handled the inheritance for her? I should have asked."

"There was no solicitor. I was told she received the money directly from the solicitors in Australia and put it in her account in the bank." She held out her hand. "Good day, Mr. Rutledge. You would have made a good policeman. If you aren't one already."

He went through the door and she shut it behind him with a firm click.

Rutledge stood there for a moment. His work at the Yard, he thought, had made him overly suspicious of goodness. He had seen so much that was evil.

Hamish said as he walked back to the motorcar, "Yon Mrs. Deacon is no' afraid of anyone. It's her strength."

Rutledge was late arriving at The Smith's Arms. Mrs. Smith had set his dinner on the back of the stove to keep warm. He hung his wet coat over the other chair to dry and sat by the fire in the bar, only half listening to the gossip of the lorry drivers and the locals who came regularly to sit and drink.

Most of it was of no importance.

Then Hamish said, "Hark!"

And Rutledge brought his attention back to the room in time to hear a farmer comment, "They took the smith to the police station today. I always said he was a danger. I wouldn't let him play with my son, would I, when they were in school together. Too big by half, and didn't know his own strength."

"It was a knife he used, not his hands," his companion reminded him.

"Yes, well, he killed them, didn't he?"

What had happened to Brady's confession? Had Hill already discounted it? Rutledge finished his meal and went out into the night, directly back to the cottages.

There was still a light in Quincy's cottage, and Rutledge knocked at the door.

"Who's there?" There was an undercurrent of alarm in the query.

"Rutledge. I need to talk to you."

"It's late." But there was the sound of the latch being lifted, and Quincy stood in the opening. The light behind him struck him from the left, throwing that side of his face in stark relief while the other half was deeply shadowed. It gave him an oddly malevolent look. "What's brought you here? Not another killing?"

"It's Slater. I heard at the inn that he'd been taken into Uffington by Inspector Hill."

"Shows how wrong gossip can be. No, Hill took him there to the doctor. He was using a hammer while they talked, working on one of those kettles he makes sometimes. They sell well at the summer fair. And he smashed his knuckles. Slater nearly pa.s.sed out from the pain, and Hill called one of his men to get Slater into a car."

"Then all's well."

"Why do you think he's not guilty?" Quincy asked with some curiosity. "People like that often have a bad temper." He turned his head to look at the cat asleep on her favorite chair. "She's mine now, I expect. She didn't mourn long for Partridge. If I thought it would work, I'd make a gift of her to Mrs. Cathcart. G.o.d knows she needs something to calm her nerves."

"She's afraid."

"Aren't we all? But you're right, Mrs. Cathcart's fear is exacerbated by what happened in her life before she came here. She peers out the window at every newcomer. I've seen the curtains twitch. A pity, really. She'll die a tormented soul."

Which is probably what her husband had in mind, Rutledge thought.

"Did you ever see Brady go in or come out of Partridge's cottage?"

"No. He stayed away from Partridge as far as possible, considering he lived here as well. Look, do you want some coffee? I developed a taste for it in Guatemala. If you aren't going away, then you might as well come in."

"I'll take you up on the offer."

Rutledge stepped inside and shut the door behind him. The room where the birds were kept was in darkness, but the flickering light of the fire on the hearth glanced off iridescent feathers and gla.s.s eyes. He took the chair next to Dublin's and sat down. The night was just chilly enough to make the fire comforting, and he felt a drowsiness steal over him. Quincy was busy in the kitchen, and the cat had begun to purr.

Hamish urged him to keep awake, prodding at him with words. Reminding him that the night watches in the trenches had meant life or death.

Rutledge asked him silently if he thought Quincy would poison the coffee, and Hamish gave him no answer.

"I'd give much to know what's going on here," Quincy was saying as he worked.

The rich scent of coffee beans in a grinder filled the room.

"So would Inspector Hill. Brady wrote a note before he died. At least it would appear he had. In it he claimed he'd killed both Willingham and Partridge."

"Willingham I can understand. There was no loss of love there. But Partridge was, if you forgive me, the goose with the golden egg. Brady was out of a job if he harmed the man."

"Quite." Rutledge reached out a hand to smooth the head of the cat as she stretched, her purr loud in the room. "You'll have to give Hill your full name on any statement, you know. It's a matter of form."

"I'm d.a.m.ned if I will. As long as I'm not a suspect, I'm giving him nothing."

"After so many years, do you really think your family cares where you're living? It's more to the point that you stay away from them."

"I signed an agreement, in front of witnesses. My brother might take it into his head to see that the letter and not the spirit of the law is carried out."

"And your parents?"