He fell asleep on that thought, and didn’t hear the bustle in the street at two o’clock in the morning.
7
Although Rutledge went out directly after breakfast in search of him, Hickam was nowhere to be found.
After a fruitless waste of time, Rutledge decided that the man probably didn’t want to be found, and gave up, cursing his own maudlin stupidity for not hauling him directly to the doctor’s surgery last night while he had the chance, and forcibly sobering up the poor devil.
Picking up Sergeant Davies at the station after giving Forrest instructions for the Inquest, Rutledge said as they got into the motorcar, “I’ve been to the cottage, checked every street in town, and the outlying lanes as well, not to mention the churchyard and the livery stables. Is there any place I haven’t thought of?”
Davies scratched his chin. “That about covers it, I’d guess. But there’s high grass, hedgerows, and any number of sheds about, and we could send half the army out looking and still not find him. Drunks have a way of vanishing, but when he’s slept this one off and needs more gin, he’ll surface soon enough.”
He glanced at the Inspector, and decided that he hadn’t slept well. Changing the subject, he said, “I checked with the dentist in Warwick. It’s true, Royston had an appointment on the morning of the murder, but he never came in. Of course that’s not surprising.”
“No. I think I should speak to Helena Sommers again, before she hears about Mavers’s shotgun coming to light. How do we get there?”
Davies had just had a very unpleasant discussion with Inspector Forrest about duty. It was his duty to assist London, and equally his duty to stay out of Scotland Yard’s way as much as possible, which seemed to his mind a simple contradiction of terms. Forrest hadn’t been pleased either that Rutledge failed to bring his own sergeant along, and before the interview had ended, a chastened Davies was beginning to feel that that was his fault as well. But there was no escape. Constable Reardon in Lower Streetham couldn’t be spared, and Warwick wasn’t about to send over one of their men, and Constable Miliken from Upper Streetham was still at home with a leg broken in two places from the kick of a half-wit horse that had accidentally poked its nose into a hornet’s nest and run amok afterward.
Trying to make the best of a bad situation and feeling uncomfortable in the lengthening silence that was beginning to sound very loud in the car, Davies cleared his throat and offered a suggestion that he had been mulling over while shaving that morning.
“I was thinking, sir, about who might have shot Colonel Harris, and it seems to me we’ve overlooked one thing. What if the killer hadn’t come from Upper Streetham at all? I mean, someone from Warwick, or London, or as far as we might know, from Canterbury or Liverpool?”
“It’s possible, of course,” Rutledge answered. “For that reason I don’t rule it out. But we’re short on motives, aren’t we?”
“Well, sir, it seems to me we’re short on motives for everyone else. I mean, the Colonel might have done something in the war, someone might hold him responsible for the loss of a leg or a son’s death or a wrecked career. Somebody we’d never heard of in Upper Streetham. And would have no way of knowing existed.”
“Before we could leave the case as ‘person or persons unknown,’ we’d still have to clear every suspect in Upper Streetham. Including the Captain.”
Davies sighed. “Aye, that’s true.”
Rutledge glanced across at him. “Tell me something. Why is everyone so determined to believe Wilton is innocent?”
Surprised, Davies said, “He’s a war hero, isn’t he? Admired by the King and a friend of the Prince of Wales. He’s visited Sandringham, been received by Queen Mary herself! A man like that doesn’t go around killing people!”
With a wry downturn of his lips, Rutledge silently asked, How did he win his medals, you fool, if not by being so very damned good at killing?
With Davies to guide him, Rutledge found the narrow road cutting into the Haldane property that led to a small, picturesque cottage standing isolated on a hillside, surrounded by fields and trees. Wild roses climbing over low stone walls set off the grounds, their scent filling the air with sweetness. On the north side, the wall was a good two feet higher, a windbreak for the gardens that lay at its foot. Someone had made a valiant effort to rescue them from weeds, and lupines stood like sentinels behind the sweet williams and the irises.
Drawing up in front of the cottage, Rutledge got out and was immediately attacked by an irate gray goose that took instant exception to invasion by unexpected strangers in motorcars.
Fending off the goose, he called, “Miss Sommers?”
No one answered, and after a moment, neatly outdistancing the irate fowl by doubling back the other way around the car, he made it to the steps and knocked on the cottage door.
No one came, and he was on the point of leaving when a sixth sense, that intuitive feeling that someone is there in the stillness on the other side of a door, made him knock again, louder this time. The sound attracted the goose, and she ceased her attack on her reflection in the car’s wing, bearing down on Rutledge with neck arched. But Davies had the presence of mind to blow the car’s horn, and she wheeled in midrun to hurry back to her first victim.
Finally the door was opened a narrow crack and a soft voice said, “Yes?”
“Miss Sommers? Inspector Rutledge. I’m looking for your cousin. Is she in?”
Reluctantly the door opened wider, and a pale face stared out. “She’s not here just now. There was a bird’s nest she wanted to check this morning.”
He noted the strong family resemblance in features, but this cousin was quieter, dowdier, younger. Her hair was a mousy brown, her eyes wide and fearful, her dress a muted gray-green that did nothing for her complexion or her coloring. “Do you know when she’ll be back?” he asked.
Maggie Sommers shook her head quickly, not wanting to encourage him to wait. She peered over his shoulder, saw the goose attacking the front tires of the Inspector’s car, saw Sergeant Davies laughing out of the passenger’s side, and then ducked back almost as if recoiling from any responsibility for what was happening on her lawn.
“She’s Helena’s pet,” she said defensively. “I don’t like her, she terrifies me.”
“Shall I put her in a pen or somewhere?” Rutledge asked, wondering how he was going to manage that feat, but Miss Sommers shook her head again.
“No, she’ll leave me alone if I’m not hanging out the wash. She hates that. Why do you wish to see Helena?”
“I wanted to talk with her about Captain Wilton. She saw him the morning that Colonel Harris was shot.”
Tears filled her eyes, and he thought for a moment she was going to start crying. “That was awful—I was never so terrified in my life as when I heard about it. He seemed like such a nice man.”
“You knew the Colonel?” Rutledge asked in surprise.
“Oh, no. No. But sometimes he rode this way—through the fields there,” Maggie Sommers said, pointing. “That’s his land, just beyond the high wall. The two estates meet there. If I was out in the gardens or something, he’d wave. At first I was afraid he’d want to stop and chat, but he never did, and Helena said I ought to wave back. It was—neighborly. She said he probably thought it was she anyway. She’d met him—at a dinner party.” She smiled timidly, giving her face a little more life and color, the tears forgotten. “I was invited too.”
He could see why she had been called a recluse, why there had even been the suspicion that she was simple. But she was only unimaginably shy, almost childlike. He thought that all he would have to do was shout at her in a harsh voice, and she’d scurry back inside and shut the door and hide under the bed. Torn between sympathy and irritation, he wondered where someone as brisk and active as Helena found the patience to cope with Maggie for an entire summer. Or perhaps she wasn’t quite so timorous when left alone.