He gave her another moment or two and then said, “Can you tell me anything—” He found he didn’t want to ask Hildebrand that question.
She said shakily, “Dr. Fairfield took out the box with her clothing in it, and as soon as I saw it, I was sick. But I made myself go back, I asked them to unfold the dress for me.” She swallowed hard. “You told me the color was pink!” she went on accusingly. “It’s more a lavender rose, and of course I recognized it. Straightaway. The shoes as well. I’d seen Margaret wearing them just last month, when we went to the museum—” Realizing that in her distress she had probably said more than she meant to, she broke off.
He wondered if the purpose of a museum visit had been to refresh Margaret Tarlton’s knowledge of the East, before she traveled down to Dorset.
When he said nothing, she went on, “Your Inspector Hildebrand thinks I’m out of my mind, but he’s too worried about vexing my father to say it to my face.”
“You’re quite sure—about the dress and the shoes?”
Her eyes held his. “I can’t lie to you. I may be wrong. But I’d be willing to swear, until you show me evidence to the contrary, that the woman wearing that dress must be—must have been Margaret.”
“And as far as you know, Miss Tarlton had no connection with the Mowbray family?”
“If she did, I can’t imagine where or how she came to meet them.”
Hildebrand returned with a small glass of brandy. Elizabeth sipped it carefully, wrinkling her nose in distaste. But it brought a little color back to her face, if only because of its bite.
“I’ll see to driving you back to Sherborne, Miss Napier,” he was saying. “You’ve had a nasty shock, and I’m sorry. I hope you’ll feel better when you’re at home again. I ask your pardon for subjecting you to this ordeal. It wasn’t, as I told you before, any of my choosing!”
She nodded, and somehow the chair seemed to envelop her protectively as she leaned back and closed her eyes. After a moment she handed the brandy glass to Rutledge and then stood up tentatively, as if expecting the room to dip and sway. She said to Hildebrand, “Inspector Rutledge put my case in the boot of his car. If you could arrange to have it brought to my room? I think it’s best if I stay in Singleton Magna tonight. It’s already quite late, isn’t it?”
The Swan’s manager was delighted to provide a room for Elizabeth Napier, offering to send the bill to her father. She waited patiently while the formalities were completed and then allowed herself to be led to the stairs. As they reached the graceful sweep of marble steps, she touched her temple with her fingertips, as though her head ached. Then she said, “Um—I—don’t suppose anyone’s called Simon? No, of course not, you still aren’t quite ready to believe me, are you, Inspector Hildebrand?” She started up the first flight before he could answer her. Without looking back she added quietly, “Dear Simon, he’s known Margaret nearly as long as I have. It would be better for all of us if I were wrong. But there’s no way to undo what’s happened, is there? If it should turn out that I’m right?”
Hildebrand said nothing, trailing her in silence.
Watching her, Rutledge was reminded of something his godfather had told him once about Queen Victoria: “Small as she was, she moved with majesty,” The same could be said of Elizabeth Napier.
She knew, perfectly, what power was, and how to wield it. Few men could boast the same profound understanding. Rutledge wondered if she’d inherited her skill from Thomas Napier, or if it was natural, as instinctive as the way she held her head, as if there were a diadem balanced in her hair. It gave her, too, a semblance of the height she didn’t possess.
“I must telephone my father. He’ll want to know what’s happened. But not tonight—I couldn’t bear to go into it tonight!”
Behind her, Hildebrand grimly shook his head. Stubbornness was his shield. And in the end, it might prove to be enough.
The Swan’s manager was fumbling through the keys in his hand to find the one he wanted, oblivious of the currents of emotion around him. In the passage outside her door, he offered Miss Napier everything from a maid to help her unpack to a tray of tea, if she felt so inclined. She accepted the tea with touching gratitude and was bowed into her room as the door was unlocked for her.
Leaving Hildebrand and the manager to see to her comfort, Rutledge went down to his car. Hamish had nothing to say.
By the time he’d delivered the small overnight case to her door, Hildebrand was also preparing to leave, and they walked down the stairs in a silence that was ominous. Rutledge braced himself for the storm that was certain to break as soon as they were out of earshot of the inn’s staff.
Hamish reminded him that it wouldn’t do to lose his own temper a second time. Rutledge told him shortly to keep out of it.
The storm was apocalyptic. After a cursory glance around the quiet, empty lobby, Hildebrand launched into his grievances in a tight, furious voice that carried no farther than the man opposite him. Among other things he wanted to know why Rutledge had seen fit to go to Sherborne on his own—and why the bloody hell the Napier name had been dragged into this sordid business without Hildebrand’s permission. “I don’t know where you learned of this Tarlton woman, or why you thought she was in any way involved, but I can tell you now Miss Napier is mistaken! My God, she was too shocked to know what she was saying!” he ended. “And when her father learns what’s happened, do you know who will be to blame for this—this exercise in futility? My people! We’ll be damned lucky if none of us is sacked! Thomas Napier, for God’s sake! He makes or breaks far more important men than either of us, any day of the week!”
“Do you realize it will take an order from the Home Office to have that body exhumed?” Rutledge demanded harshly as soon as Hildebrand had paused for breath. “And now that there’s doubt—”
“Whose doubt? Yours and whatever confusion you’ve sown in that young woman’s mind? I hardly call that a positive identification, damn you!”
“It might explain,” Rutledge retorted, “why we haven’t found the children. Because there are no children to be found.”
“They’re out there! Somewhere! And when I find them—mark me, I shall find them, with or without your help!—I’ll see to it that you’re ruined! Whatever you were before the bloody war, you aren’t half that man now. And it’s time you realized it!”
He turned on his heel and left. In his wake Hamish was asking “How was it Mowbray found her—yon Tarlton lass? How did she come to be walking on the road to Singleton Magna—the Wyatts would no’ send her to the station on foot!”
Rutledge had considered that himself. On the long dark drive from Sherborne. During the shorter wait in the Swan’s lobby. No answers had come to him. Not yet …
It had all gone wrong. He told himself that if his skills had slipped so far, he was better off out of Scotland Yard. That if he had seen what he wanted to see, and not the truth …
“Just because yon fine Miss Tarlton is na’ in London and did na’ arrive in Sherborne as expected does na’ mean she’s dead! What if she’s gone to Gloucestershire, to tell her family she was moving to Dorset?” Hamish reminded him again and again. The words echoed in his head.
“Without troubling to telephone Miss Napier? Who recommended her for the position in the first place? I don’t think it’s very likely.”
Rutledge could feel the dull ache behind his eyes, the sense of isolation and depression settling in. Fighting it, he walked out into the windy night, looked up at the stars pricking brightly through tide darkness.