“It’s an interesting possibility. Still, even if you’re right that Napier borrowed the money from Wyatt, I can’t see any direct connection from that to Margaret Tarlton’s murder. How would it benefit anyone?” He stood up, the whisky failing to penetrate the gloom he felt settling around him. “For that matter, so far I haven’t found a sound reason for anyone to want to kill her. Except mistaken identity.”
“No, but you will.” She smiled as she held out her hand for his empty glass. “If there is one.”
As she walked with him to the door, Rutledge said, “If you had to dispose of a suitcase that might connect you with a murder, where would you hide it?”
“A suitcase? I’d put it in the one place everyone expects to find luggage—a hotel or a railway station.”
“Would you? A hall porter or a stationmaster would come across it in the long run and try to locate the owner.”
“Well, then—the one place no one ever goes.”
It was a thought that followed him all the way back to Dorset
14
It was late when Rutledge pulled into the yard of the Swan in Singleton Magna, and he was tired. The rain had kept up most of the afternoon and into the evening, a steady, gray curtain that soaked everything.
He stepped out of the car into a puddle, invisible in the shadowed yard, and swore. His hat, tilted against the rain, dripped unpleasantly down his coat as he turned toward the front of the inn and into the rising wind. He could feel his shirt beginning to stick to his skin across his shoulders.
At the inn door he paused to shake his hat, then squelched across the damp rug put down to stop the influx of water into the lobby proper.
There was a message waiting for him. He opened it and read, “We’ve looked where we said we would, and had no luck.” It was signed “Bowles” in a dainty penmanship that belonged to the smiling woman behind the desk. She nodded as he glanced up. “He said you’d know what was meant.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Margaret Tarlton wasn’t visiting her cousins in Gloucestershire. Elizabeth Napier had been right.
As he reached the stairs, wondering if it was too late to order a pot of tea and something to eat, the front doors opened again and Elizabeth Napier herself swept in with a black umbrella cascading rain like a young waterfall. The hem of her skirt was darkly wet as well and her black shoes left tracks on the floor crossing his. Benson took the umbrella from her as soon as she reached the relative dryness indoors and then disappeared. The sound of the car moving off into the night came to Rutledge.
She saw him on the stairs and said, “My God, it’s worse than London—the roads turn to muddy ruts and everywhere you put your foot there’s a puddle! I looked for you earlier, hoping you might dine with me.” She regarded him for a moment and added, “Inspector Hildebrand told me he thought you’d gone to the Wyatt Arms instead.”
“No. I had business elsewhere.”
Coming up to him, she said, “You look tired! Have you eaten at all?” Taking his silence for no, she turned to the woman at the desk. “Is your cook still here? I’d like a private parlor, if you please, and something hot to eat Soup will do. With tea.” Without waiting for an answer, she said to Rutledge, “I’ll take my death of cold, even in August, if I don’t change these wet clothes. I’ll only need five minutes!” She swept past him in an aura of damp wool that matched his own.
But it was almost fifteen before she came down the stairs again and considered him approvingly. He had changed his shirt and his shoes, and wore a sweater in place of his coat With his hair still damp and unruly, she thought he looked much younger than he seemed before.
There was soup and fresh bread set out in one of the smaller rooms, with tea on a table by a fire someone had hastily laid. It took a little of the chill and an air of mustiness from the room, giving it a cozy, almost intimate feeling.
Rutledge, curious, wondered what her reasons were for creating this comfortable setting. Whatever they might be, he preferred her company to his own thoughts in the silent room upstairs.
Elizabeth served him and then herself, although from the way she ate he thought it was out of politeness instead of hunger. He felt suddenly ravenous.
The soup was mutton, with barley, carrots, potatoes, and what tasted like turnips. The aroma alone was sustaining. He wondered if Elizabeth had commandeered the staff’s first course.
She waited until he’d finished half his soup before launching into her real purpose for waylaying him.
“My father says, if you need more men, he’ll ask the Yard to send them.”
Wouldn’t Bowles be delighted with that request! he thought, but said only “Thank you. But no, they’d only be underfoot. If the searches that Hildebrand’s conducting haven’t brought us any answers by this time, additional men—and strangers at that—aren’t going to.” He helped himself to a second bowl of soup and cut more bread. There was butter in a covered dish as well, as he discovered.
She said, “They aren’t going to find the children. I know that. You know that. But Hildebrand insists he has to find them. I spoke with the rector here in Singleton Magna this afternoon. Mr. Drewes. I felt I ought to do something about a headstone. My father wanted to remove the body to London. He’s taking Margaret’s death very hard, I can tell you. Ten years—you grow fond of someone in ten years. It isn’t surprising, I was very close to her myself.”
He said nothing, letting her carry on in her own fashion.
“Mr. Drewes was rather confused, I must say. He’d been informed of course that the dead woman was Mrs. Mowbray, and I don’t think he was too happy at the thought of changing the church records. I told him to blame Inspector Hildebrand for being overhasty.” She tilted her head and smiled wryly. “He thinks I’m utterly charming, so I must have put it less bluntly than that Of course he never said as much to my face, I overheard him talking to that woman at the desk, after he’d very gallantly walked me back to the Swan, holding his umbrella over me and getting himself thoroughly wet. His wife will have had something to say about that!”
He found himself wondering if Mrs. Drewes would even hear the story. Elizabeth Napier had a seductive way of sitting, her back straight, her shoulders slightly at an angle. Her hair, brushed back from her face, was gleaming in the firelight, and he could smell the faint scent of heliotrope.
“My father says if you find yourself in any difficulty with the local people, you have only to tell him. He made it clear to your superintendant this afternoon that he expects you to handle this business about Margaret.”
He felt a surge of irritation at her meddling—or was it Napier’s?
“I don’t believe that will be necessary,” he said. “But thank you,” he added, knowing it was what she wanted him to say. To satisfy her own sense of self-importance or her father’s silent need to be involved in the matter?
“What do you think of Aurore Wyatt?” she went on. She was making conversation as an experienced hostess might at a dinner party, interspersing the salient points as if they were commonplace remarks. Now she was down to what interested her most She rose to refill his tea cup, indicating she was giving him an opportunity to respond. Out of politeness if nothing else.