She turned to look up at the church tower, truncated and heavy. Like a wasted promise … When she went on, there was no self-pity in her words.
“It was very difficult for both of us. But divorce is hard to come by, you know, it leaves a stigma. And I am Catholic, there is nothing for me afterward. I believed I’d be happier trying to make my marriage work than standing at the quayside and waving good-bye, admitting that I’d failed Simon. And myself as well. I was braced to fight. But I can’t fight them all. I don’t know how. It would be much better for me to be hanged, guilty or not, sparing Simon the embarrassment of publicly acknowledging that his marriage was a mistake.”
She stopped, her body suddenly rigid. “No, I didn’t mean that! He would never harm me. He still cares. …”
But she had just given Rutledge a motive for her husband to kill.
He said carefully, after a time, “I told you before that I didn’t believe Elizabeth would stay. After this is finished. There’s nothing to keep her here, except blatant self-interest. And somehow I don’t see her confessing to that.”
“If I am convicted of murder, she will have Simon without the messy aftermath of divorce. And if I am not, she will have shown him that she still cares. It is something from the past, you see. Something he had thought he’d given up. I don’t know—”
He could see the tears glistening in her lashes. “He’d be a fool to choose Elizabeth Napier over you!”
She gave him a watery smile and said for the second time that day, “You are very kind. But you know and I know that this murder has brought to the fore more than just one woman’s death. It is something I must face. I don’t know how I shall do that. I don’t know where it will end, but I shall find the strength I need.”
He stood there, helpless, unable to touch her, unable to offer any comfort that didn’t sound like kindness.
“Mrs. Wyatt—Aurore—”
She shook her head. “No. You must not say anything. Tell me again about the giraffe in the kitchen of the Swan. Forget you’re a policeman and I am a suspect, and tell me instead how the giraffe came to wander so very far from home.” She gasped as she realized that what she’d said was a reflection of her own dilemma.
Hamish was vigorously protesting that Aurore was trying to distract him.
Rutledge ignored him. He said, “It wasn’t so very far from home. Or lost. Only misplaced for a little while. I shouldn’t worry for its sake.”
“Animals have no complexity in their lives, do they?” she agreed. “How very fortunate they are!”
She walked away, leaving him there in the trees, her back straight, her head held high. Not toward the house but to the church. She was telling him that she wanted privacy and a little time alone.
But he thought perhaps she hadn’t stopped crying.
When Rutledge came back for his car, which was parked by the inn, he saw Mrs. Prescott, Constable Trait’s neighbor, with a market basket over her arm and a sense of mission in her stride.
She saw him and crossed the street hastily to waylay him.
“What’s to do with Mrs. Wyatt? She seemed that upset when she came hurrying out of her gate! Walked right past me without so much as a how-do-you-do, Mrs. Prescott! And you on her heels, like the wrath of God!”
“She’s well enough,” Rutledge answered. “There was something about a giraffe, I think, worrying her.”
Mystified for a moment, Mrs. Prescott then gave him a lopsided smile. “Which is another way of saying I ought to mind my own business. Well, you wouldn’t be the first to tell me that. But gossip’s like making a quilt. Sorting where the patches belong and where they don’t. Weighing size and color and shape. That takes skill, of a kind. I like to gossip, anybody in Charlbury will tell you that!”
“What’s Charlbury saying about this body found outside Leigh Minster?”
“I could tell you how many teeth she had in her head, and whether her stockings was cotton or silk!”
“Can you put a name to the teeth?”
“Not yet. She’s too long in the ground, they say, to be Miss Tarlton, and too fresh to be that Betty Cooper. Another stranger, d’you think? We’re getting fair swamped with strange corpses! I’m told it’s none of your business, anyhow. Except that it keeps Inspector Hildebrand busy on two fronts and out of your way.” She paused, then said tentatively, “If you don’t mind my asking, do you think a man or a woman’s behind Miss Tarlton’s killing?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think anyone does at this point.”
“What killed her, then?”
“We don’t have a murder weapon.”
“If that’s what’s worrying you, I’ll give you a free word of advice,” Mrs. Prescott said. “A man, now, he’d pick up any tool and feel comfortable with that. A woman will be more likely to reach for something familiar, something she’s used to. If I was angry enough to kill, I’d pick up that iron doorstop of mine. The one shaped like an owl—”
She could see the change in his face. The thought awakening in his mind. Curiosity was lively in her eyes. She started to speak, then thought better of it.
He thanked her and was already hurrying toward his motorcar.
It was stupid of him! he told himself. A rank beginner would have thought about it a long time ago. But then a rank beginner might not have been dazzled by Aurore Wyatt’s unusual attraction.
He hadn’t gone out to the Wyatt farm. Where Aurore claimed she’d spent the morning Margaret Tarlton was scheduled to leave. Where the car had been driven that same morning, instead of being available at the house to take a guest to the station …
The farm …
He could hear Frances’s voice: “Where would I hide a suitcase? Where no one ever goes. …”
In the back of his mind Hamish was saying, “I’ve tried to tell you—”
17
The road that ran west through the village climbed a low knoll on its outskirts, twisted down again, and within a hundred feet passed a pair of stone gates that stood at the head of a narrow lane. An ornate W was engraved on a worn tablet on one of the posts. The farm itself was nearly invisible behind a stand of trees. He turned in through the gates, swearing as his wheels bumped heavily along ancient ruts made by carts and drays. The lane was arrow straight, leading through a double row of trees, shaded and quiet except for a blackbird singing somewhere in the thick branches. It ended in a muddy yard, where a small stone house was backed by a great barn, a long open shed for farm equipment, and a number of smaller, shabby outbuildings. The property was not run down, as he’d expected, but the signs of neglect were there to be seen: in the old thatch on the house that should have been renewed five years ago; the shingles missing from the barn’s high roof and the pointing badly needed in some of the courses of stone; the weathered wood of the sheds; the rank grass that grew up in corners and under rusting bits of gear scattered about the barn’s yard behind the house.
Chickens could be heard, clucking and squabbling, and a horse neighed from the dim, cool recesses of the barn. The hay rick, not fresh and new, was half gone, the new hay left in the sun to dry.
The house seemed empty—sometimes, Rutledge thought, you could tell by the feel of it. He walked to the door and peered in the nearest window. The room he could see was clean and tidy, but the furniture was castoffs from the past, the carpet threadbare, and there were no curtains at any of the windows. He could just see a staircase that rose to the next floor from the entrance hall. When he tried the door, the knob turned under his hand, but he didn’t go inside.