by Charles Todd
“If you are asking if I approved, no. But not because of Miss Tarlton. She seems to be both respectable and capable, with a surprising knowledge of Asia. Her family had served in India for generations, as I understand it. As an assistant she would have been very useful to Simon. It was-my opinion-that Simon himself should have advertised. Instead he left the task to someone else.”
“I’m afraid I don’t see the problem. If she’s competent.”
Aurore turned to look at him, her fingers on the rim of her glass, her eyes a darker gray that he remembered. “My husband’s assistant will live here, in this house. Take meals with us. Share our lives. That will not be comfortable when I am strongly aware that this person does not approve of me.
He was surprised. “Why? Surely not because you’re French? She can’t know anything else about you in such a short time.”
“Yes, because I am French! I married Simon Wyatt in France, during the war. There are some who think-well, never mind. It is not your affair, you wish to speak of Miss Tarleton, not of me!”
After a moment he said, “They think you took advantage of Mr. Wyatt’s loneliness?”
She lifted her glass and drank, then set it down. “You didn’t know my husband before he left for France. Nor did I. But I’m told-very often I’m told!-that he was destined to be a famous cabinet member-a great prime minister-or God Himself, for all I know! They believe-his father’s friends and associates-that the change in him now is the result of his marriage. And so my doing. They blame me, because it is much easier than understanding why he prefers this ridiculous museum to what he was bred to do!”
“As long as Wyatt doesn’t blame you, what difference does it matter what other people think? Or say?”
“How like a man,” she said in gentle derision. “You do not live in a woman’s world, you don’t know the savagery there. It can be worse than the jungle-”
At that moment Simon Wyatt came storming through the french doors and out into the garden. “It’s my fault, he says! Idiot! I’d like very much to nail him to that wall with one of his own damned bolts!” Coming to the table, he pulled up the third chair. “What’s that? Wine! Good God, I hope you offered him gin or a scotch first!”
“Edith will bring you one, if you prefer it,” she told her husband. “But I think the inspector was leaving. I’ll see him to the door.”
Surprised, Rutledge finished his wine and set the glass on the table. “Thank you, Mrs. Wyatt.” He stood, offering his hand to Simon. “I hope the museum is a success,” he said.
Simon said, moodiness settling in on him like a cloak, “I don’t know that it will be. But the important thing is to try. It’s all I can do.” He shook Rutledge’s hand, and then Rutledge was following Aurore into the house.
At the front door she said, “I hope we’ve answered your questions.”
“There’s one other,” he told her reluctantly. “I’d like Miss Tarlton’s full name, and her direction if you have it.”
“Her first name is Margaret. And she lives somewhere in Chelsea. You’ll have to ask Simon for the street and number.”
“Thank you,” he replied. “Good-bye, Mrs. Wyatt.”
She nodded and watched him walk away.
The watching bothered him. It hadn’t been simple curiosity, nor the look of a woman intrigued by a new man in her sphere, only uneasiness.
But whether it was uneasiness for herself-or for Simon Wyatt-he couldn’t tell.
Margaret Tarlton. Of Chelsea, London.
He had a strong feeling that she wasn’t the woman he was searching for.
Rutledge placed a call to London as soon as he reached Singleton Magna. The reply came before he went down to his dinner.
Bowles said peremptorily, “What’s this Tarlton woman got to do with the Mowbrays?”
“She was on the same train. She got off at Singleton Magna that day. We want to know what she saw-if anything.”
“See to it you’re not stepping on any toes, man!”
“I’m care itself.”
Satisfied or not, Bowles became crisp and to the point. He said, “We sent a man around to find Miss Tarlton. Her maid says she went down to Singleton Magna last week and afterward was to go on to Sherborne. To the country house of a Thomas Napier. One of the political Napiers, Rutledge! He’s in London, but his daughter, Elizabeth Napier, is staying in the house presently. We haven’t been able to reach her”
“Never mind,” Rutledge said. “I’ll drive over there myself.” He jotted the names in his notebook and closed it. “Any information available on Miss Tarlton or this Miss Napier?”
“Nothing about Miss Tarlton, except that she comes from an Anglo-Indian family that settled in London around the turn of the century, after her father died. Mother’s dead as well now. Several aunts and cousins, I’m told. They live in Gloucestershire.” There was a pause. And then Bowles went on, “You might be interested in one discovery we’ve made about Miss Napier. She was engaged to be married to Simon Wyatt, who lives in Charlbury, not far from Singleton Magna. Her father’s his godfather, I’m told. In fact, it was Wyatt Miss Tarlton was going to visit, to apply for a position. She used to be Miss Napier’s secretary, from 1910 to last year. Lived in the Napiers’ London house.” The voice stopped again, then added with relish, “Small world, isn’t it?”
8
As Bowles hung up, Rutledge took out his watch and considered time and distance. It was still light. He could make it to Sherborne by a reasonable hour. If Margaret Tarlton was there, it would save time to interview her tonight. If he telephoned, she might put him off. Or… he refused to consider the alternative, that he might not find her at the Napiers’.
He found he didn’t want to go back to the Wyatts’ house. If Margaret Tarlton was in Sherborne, he had no other business in Charlbury.
Finding Peg in the kitchen, he persuaded her to put up some sandwiches-“But the meat’s left from luncheon, sir!” she’d exclaimed. “And the dinner roast won’t be finished for another half hour. Can’t you wait for that?’-and set out in a westerly direction for the town of Sherborne.
It was famous for its abbey church, built of golden stone like soft butter, and for the school for boys that had had a reputation for their athletes when he’d been at Oxford. Three former Sherborne scholars had stood between him and a chance at a Blue.
The Napier house was harder to find than he’d expected, set well back from the main road on an unmarked lane that wended its way first this direction and then that, before making up its mind to connect with the gates and the drive up to the house. He could see it ahead, after he’d made the turn.
It was built of the same lovely stone as the abbey and looked to be nearly as old, with oriel windows and pointed arches. The porch was a handsome affair of niches, statues, and a stone balustrade on two sides. He thought this might once have been a small manor belonging to the abbey. Someone had added a wing in the same style, probably a hundred years ago. He could just see the roof of it on the south front. As a gentleman’s country house, it was still rather small, but more than made up for that in its architectural quality. Thomas Napier’s forebears had possessed both the taste and good sense not to meddle with the fabric. And possibly a thin purse? Often that determined how many changes were made as the family’s fortunes rose.
A dark-haired maid in stiff black with an apron so starched it gave the impression it would break before it bent opened the door to him and said, “Yes, sir?” as if he’d taken a wrong turn and had come to ask his way.
“Inspector Rutledge, from Scotland Yard,” he said. “I understand a Miss Tarlton is staying here, as a guest of Miss Napier’s. Is she in?”
“Miss Tarlton, sir? No, she’s not. But I’ll ask if Miss Napier’s receiving visitors. She’s just sat down to her dinner.” Her voice was doubtful.
“This won’t take long,” he said. “There are one or two questions she might be able to answer.”
“I’ll ask, sir. If you’d care t
o wait?” She opened the door for him to step into the hall, and he was pleased to see that it was as handsome as the porch, with an elegantly carved fireplace and a high, medieval ceiling. The fine portraits on the walls, placed to catch the eye, were of a succession of men impressively magisterial in bearing, who bore a strong family likeness. Four generations, staring down at him in formidable array.
Rutledge smiled, studying them. He recognized Thomas Napier himself-painted at the age of thirty, at a guess, when he took his seat in Parliament. “A bonny man” was Hamish’s verdict. Tall, distinguished, with a short Edwardian beard and dark hair brushed back from a high forehead. The hair had grayed at the temples now, but the firmness of the features hadn’t changed at all. Napier was still a striking man. Father, grandfather, and great-grandfather possessed the same strength.
There were no women here. And no sons of Thomas’s?
He heard the tap of heels on the stone passageway down which the maid had disappeared, and a slender dark-haired woman came through the door to greet him, her resemblance to the men on the walls very clearly marked. Except that in her the same strong, distinguished features had been softened by femininity. For she was very feminine, in appearance and manner.
“Inspector Rutledge?” she said with a graciousness she must have been far from feeling, for her serviette was still in her left hand and her dinner would be growing cold. “I understand you’re seeking Miss Tarlton. May I ask why?” Her voice had a girlish lightness, but she was all of thirty, if he was any judge.
“Miss Tarlton, I’m told, took a train on thirteen August from London to Singleton Magna, where she was met and taken to Charlbury by Mrs. Simon Wyatt. That was the same day, sadly, that a Mrs. Mowbray and her children traveled on the same train. As you may know, we believe Mrs. Mowbray was killed soon after that. We’re trying to locate anyone who might remember her or her children or the man believed to be traveling with her. We very much hope that Miss Tarlton can give us information we badly need.”
“No, I had heard nothing of this!” she said with a ring of surprise and truth in her voice. “You had better tell me more, I think.”
He did, starting from the beginning, when Mowbray had stood in the window of the train, looking out at the woman on the platform. But he stopped with the finding of the body in the field.
She listened intently, without comment, as if he had come to make a report to her father. Her blue eyes were on his, steady and intelligent, reflecting her concern. He was careful in his choice of words, cushioning the purpose of his visit as well as he could, but he quickly realized that Elizabeth Napier’s softness covered a very strong mind.
“This Mrs. Mowbray was killed-murdered, you mean?” she asked, swiftly moving to the heart of the problem. “How dreadful! And they have caught this man? Her husband?”
“We have her husband in custody. It’s the children we’re still trying to locate. Any help Miss Tarlton might give us will be greatly appreciated.”
She frowned. “What do you mean-trying to locate?”
“We-aren’t sure what’s become of them.”
Elizabeth Napier shivered. After a moment she said, “I’ve worked in London with the poor. I’ve seen men who have lost all hope, who have killed their families rather than watch them starve. But this is different, isn’t it? He wasn’t trying to spare them.”
“We have no reason to believe that’s the case,” he answered. “But Miss Tarlton might be able to throw some light on the matter.”
“Margaret isn’t here,” she said reluctantly. “I was expecting her a week ago, but apparently she went back to London instead.”
“You’ve spoken with her on the telephone?”
“No, she hasn’t called or written. But she was expecting to take up a new position; she may not have had the time. Let me give you her London address-”
“She’s not there,” he said. “We’ve spoken with her maid. She says Miss Napier was to come directly here from Charlbury.”
“But she hasn’t-”
Elizabeth Napier stopped, looking at him in alarm, the serviette drawn through her fingers like a handkerchief, over and over again. He couldn’t quite read her fear, but it was there. “I don’t understand!” she said finally. “Please!”
He took the folded sheet of paper from his notebook and handed it to her. She looked down at the photograph on it, her brows puckered as if she had trouble seeing it. “What’s this?” she asked, perplexed by the shift in direction.
“A photograph of Mrs. Mowbray and her children. Does Miss Tarlton bear any resemblance at all to the woman you see there?” Hamish, mindful of the effort Rutledge was making to keep his voice free of any inflections that might lead an answer, began to stir.
“To this woman? No, certainly not!”
Then she hesitated, staring intently at the face. “Well, they’re both tall and fair-I suppose that’s a similarity-but it isn’t strong. It’s more in something-I don’t know, something about their form, I think. The long bones, the fine hair, the-the delicacy, perhaps?”
“Do you have a photograph of Miss Tarlton?”
“A photograph? Why should-no, of course, there’s one in the study. When my father had a house party last spring, she helped me entertain. It was a political weekend, and they’re always the worst, the wives are bored to tears or scratching each other’s eyes out in the politest way whenever the men aren’t around. Someone had a camera. If you’ll excuse me-”
He could feel the tension in his body now. That odd sixth sense had already leapt ahead, his thoughts tangled with the possibilities opening before him. The warning to let sleeping dogs lie passed through his mind as well.
“Then what about the children?” Hamish was saying, voice low, urgent.
“If it wasn’t his wife that Mowbray killed, there won’t be any children.”
“But there were children at the railway station. You have na’ forgotten.”
“No. But if the Tarlton woman was visiting the Wyatts in Charlbury, she might have been in the right place at the wrong time. Mowbray might have believed he’d found his missing wife.” It was the conviction that had brought Rutledge to Sherborne. The need to settle the matter of Margaret Tarlton’s whereabouts. Such thin evidence…
Miss Napier returned, a silver-framed photograph in her hand. Instead of giving it to Rutledge she walked to the door and opened it, stepping out into the last of the daylight to compare the photograph and the printed flyer Hildebrand had had made up.
After a moment she shook her head, and Rutledge came to take the frame from her, trying to read her expression. He saw only confusion.
He too stood in the light, looking down at several women shown standing by the elegant hearth in the hall, as if posed by someone oblivious to the interplay of relationships among them. There was a stiffness that betrayed their antagonism even while their expressions portrayed polite enjoyment. But second from the left was a young woman with long bones and fair hair, who looked at the camera in much the same way-and yet not the same way-as Mary Sandra Mowbray had done in 1916. An oddly ephemeral thing…
Hamish saw the truth as quickly as Rutledge did.
Rutledge told himself, It isn’t real. This resemblance between the two women. You see it only when you look for it-there’s nothing to trigger it unless you’re consciously expecting to find it. Or hoping to see it?
“It isn’t a likeness. Is it?” Elizabeth Napier asked. “I can’t tell-”
“It isn’t a likeness,” he answered finally, “but there’s something very- uncanny -about the similarity.” He had unwittingly used the same word Hamish was repeating in his mind. “At a guess, I’d say that if the two women stood side by side, you wouldn’t notice it. There’s the voice, of course, and how each carries herself. Her expression-her nature. They’re not from the same social background. They’ve lived quite different lives. These qualities would strike you first”
“I don’t follow you-”
He said carefull
y, looking for flaws himself, “If you saw either woman walking down Bond Street some distance ahead, you might say to yourself, ‘I think that’s Margaret Tarlton.’ If you saw either woman in the slums or along a country road, you might pass her by without a glance, because you wouldn’t expect to encounter Miss Tarlton there.”
“Except for their clothing. How they were dressed.”
“But Mowbray, expecting to find his wife in Singleton Magna, might not know her wardrobe now, in this new life he’d already accused her in his own mind of living. He wouldn’t look for differences, he’d look for similarities.” Like the color pink… if that was a woman’s favorite color.
“I begin to see. But go on.” Her face had lost some of its color.
“This man survived the war to come back to an empty life. Out of work, no home, no family to support him, nothing safe or familiar. He desperately wants this woman to be his wife, and by the time he does find her, he can’t feel anything but anger when she denies everything. He tries to make her stop lying to him-and, in the end, kills her.” There were any number of holes in this piece of speculation. He found himself trying not to think about them.
Hamish was asking vehemently how he had overlooked the one salient fact that would negate all his fine theories.
But Rutledge made himself concentrate on Elizabeth Napier’s reaction.
“It’s still guesswork,” he said, forced to honesty. “I can’t prove any of it.”
She was looking up at his face, dawning horror on hers as she assimilated the images in her mind. “You aren’t-you aren’t trying to say-that the dead woman in Singleton Magna might possibly be Margaret Tarlton! That it explains why she isn’t here-or in London. No, I refuse to believe it!”
Yet he could tell that the conviction was growing stronger with every moment. She was an intelligent woman Still, she fought against it. Elizabeth stood by Rutledge’s side, her hand on his arm, her eyes scanning the two faces, one in an ornate frame, the other a grainy reproduction on cheap paper. Whatever her inner struggle, whatever the deeper emotion that lay behind her fear of the truth, she couldn’t ignore the evidence before her.
