by Charles Todd
“If it wasn’t Mallory who attacked him, then who found him walking that morning and quarreled with him? Who was disappointed in something he said? Who was afraid of something he might do? Who lashed out in such blind fury that before either of them quite realized what had happened, Hamilton was lying there bleeding and unconscious?”
She shivered, her gaze lifting to the windows, as if she could see beyond the walls and into the past. “You make it so—vivid. Personal.”
“A beating is personal.”
Miss Esterley answered slowly. “I don’t know of anyone who was afraid of Matthew. After all, he’d only just come to live here, he hardly knew us, and most certainly couldn’t know our family skeletons. As for disappointment, at a dinner party not a fortnight ago, I overheard Miss Trining tell him that she was very disappointed that he hadn’t chosen to stand for Parliament. I’d never known him to express any interest in that direction—in fact, he seemed to be rather glad to be out of the public eye. And I most certainly can’t picture Miss Trining taking a cane to him for refusing to consider a political future. But then Miss Trining sees duty in a different light from the rest of us. And as for someone being angry with him, we’ve come full circle again to Mr. Mallory.”
“Was Miss Trining ambitious for herself? Or for Hampton Regis as the home of a sitting MP?”
“I don’t believe it had anything to do with ambition on her part. It’s more an abhorrence of wasted potential.”
Hamish stirred, and Rutledge picked up the thought.
Wasted potential…
If Miss Trining had discovered Hamilton’s penchant for dealing with grave robbers, she might have felt more than disappointment—she might have been furious with him for not being the man she’d believed he was.
But surely even if her temper had got the best of her on the strand, she would have owned up to her actions and taken full responsibility for them. Duty carried with it responsibility.
Before he left, Rutledge put one final question to Miss Esterley.
“Do you happen to know Mrs. Reston’s maiden name?”
“Her maiden name? No, I don’t believe I do. Is it important?”
“I’ve been told that she came from a very good family and might have known Hamilton in the years before he went abroad.”
“Indeed? If that’s true, I never heard anyone bring it up. And I’m sure it would have become known. When the Hamiltons arrived in Hampton Regis, everyone was scrambling for an introduction. Mrs. Reston would have been exceedingly popular, if she’d had any sort of connection. I’ve told you, I was the first to make his acquaintance, because of my accident. I know how quickly people suddenly discovered how very much they enjoyed my company.” It was said wryly, even with a touch of bitterness.
But it was possible that Henrietta Reston had had her own reasons to keep the past in the past. And her relationship with Hamilton buried there.
It was not likely in a village the size of Hampton Regis that Rutledge could avoid the newcomer, Stratton, for long if the man set out in search of him. He had only to ask the desk clerk for a description of the motorcar and he would soon track it down. But as Rutledge left Miss Esterley, he was pleased not to find Stratton leaning against the wing, waiting for him.
Rutledge went again to the rectory to assure himself that Bennett had spoken to Mr. Putnam about the larder at Casa Miranda.
Bennett had sent someone round, Putnam told him in a low voice. And he was to be driven up to the Hamiltons’ door in a greengrocer’s cart at a quarter past three.
“Dr. Granville is asleep finally, and I hesitated to leave him alone just now. But I’ll only be there long enough to help hand in the choices that Mrs. Bennett is making. I can only hope they’re to Mrs. Hamilton’s liking.”
Rutledge smiled in spite of himself. “Quite.”
“That’s a volatile situation, you know, with Mr. Mallory. I have prayed to find a way to resolve it. I’m sure he wants to find a resolution as well. But so far there’s been no clear answer.”
“There will be none, until we discover who tried to kill Hamilton.”
“Yes, sadly, it’s for the law, isn’t it, to bring us safely through. I can only do my best to keep peace where it is needed most. And that’s here for the moment.”
“Thank you for agreeing to help.”
“Not at all. You will keep me informed, won’t you? I can’t be everywhere, and of late I seem to have been in all the wrong places.” It was said ruefully but with conviction. “I should have foreseen something. If I had known my flock as I so often pride myself I do, I should have sensed the injuries that were driving people to desperate measures. Whatever it was that has led us to this.”
“It isn’t your failure, Rector. Murder is a private matter. It’s when a man or woman has no other resources available that he or she turns to a last act of violence. Would that a priest could do our work for us at the Yard.”
“Small comfort, Mr. Rutledge, when it is one of your own who has been maimed and now murdered. I lie awake with that knowledge on my soul, and tell myself that somewhere I shall find that slim gleam of understanding I need to go forward.”
Alarmed, Rutledge said, “You’ll stay out of this, Mr. Putnam. Any knowledge you feel you possess, you must bring to me. Do I have your word on that? This is a cold-blooded killer, not a lost sheep from St. Luke’s flock who can be brought back into the fold with a prayer for guidance.”
Putnam smiled. “I’m not as brave as that. You needn’t fear. I’m no Becket, challenging kings or murderers. But I ought to be clever enough to understand my own congregation, don’t you think?”
With that he shut the door softly and left Rutledge standing on the rectory steps.
Miss Trining was not pleased with Rutledge and made no bones about it.
“I summoned the Chief Constable,” she said, sitting in the tall-backed chair in a parlor that was as grand as a drawing room, brocade and polished wood and floors that shimmered beneath the feet of elegant furnishings older than the house itself, possibly the dowry of an ancestress. “I felt it my duty to express my belief that events had got out of control. Inspector Bennett is all well and good, but his abilities are limited. And I doubt you have the experience to guide him.”
In the place of honor over the mantel hung a portrait of a Victorian gentleman, soberly dressed in black and standing in a pose reminiscent of paintings of the late Prince Albert designed to grace shops bearing the seal By Appointment….
Hamish had no difficulty with the family likeness. “The MacQueens bred true as well,” he commented.
“I appreciate your strong sense of duty, Miss Trining. It becomes your role in Hampton Regis.” The words rolled off Rutledge’s tongue effortlessly. He had dealt with busybodies before.
“What is going on?” she demanded. “I particularly asked the Chief Constable to come here and tell me who is dead. It can’t be Matthew Hamilton, I refuse to believe it. But if it isn’t, why is the surgery shut tight and guarded by Constable Coxe?”
“Miss Weekes’s cousin, I believe?”
“Yes.”
Not the young constable who had fetched Dr. Hester from Middlebury, but an older man with grim eyes. Rutledge had taken a hard look at him, thinking to himself that if anything happened to Nan Weekes, Coxe would be difficult to manage. Assuming the pair were as close as she had tried to make him believe they were.
“The truth is, Miss Trining, that Mr. Hamilton is no longer in the surgery. At some point in the night, he either was helped to leave it or was carried away.”
“By whom, pray?” Her anger was apparent. “Was it that foolish wife of his? It was my clear understanding that he shouldn’t be moved—I’d even suggested that he be brought here where he could be more comfortable, and Dr. Granville was set against it.”
“It was done without Dr. Granville’s knowledge or consent.”
“How like her. Then I was quite right to have brought this matter to the Chief Constable�
��s attention. Specialists should have been brought in at once for consultation. Indeed, I’d pointed that out to Dr. Granville myself. I must tell you, the man is arrogant about his skill at times. But then he doesn’t come from a refined background. He was adopted by the Granvilles, you know. A promising boy who showed an early aptitude for medicine and repaid his new family poorly for their kindness. Why else should he be looking after farmers and shopgirls here in Hampton Regis when his foster father is in Harley Street?”
Wasted potential.
“Unkindness?” he asked, with just the right level of curiosity to elicit information from her rather than the sharp edge of her tongue.
“I’m told there was a young woman whom he met shortly after he set up practice. Her father was a nabob, made his money in South Africa, you know, friend of Rhodes and so on. When he discovered that his daughter’s suitor was merely fostered and not a Granville by blood, he rather publicly put an end to the affair. Accused him of playing with her affections, in fact. The foster father, accepting the nabob’s version of the situation, refused to have any more to do with our Dr. Granville. Guilty or not, it finished him in London society, and of course he had to leave.”
“That doesn’t appear to me to reflect poorly on Dr. Granville. Rather, on his foster father.”
“Mr. Rutledge, it is ingratitude we are speaking of,” she told him in her severest tone. “Ingratitude for putting his benefactor in such an untenable social position. A man of his upbringing should have risen above the class in which he was born. And he failed to do that. The medical profession must be seen to be above reproach. That is why doctors are accepted in Society.”
He wasn’t in the mood to challenge her views. He said, “He married Margaret Granville after leaving London?”
“Yes. Entirely too timid to be a doctor’s wife, but I must say she’s shown herself to be a devoted assistant. Her father was a country vicar, no money at all, but her mother came of good family and left her a comfortable inheritance.” She glared at Rutledge. “You have intentionally diverted me from what Mrs. Hamilton saw fit to do in regard to her husband’s care. I find it appalling, but I will be charitable and put the greatest blame on the man with whom she is presently consorting.”
“Mrs. Hamilton as far as we can determine never left her house last night. And I don’t think she could have removed her husband without help.”
“Then the two of them are in it together. Just as I said. Mallory and Matthew’s wife.”
“We’ve searched the house and grounds. We’ve had to accept the possibility that Hamilton is very likely dead.”
She leaned forward in her chair. “He can’t be dead!” The shock was real and it took her a moment to recover. “I refuse to believe you.”
“We can’t find him, Miss Trining. The fact is, someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to be sure that we don’t have his body.”
“Was it that man Mallory, finishing what he’d started? Why did you not put a guard on Mr. Hamilton? It’s negligence, Inspector, sheer, blind negligence. What excuse does Dr. Granville put forward for this turn of events? I’d like to hear it.” She was furiously angry, beside herself with it. But Rutledge found himself wondering if she was afraid—afraid that he was tricking her.
“Dr. Granville has no excuses to offer. His wife was killed last night, presumably as she came to the surgery in her nightdress to see why someone was there at such a late hour.”
Miss Trining stared at him. After a moment she demanded, “And where was the doctor, pray?”
“He was attending a case of congestive heart failure.”
She digested that, nodding. “Will Joyner, I expect. His daughter is without doubt the worst cook in Hampton Regis. What she feeds him I shudder to think, but it has done him no good. I’ve been there when Dr. Granville gives her instructions, and never fail to wonder at her stupidity. I shall have to offer to bring Dr. Granville here. He can’t wish to stay in that house tonight.”
“Mr. Putnam has taken him to the rectory.”
“And quite right. Mr. Putnam has a very acute sense of what’s best. I shall send them their dinner. At least they’ll have no worries there.” She shook her head. “I find it hard to take in. I spoke to Margaret Granville only yesterday, we were planning the spring gala at the church. She was to make the table decorations for us to sell. And I shall have to find another volunteer for that.”
Noblesse oblige.
The Miss Trinings of this world coped. It was their duty.
She couldn’t have removed Hamilton alone. And Rutledge couldn’t quite see her as a coconspirator with anyone else in Hampton Regis.
He could safely strike her off his list of suspects.
19
Rutledge took a quarter of an hour to search out the man Joyner, the patient with congestive heart failure, and found him resting quietly in his bed, watched over by an anxious woman in her thirties. She looked tired, eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep and from worry.
“He’s only just drifted off, Inspector,” she told him on the doorstep of the small house on the road east, a mile beyond the churchyard. “Doctor says rest is what he needs.”
“I shouldn’t like to disturb him, Miss Joyner. Dr. Granville was here in the night, you say?”
“Yes, he’s good about that. I send the neighbor’s boy along, if Dad takes a turn. He’s pining for Mother, that’s what it is, but I don’t want to lose him. It’s his pension pays for this cottage, after all.”
Practical, the way the poor so often had to be.
Curiosity got the better of her. “What’s this about, Inspector? Mr. Bennett never comes to look in on us. Even when Dad had the influenza and nearly died.”
“Dr. Granville lost his wife in the night. We’re trying to pin down the time of her death.”
“Oh, the poor man! I shan’t tell Dad for a bit, it will upset him no end. And I asked after her, I remember I did. Doctor said she was in her bed and asleep, as I ought to be.”
“What time was Dr. Granville here?”
“I sent for him soon after one o’clock, it seems to me. And he sat with Dad until he was quiet. Five or six, it must have been by that time. I heard the neighbor’s rooster start crowing.”
“Thank you, Miss Joyner. I won’t keep you any longer.”
She said, “You’ll tell Doctor how sorry we are. I’d hate to think of him being here when his wife was so ill and needed him. Makes me want to cry.”
“There was nothing he could have done,” he assured her, and left, before the next question was asked: how Mrs. Granville had died.
Hamish said, “It wasna’ necessary to come here.”
But Bowles would ask for such minute attention to detail. It would balance what London would see as his unnecessary venture out to the landslip. Even if it had produced that tantalizing bit of bandage.
It also established that Granville had come east, not west, when he went out on the Joyner call. He wouldn’t have been a witness to whatever had been done on the road to Devon.
Worst luck. It would have helped to corroborate the story that young Jeremy Cornelius had told.
Mr. Putnam, leaving a note for Dr. Granville on the hall table, collected his coat and was standing in the rectory drive when the greengrocer pulled up with his cart.
The horse, an old hand at the game, stopped as soon as Putnam approached, waited for him to clamber up to the high seat beside Mr. Tavers, and then walked on.
Circling the drive to the gates in the low wall, Tavers said, “I’m not setting foot in that house. I’m not finding myself shut up there with a revolver at my head. Not good for business.”
Putnam said, his voice pacific, “You won’t be in any danger. Mr. Mallory isn’t a madman, he’s just frightened that what happened to Mr. Hamilton is going to be laid at his door, simply because he had had a quarrel with Mr. Hamilton. Well, not precisely a quarrel. A difference.”
“But Hamilton’s gone missing. And Mrs. Granville is dead. Wha
t did he have to do with that nasty business?”
“I don’t think Mr. Rutledge or Mr. Bennett has come to a conclusion about that. Not yet.”
“Mrs. Bennett has an opinion, and it isn’t in Mallory’s favor, I can tell you that.”
“Yes, well, I’m sure she’s worried for her husband. He blames Mr. Mallory for the injury to his foot.”
“My point exactly. A volatile temper, that’s what Mr. Mallory has, and it got the better of him this time.”
“Have you ever seen him lose his temper?”
“When he first came to Hampton Regis, Mrs. Tavers noticed how edgy he was, and uncertain in his moods. She said to me he was not one she’d like to meet along a dark road in the middle of the night.”
“I understand Mallory had a very rough time in the war.”
“And so did my son Howard, the youngest. But he’s not going about bashing in heads and keeping another man’s wife against her will, is he?”
With a sigh, Putnam said, “Don’t worry, man, I shall take everything inside the house. You need only set the parcels by the door.” Changing the subject, he asked, “Have you been considering one of these new lorries for your business?”
“Not as long as Fred here is still pulling his weight,” Tavers retorted.
It was a tense greengrocer who drew up in front of Casa Miranda and halted his horse to let Putnam step down.
Putnam tapped at the door and waited, wondering what his reception would be.
But Mallory, casting a swift glance outside, said, “Good afternoon, Mr. Putnam. Is there any news about Mr. Hamilton?”
“Sadly, I haven’t any. I wish I had.”
Mallory swallowed his disappointment. “Thank you for rescuing us from starvation. If you’ll just bring the parcels to me, I’ll carry them the rest of the way.”
“Of course.”
Tavers stepped down, turned his back on Mallory, and began to pull out a box of goods. Putnam hurried to help him and lifted the first box with a grunt. He ferried it to the man waiting in the doorway and went back for the second. When he had transferred the fifth box, and Tavers went back to his seat on the cart, Putnam approached Mallory diffidently.
