A Pale Horse

by Charles Todd

  Were either of the women capable of murder? He rather thought that Rebecca Parkinson was. Her hatred was still white-hot and ran deep. There was grief mixed into Sarah’s emotions. But she would surely have supported her sister after Parkinson had been killed. The only other choice would have been to refuse, then see Rebecca caught, convicted, and hanged.

  But if the sisters had killed their father, why do it in Yorkshire?

  Or had he got away the first time they’d tried, and they had gone after him?

  A chilling thought.

  The question was, how was he going to go about proving it?

  “Did your father have enemies, anyone who would have liked to see him dead?” It was the standard question to put to survivors.

  “Not that I know of. Although there was one man in London whom my father didn’t trust. He told my mother once that he’d been invited to bring us up to London to dine with this man, and my father didn’t want us to go. I only remember because Becky and I were so disappointed. But my father said that London was quite dull because of the war, and it wouldn’t have been as exciting as we’d thought.”

  “What was this man’s name?” Rutledge asked, although he had a very good idea.

  “I don’t think I ever heard it. My father referred to him as the Dreadnought. But that was the name of a ship, wasn’t it?”

  Deloran?

  In the end he let Sarah Parkinson go, after asking how to find her if he needed her to answer more questions. He had no grounds on which to keep her.

  But then as she put the motorcar in gear, Rutledge put a hand on her door. “There’s been a murder in the cottages. A man called Willingham. Did he know your father, by any chance?”

  “A murder? How dreadful.” She shook her head. “I don’t think my father would have come here to live if he had known any of his neighbors. He was running away. From the house, from Mother’s ghost, from us—from the army. Possibly even from himself. Who knows? For that matter, who cares? It was selfish, whatever his excuse was.”

  Watching her motorcar out of sight, Rutledge found himself pitying the unwanted, still nameless body in Yorkshire.

  Hamish said, “He made his own grave whilst he was still living.”

  And it was true, in many ways. But in the end, Rebecca and Sarah Parkinson would have no choice but to bring their father home.

  If Mrs. Parkinson still haunted the house where she’d died, Parkinson would be satisfied to lie in the churchyard, far from the flower beds at Partridge Fields. But which name would be engraved on the stone over him?

  If Rebecca and Sarah Parkinson denied that he was their father, Deloran would be only too pleased to add his own statement that the murder victim was an unknown unhappy man named Partridge, dead at the hands of person or persons unknown. And in a year or two all of this would be forgotten.

  Brady might be brought in to testify, and disclaim any knowledge of an assignment to watch a scientist who had resigned prematurely from Porton Down. He was merely an ex-soldier, down on his luck and trying to sober up.

  And Rutledge would be left looking a fool.

  He walked back to the inn and retrieved his motorcar. It was late to be driving to Partridge Fields, but the roads were fairly empty and he made good time, keeping awake through sheer physical effort by the time he was twenty miles away.

  He opened the gates and drove through them, leaving the car near the shed.

  The house was dark, the gardens black in the moonlight, the brash colors of spring disguised as varying shades of gray.

  The kitchen door, as he’d thought, was unlocked.

  This was the country. No one came to rob the house, there was no need to lock doors.

  Carrying his torch, he walked through the kitchen quarters and then through the formal rooms of the house.

  The glancing beam of his torch illumined the brilliant colors of draperies and carpets and upholstery, the gold filigree around a mirror, the rich tones of polished walnut and mahogany, the shimmer of silk wallpaper and cut glass in the chandeliers.

  Someone had had money. Mrs. Parkinson’s dowry? Parkinson’s wages from the government? A family inheritance? Enough at least for a comfortable life and a well-appointed home.

  He moved quietly in the silent house, and avoided windows. Portraits watched him as he passed, and once a mouse scurried out of the wainscoting and across the floor, squeaking as it dived into the cold hearth.

  Like the gardens, the house was meticulously maintained.

  Even without Hamish’s harsh reminder, Rutledge was well aware that he had no authority to open doors, look in drawers, and investigate the contents of desks, but he rather thought he would find nothing, even if he did.

  Even so, he saw no trace of Parkinson here, although there were several photographs of a fair woman with two fair and pretty daughters set in silver frames. Looking at them, he could almost see the girls grow from room to room as the array of photographs marked the changes of years.

  He studied Mrs. Parkinson’s likeness. She was slim, very pretty, and her eyes reminded him of a doe, sensitive and vulnerable. She should have married a country squire, he thought, not a man whose training in chemistry had taken a far different turn from anything either of them could foresee.

  Rutledge broke his own rule only once, looking in the wardrobe in what appeared to be the master bedroom. As he’d expected, it held only a woman’s clothing, as if Parkinson had taken everything of his with him, leaving nothing behind because he never intended to come home again.

  And reciprocally, his daughters had banned him from the house by carrying out their mother’s wishes. He was shut out, lock, stock, and photographs. There were none that included him. Was that why the one on his desk was so precious to him?

  “Taken the day we climbed the white horse…”

  Rutledge inspected the lamps in the master bedroom, and turned the key gently, listening to the soft hiss of gas wafting into the room before shutting it off again. It would be a simple matter to close the doors and windows and lie there in bed, waiting to fall asleep and die. But then Mrs. Parkinson had been ready to die.

  Had Parkinson been asked to come here for a reconciliation, and then drugged enough to keep him from waking up when someone slipped in, turned on the gas, and laid towels outside the doors? Retribution without pity, but without having to watch a father die.

  Hamish said, “Aye, but no’ in this room, and no’ in this house. He wouldna’ sleep here.”

  Which might explain why the body had been discovered in Yorkshire; but even if Parkinson had somehow been lured there, where was the gas jet that killed him? Even two young women would have a problem dragging a dead man out of a hotel without being noticed.

  Hamish said, “Ye ken, it may ha’ been one of Deloran’s men who lured him to where he was killed.”

  Counting on the fact that the newspapers wouldn’t concern themselves with a nobody’s unfortunate death? Then why dress the body in mask and cloak, attracting attention to it?

  Hard to believe that Deloran would stoop to murder, but then Rutledge was still in the dark about why precisely the man cared what happened to either Gaylord Partridge or Gerald Parkinson. It would be easier, surely, to discredit him than to murder him.

  Aloud Rutledge said, “Then why send the Yard here, when Parkinson went missing? Drawing attention to him. Why not leave well enough alone?”

  “To wash his hands. There’s the watcher. He could ha’ sworn that nobody knew where Partridge had gone, just as nobody kenned where he’d vanished before.”

  “Yes, well, I think tomorrow it’s time to speak to Mr. Brady. Drunk or sober.”

  Keeping his torch from striking the glass, he went to the window and looked down on the dark gardens. Clouds were moving across the face of the moon as it set, and he could almost imagine something out there as the shadows shifted. Very likely the horse fountain, showing itself in ghostly white fragments as the shrubs moved in the wind. But add a little guilt to that,
and he could understand how the family must have felt about this room and the gardens.

  In the passage leading to the stairs, Rutledge paused to consider the nature of the silence around him. The ashes in the garden must have been the last straw, not the first. He had a strong feeling that this family had broken apart long before Mrs. Parkinson’s suicide. What had really brought her to the brink of despair? It must have gone far beyond her belief that her husband was squandering his gifts and talents on work that he loved and she hated.

  He reached the kitchen, made certain that he’d not tracked mud from the yard onto the stone flags by the door, and left the house exactly as he’d found it. Standing for a moment in the night’s darkness until his eyes adjusted, he thought he heard an owl call from the trees beyond. Then he walked to the motorcar without looking back.

  Hamish remarked, “It wasna’ wise to come here.”

  “It could do no harm,” Rutledge answered, going down the drive without his headlamps, and turning the bonnet toward Berkshire.

  “Aye, so ye may think now. And later live to regret it.”

  In fact, Hamish was right. Rutledge was eating a late breakfast at The Smith’s Arms when the door opened and Rebecca Parkinson strode in.

  “What the devil did you think you were doing,” she asked harshly, “when you went to my mother’s house in the night?”

  Rutledge, caught off guard, said, “If there are no servants in the house to protect it, if doors are left unlocked, anyone can walk in. How many times did your father go back to that house without your knowledge? Or for that matter, the man he called Dreadnought?”

  She opened her mouth to say something, and then shut it smartly. After a moment she asked, “What could you possibly know about Dreadnought?”

  “His real name.”

  That took her aback. In the silence that followed, she tried to absorb the implications of what he’d said.

  “My father disliked him intensely. It was personal and professional. He told me once that the name suited the man—he feared nothing and he used people for his own ends. If you’ve been sent here by Dreadnought, I’m not surprised that you would stoop to anything.”

  “I told you, I’m from Scotland Yard. But I have met the man. Now, why should you think that someone had been in the house at Partridge Fields?”

  Returning to the grievance that had brought her here, she said, “The gardener at one of the houses down the road was coming home late last night from a wedding, and he saw lights moving from room to room. He’s known my family for ages, my mother and he often exchanged plants. He came to find me this morning, to tell me that something was wrong. Something about the lights troubled him, and he was afraid to investigate. He’s an old man and he may have thought it was my mother’s spirit. But I knew better. It wasn’t my mother’s poor ghost, it was you. When you couldn’t badger me, you went to the house on your own, thinking no one would learn of it.”

  He had been careful not to show a light. And he remembered the flicker of movement he imagined he’d seen in the shadows near the horse fountain. Had someone else been there after he left? Deloran might have had reasons of his own for taking the risk of searching the empty house. If so, what was he looking for?

  “He wouldna’ go himself, ye ken,” Hamish remarked. “His hands are clean.”

  Rutledge said to Miss Parkinson, “But you yourself couldn’t see evidence of someone there?”

  “Of course not. You’re a London policeman, you aren’t going to leave muddy footprints in the passages. What I want to know is what you took away?”

  “If I was there, it was without any legal right to take anything from the house.”

  “I should have known you wouldn’t have the decency to tell me the truth.”

  Rutledge smiled faintly. “Yes, all right, I was there. But I touched nothing. I wanted to see what drove your father away from his home—why he chose to live where he did. I was hoping that if I could understand that, I could explain some of the other things I don’t understand. Please, sit down, and let Mrs. Smith bring you a cup of tea. I have a few questions to ask you and we might as well get them over with.”

  She was still angry. “You went into my mother’s room. Where she died. Why should I want to talk to you? I wouldn’t give you that satisfaction.”

  When she had first confronted him, he’d noted how much like her mother she looked, but in the course of their conversation Rutledge could see how much stronger she was than her mother must have been. Her spirit, he thought, must have come from her father. However much she would fiercely deny it.

  Before she could turn and stalk out of the inn, he said, “I can arrange to have you taken into custody to help us with our inquiries if you prefer that.”

  “On what charges?” she demanded. “I’ve done nothing except refuse to speak to you. And I can’t be forced to speak, as you well know.”

  “On the charge that you murdered your father.”

  Rebecca Parkinson sat down. “That’s utter rubbish.”

  “Yes, but I rather think I could prove it. It might be worth a cup of tea to find out what I know.”

  “I don’t want tea. Whatever you have to say, it had better be said quickly, or I’m leaving.”

  “I told you the first time we met. We’ve found your father’s body.” It was blunt and intended to be.

  Her angry flush faded. “He’s alive and well, and living in those wretched cottages under the White Horse.” Her denial wasn’t completely convincing. As if she knew her father was dead but must keep up the pretense that it was a lie. Her vehemence on their first meeting had been stronger.

  “But he went missing, you see. And now his body is lying unclaimed in a Yorkshire village. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Or the fact that he might have been murdered?”

  “It has nothing to do with me.” The line of her jaw was defiant.

  “He didn’t die where we found him. That’s why we have to suspect murder. I’m here to make sense of what little we do know, and that means I have to follow him if I can every step of the way from those cottages to Yorkshire. To do that, I need information about his life, his family, his friends, his enemies. Whether you like it or not.”

  She said, “Make sense of whatever you like. Just leave me out of it.”

  “Do you hate your father so much that you’d prefer to see his killer go free?”

  She glanced down, so that he couldn’t see her eyes. “I’ve told you, I don’t really care.”

  “Did you know that one of the other people in those cottages was murdered last night? A Mr. Willingham. I need to know what connection he might have had with your father.”

  She looked up then, startled. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Ask Inspector Hill, in Uffington. He’s handling that case.”

  Leaning back in her chair, she considered him, her mind working. “I don’t know anyone named Willingham. A coincidence. It must be.”

  “That’s possible, of course. But in such a small community two murders in a few weeks has to be regarded with suspicion. I’m forced to wonder what Mr. Willingham might have known about your father’s disappearance. If he saw someone come for your father and take him away. The bicycle your father sometimes rode and his motorcar were both where he kept them. Surely your father didn’t walk all the way to Yorkshire.”

  He thought her mouth was dry. She ran her tongue over her lips and said, “If you’ll summon Mrs. Smith, I believe I’ll have that tea now.”

  It was a surprising change of heart. Rutledge was wary.

  He went to find Mrs. Smith, though Hamish warned him that Rebecca Parkinson would be gone when he returned. It was a risk he had to take.

  He was relieved when he came back, tray in hand, to find she was still at his table.

  Rutledge passed her the fresh cup, waited until she had added milk and sugar, then taken the first sip.

  “I spoke to your sister last night.”

  She nearly choked. “I don
’t believe you. You don’t even know where to find her.”

  “She’d come to stand on the hill by the White Horse. I don’t know what it was she was thinking. But I distinctly heard her crying.”

  “Sarah has always had a soft heart. She’s like my mother, taking in lost kittens and stray dogs, worrying about young men we knew who went to France and stayed there in unmarked graves.”

  “Still, I had the strongest feeling that she must know more about your father’s death than she’s comfortable with, and her conscience is tormenting her. It’s rather too much of a coincidence, isn’t it, that she came to grieve the night after Willingham died.”

  Rebecca Parkinson stood up so quickly she knocked over her cup and tea splashed onto the skirt of her dress.

  “You leave my sister alone, do you hear me? Don’t go near her again. Or I shall have you up for harassment. Do you understand me?”

  “What are you afraid of, Miss Parkinson? That she’ll break before you do? Murder doesn’t always sit easily on one’s conscience. But sometimes a second killing is necessary to protect the secrets of the first. The police may consider that possibility, you see, in investigating Willingham’s. Whatever part she played in your father’s death will eventually drive her to confess. What will you do to stop her?”

  Rebecca Parkinson leaned forward, and with all the strength of her shoulder behind the blow, slapped Rutledge as hard as she could across the face. “Leave my sister alone!”

  And then she was gone, slamming the door hard behind her.

  Mrs. Smith came hurrying from the kitchen. “I heard such a noise—and look at the tea, spilled all over my clean floor! What happened?”

  “I’m afraid the young woman who was here has a chink in her armor,” he said. “And I’ve just found it.”

  Rutledge walked down to the cottages and tapped lightly on the smith’s door.

  Slater, looking as if he hadn’t slept, opened it and said, “I don’t think Inspector Hill wants you to talk to me.”

  “Not about Willingham, no,” Rutledge said, stepping inside before Slater could shut his door. “I’m here to talk about Mr. Partridge. Did you know that he had two daughters?”