Charles Todd
Page 17
“In Lancashire. Where she had lived almost all of her life.”
Teller was making quick calculations. He said, “The day Walter returned to the clinic?”
“Two days before that. Someone came to her door and, when she answered it, struck her down and left her lying there. A passerby finally saw her lying there, and summoned the police.”
Edwin Teller said, before he could stop himself, “My God.” And then he continued quickly, “I don’t see why any of us should know anything about this murder. Walter was missing. The rest of us were searching for him.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that you might know anything that would help the police,” Rutledge responded mildly. “Lieutenant Teller wasn’t from Lancashire. He came from Dorset, or so he said. We’re trying to trace his family. We’ve been unable to find Mrs. Teller’s will. The police are always interested in who inherits property. Greed can be a powerful impetus to murder.”
“A pity we can’t help you. My brother is the only person in the family whose Christian name is Peter.” Edwin was doing his best in a rearguard action, but he was not the strongest of the three brothers.
“We aren’t sure that the murderer knew Mrs. Teller was dead,” Rutledge persisted. “But it appears that all her husband’s letters—which she kept in a box in her sitting room—were taken at the same time. He stepped over her once, walked into the house, and stepped over her again, on his way out. It suggests a rather cold-blooded person, in the view of the Yard.”
Teller cleared his throat. “What—do you know what sort of weapon was used in the murder?”
Rutledge said, “We aren’t releasing that information at the moment.” Then, changing his line of questioning without warning, Rutledge asked, “When was your brother promoted to captain?”
“I—as far as I remember, it was shortly before war was declared. They were bringing the regiment up to strength in the event the Kaiser caused any trouble over the situation in the Balkans. You said that Mrs. Teller’s husband was in the war?”
“He never came home from France. So I’ve been led to believe. Which is why we must find his family. His wife’s will could very well be among his papers or in the hands of his solicitor.”
“We would have no way of knowing who that might be,” Teller said shortly. “A pity we can’t help you,” he added a second time, as an afterthought.
“Which is why I was speaking to your grandmother, in the event she might know more about other branches of the Teller family.”
“You didn’t tell her of the murder, did you? Damn it, she’s nearly eighty years old.”
“There was no need to tell her about the murder. She understood that we were looking for information on the other Peter Teller, who is believed to have come from Dorset.”
“Make certain you leave it that way.” Edwin got up from his desk and came around it, standing face-to-face with Rutledge. “Now if you will show yourself to the door, I have other matters to attend to.”
Rutledge crossed to the door and, with his hand on the knob, he said, “I understand that before the war you were often in Scotland building private boats. I wonder if in your comings and goings you might have stopped off in Lancashire or walked in that vicinity. It’s said to be a very popular spot for walking.”
Edwin, alarmed, said, “I have never been to Hobson in my life. In the first place I was too busy, and the second, because of my health, I always traveled by private rail carriage.”
Rutledge thanked him and went out, closing the door behind him.
Hamish was battering at the back of his mind, and as Rutledge cranked his motorcar to continue his rounds, he said, “Ye never telt him yon woman lived in Hobson.”
Rutledge pulled the crank, listened to the motor turn over softly, and came around to the driver’s side to open his door.
“Interesting, isn’t it? That family knows about Florence Teller—I’ll give you any odds you like. And who her husband is. But which of the brothers married her? And which of them killed her?”
Leaving London, Rutledge drove to Essex. The telephone could outpace him, but there was still the possibility that whatever the rest of the family knew—or thought they knew—about Florence Teller, their brother Walter had not been a party to it.
Hamish said, “His brothers were fashed wi’ him, when he came back.”
That was true. They had been very angry. For vanishing, instead of playing his part in whatever was happening during those crucial days?
“Ye ken,” Hamish pointed out, “yon doctors believed he’d had a great shock after leaving the bank.”
Was that it? Had he been drawn into something that he couldn’t face?
But why now? Why had Florence Teller suddenly become a problem, if any of this speculation was true? She had not seen her husband since the war. She thought he was dead. She had lived for years, as far as anyone in Hobson could testify, perfectly quietly in Sunrise Cottage, making no demands on anyone. Who then had felt threatened by her?
“But ye havena’ asked the person in the post office if there were ither letters.”
He hadn’t. It was an important oversight. The only excuse was, at that early stage of the inquiry, he hadn’t been sure who Peter Teller really was. A member of the family that Chief Superintendent Bowles had demanded that he treat with circumspection and courtesy, or an outsider who happened in a bizarre twist of fate to be christened with the name of Peter.
That rosewood box—what had it contained besides letters from a soldier on the other side of the world to a lonely wife waiting for him to be given another leave? A will? An exchange of correspondence of a different sort that had gone unnoticed in a tiny village like Hobson where the business of everyone was everyone’s business? Hardly likely.
“There’s the ither town . . .”
And Hamish was right, there was Thielwald. But how would Florence Teller have got there and back, to fetch her mail? It was too far to walk.
Still, the farmer with the sick ram might occasionally have given her a lift.
Rutledge couldn’t accept that the woman he’d seen lying dead on a table in Dr. Blake’s office was a blackmailer.
“Or ye do na’ wish to believe.”
The main road forked, and Rutledge followed the sign to Repton. Not five miles on, he came to the turning into Witch Hazel Farm.
As the drive meandered toward the house, it passed a bed of handsome roses just now in their prime that gave off a sweet perfume in the warm air and filled the car with their spicy scent all the way to the door of the house.
He lifted the knocker and let it fall. After a moment or two Mollie, the housekeeper, answered the door.
“Mr. Teller, please. Inspector Rutledge to see him.”
“Inspector.” She repeated the word cautiously. “I’ll see if he’s in,” she said finally and disappeared, leaving him to admire the white roses in stone tubs by the door. They hadn’t been here when last he called, he thought.
Mollie had come back, and she led him to the study, whose windows looked out toward the drive. Teller had seen him coming, Rutledge suspected.
Walter Teller was sitting in a chair, an open book in his lap, and he said as Rutledge came in, “One of my brothers has disappeared?”
It was dark humor, not intended as a jest.
He offered Rutledge a chair and then went on, “Do people always suspect the worst when a policeman knocks at their door? Or do you sometimes bring joy in your wake?”
“We seldom have the opportunity to bring joy. But yes, sometimes.”
“Did you come from London? May I offer you some refreshment?”
“Yes, I drove here from London. And no thank you.”
Teller marked his place, closed his book, and set it to one side, as if preparing himself.
Rutledge said, “There’s been a murder, and I’m trying to find the family of a man who died in the war. They may be able to cast some light on the last wishes of the victim and who is to inherit.”
Rutledge said, “Not here in Repton, no. The man I’m after is Lieutenant Peter Teller—”
Walter Teller had turned at his words and walked to the window.
“The only Peter Teller I’m aware of is my brother. And he survived the war.” There was a silence, and when Rutledge didn’t carry on, Teller said tensely, “Who was murdered? Surely you can tell me that.”
“A woman in Lancashire, by the name of Florence Teller.”
“Flor—” He broke off. And then, as if the words were torn from him, he said, “I don’t know anyone by that name, I’m sorry.”
“But I think you do,” Rutledge said. “Your brothers know who she was.”
Teller wheeled. “Don’t lie to me. Ask me what you want to ask, and get out of here. But don’t lie.” His face was ravaged, aged.
“I’m not lying. I’ve just come from asking them the same questions. And while they deny all knowledge of this woman or the Peter Teller who married her, there’s something they’re both concealing, and Edwin Teller’s wife, Amy, as well.”
“I don’t believe you. It’s a ruse, and I’m not stupid, Rutledge. Get out of here. I won’t hear any more of this.”
“You aren’t even curious about how Florence Teller died?”
Rutledge could see that he was torn between asking and giving himself away.
Finally he said, “I don’t know her. I’m sorry to hear that she has died, but I can do nothing about it. I hope you find the husband you’re looking for.”
Standing his ground, Rutledge said, “She was struck over the head and left lying in her own doorway for two days until someone passing by the house happened to see her there and called the police. It’s a murder inquiry, Mr. Teller, and you’d be wise to tell me what you know.”
“I can prove I have not left this house since my wife and I returned from London. Now get out.”
“It happened while you went missing from the clinic. Your brothers and your sister are unaccounted for as well. You may have been sleeping in churches or you may not have. They may have been searching in Cambridge and Cornwall and Portsmouth. Or they may not have. Unless I can find this Lieutenant Teller and prove beyond a doubt that he is no connection of yours, I have no choice but to consider you all as suspects in Mrs. Teller’s murder.”
Walter Teller crossed the room, took up the book from the table beside his chair, and in one motion, heaved it at Rutledge.
It missed his head by inches and clattered against the door before falling hard to the floorboards.
“I’ll assume that was a reflection of your distress,” Rutledge told him coldly. “But I’ll advise you now never to try that again.”
And he opened the door and left the study.
As he walked out of the house, shutting the outer door behind him as well, Hamish said to Rutledge, “He kens the lass.”
“But did he kill her?”
Back in London, Rutledge was met with a message left at the Yard by Edwin Teller.
He drove to Marlborough Street and found Teller waiting for him in the study.
Teller said, without preamble, “I’ve sent for you because I need to know when this woman will be buried?”
“I’ve given permission for the body to be released,” Rutledge said and watched Teller wince at the word body. “I should think services will be held in Hobson tomorrow or the next day.”
“I should like to attend.”
Teller saw the surprise on Rutledge’s face and said, “She was married to a man by the name of Teller, is that not so?”
“As far as we know.”
“And you haven’t found his family, I take it.”
“No.”
“Then I feel honor bound, as the present head of the family, to be there when she is interred. As a gesture. You may discover that her husband has no connection to my family. It’s what I expect. But I have a duty all the same.”
“Then be there day after tomorrow. If you are serious about this.”
“I’ve never been more so. But I shall also tell you in no uncertain terms that it is a duty on my part, entered into freely. And it has nothing to do with her life or her death. It is merely a show of respect.”
“I understand,” Rutledge said, and he thought he very likely did. But he thought there might be as well a measure of curiosity mixed in with that sense of duty.
And he wondered who else might decide to come to Hobson out of curiosity.
Rutledge was driving back to the Yard and was nearly there, when he saw a woman walking along the street and stopping at the next corner to cross over. She looked up at the same time, and he realized it was Susannah Teller.
Pulling over just beyond the crossing, he said, “Mrs. Teller?”
“Mr. Rutledge? I was just on my way to see you.”
“Let me drive you the rest of the way,” he said. “Or would you prefer to talk to me somewhere else?”
“Perhaps we could walk to the bridge. What I have to say is—rather private.”
He took her to the Yard, left his motorcar there, and then accompanied her to the river, where a slight, cooling breeze moved across the water.
She paused to look at the river, and he realized she was not more than five feet from where Bynum had been murdered.
“Shall we?” he said, and gestured in the opposite direction.
It seemed that whatever she had to tell him was weighing on her mind, but she was not certain how to begin, or possibly where to begin. He kept in step with her and let her take her time.
Finally she said, “My husband—Peter has told me about this poor woman—in Lancashire, is it? The one who was murdered. And he told me as well that you can’t seem to find her husband’s family. He was from Dorset, I believe?”
“Apparently, yes. It’s what we were told in Hobson.”
“Yes, well, I may have an explanation for this mystery.” She paused again and watched a small boat pulling upriver. “There was a young subaltern in my husband’s regiment. Burrows was his name, and he was from a good family. He had connections to Dorset, but I believe his family lived outside Worcester.”
She glanced up at him and looked away again.
“He was a very nice young man. We saw a good bit of him. And I’m afraid my husband and I made fun of him behind his back. It was unkind, but Thomas admired my husband no end. He had no older brothers, and I think he saw Peter as a role model, in a way. And he emulated Peter at every turn. When Peter showed an interest in golf, it became Thomas’s enthusiasm. When Peter bought himself a pair of matched blacks to pull his carriage, the next month Thomas sported a pair that was almost identical. Peter grew a mustache, and Thomas must have one as well. Peter shaved his, and soon after, so did Thomas. It would have been very trying, except for the fact that we knew it was harmless.”
“And what has this to do with the dead woman in Hobson?”
“I don’t know anything at all about Hobson,” Susannah Teller said. “But I should imagine it was a very small place, and that the dead woman—”
“Her name,” he said, “was Florence.”
“—Florence, then. That Florence was not from a wealthy, influential family, however nice she might have been?”
“If you are trying to say she wasn’t of his class, she was a school-teacher and not an heiress, although she had property of her own.”
“Oh.” Her face flushed. “This is difficult enough for me, Inspector. I’m not trying to disparage this—Florence Teller. But I wonder if perhaps Thomas fell in love with her and married her under a false name. Or perhaps felt obligated to marry her, and knew his mother and father would not approve of the match. In fact, they might well have cut him off without a penny. I have no way of guessing his reasons. But he might have been desperate enough to marry her not as Thomas Burrows, the nephew of a member of Parliament and the grandson of a baronet, though the title wen
t to his mother’s brother, but as the man he most admired. Peter.”
It was, Rutledge thought, as likely to be true as the possibility that her own husband was a bigamist. And possibly a murderer as well.
“I’ll look into it. Where is Thomas Burrows now?”
“Lieutenant Burrows died in the war. He was shot leading his men across No Man’s Land. Peter saw it happen. By the time Lieutenant Burrows could be brought in, he was dying and never reached an aid post.”
“And he never told his family about his marriage? I find that difficult to believe.”
“I don’t know whether he did or not. But if he did, they surely disowned him. All I can tell you is that Thomas Burrows was a very different man when the war began. The brash young subaltern striving so hard to please ten years before was by that time a very good officer, but he had lost his illusions. About the Army and about himself. He seldom spoke of his family, nothing more was said about the Army as a stepping-stone to his uncle’s seat in Parliament.”
Her voice rang true, and yet he found it interesting that Susannah Teller had come to tell him this story, and not her husband. But sometimes women were more perceptive than men. They caught undertones and nuances that were lost to male ears, and drew conclusions that depended as much on intuition and instinct as on solid fact.
“Does your husband know that you’ve come to give me this information?”
She blinked. “You can ask him if you like. About Thomas Burrows. He’ll tell you that Thomas did all those things, and perhaps more than even I can recall. But I think he will be less willing to accept the fact that Thomas could have married without his family’s knowledge and consent. And yet Peter had to fight for me. I was his cousin on his mother’s side, you see. The family was against it from the start. It was very likely that my children would have the same blood disorder that afflicts Edwin. They were right, actually. We lost two before we gave up. It might color his feelings about Thomas, you see. The fact that he never fought for that—for Florence.”
And there he knew she was telling the truth. But how much of it?