A Lonely Death (16 page)

“Not more bad news?” the rector asked anxiously.

“No. I’ve come for a word with Mrs. Winslow, when she’s finished her business here.”

She pointed to the markers at her feet. He saw he’d been right: here lay her brother’s wife and child. “I was just asking Rector if there was room here beside Mary. He says there is. I don’t know quite what sort of service to have.” She frowned. “My husband feels it ought to be brief, without much ceremony. But Theo didn’t kill himself, did he? It doesn’t seem right.”

“A proper one,” Rutledge answered her without reservations. “The fact that his life ended abruptly makes no difference. The service should be the same as he’d have been given as an old man, with all honor due him.”

She smiled, tears filling her eyes. “Yes. Thank you. That would be fitting.” She turned to the rector. “There we are, then. I’ll think of what hymns he’d have liked, and any favorite scriptures.” She bit her lip.

Rutledge knew what was on her mind.

“Your brother’s body,” he said gently, “will be released very soon.”

She nodded, unable to trust her voice. The rector took her arm and walked with her a little way until they were out of the churchyard and standing in the drive up to the rectory.

Rutledge gave them a chance to finish their private discussion, but as the rector turned and nodded to him, he caught them up.

“Now,” Mrs. Winslow asked brightly, as if to affirm that she was in control of her feelings again, “you wanted to speak to me?”

He thanked the rector, and then said to her, “There’s a tearoom next to the bakery, I believe. Would you like a cup?”

She hesitated. “Yes, I would,” she admitted frankly, “but there’s my husband. I ought to see if he’s all right.”

“He will manage very well,” Rutledge told her, and gestured toward the road. She went with him, the two of them walking in silence until they were halfway to the tea shop.

“I wonder,” Rutledge began, “how well Theo Hartle knew Daniel Pierce?”

“Daniel? The Pierces didn’t have much in common with the rest of us, once they’d been sent away to school. They were home on holidays, of course, but you didn’t walk up to the Pierce house and ask if Daniel or Anthony were in, did you? Their lives had changed more than ours. But on the whole, I think Theo liked Anthony better. Myself, I liked Daniel. He was always nice to me. Nicer sometimes than Theo.” She looked away, her mind elsewhere. Finally she added, “Theo was my brother, and I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but he could sometimes be very selfish at that age. I’d like to think it was the influence of those he ran with, back then. What one couldn’t think of, the others could. I was glad when Theo outgrew them. I think that’s why my parents agreed to let him be apprenticed so soon at Kenton Chairs, and they were right, it was best for him in many ways.”

“If your brother saw Daniel Pierce on the street—let’s say in Hastings, or somewhere like that—would they stop to chat?”

“Well, it would depend, wouldn’t it, on the occasion. If Daniel was alone, and Theo as well, they might speak. If Daniel was with a lady or friends, they’d nod in passing, I’d think. But Theo would let Daniel take the first step. It would be proper, you see.”

It would be proper, Rutledge thought, for the workingman to defer to the brewery owner’s son, in the matter of recognition in a public arena. Old habits died hard, even after the upheaval of the war.

“There was nothing between the two men that might make your brother uncomfortable, encountering him again after all this time?”

She considered that as Rutledge opened the door of the tea shop for them. Silence fell in the busy room, and every eye turned their way.

Mrs. Winslow hesitated, as if she’d been caught fraternizing with the enemy, her face turning pink.

Rutledge took her gently by the arm and said in a voice intended to carry but apparently for her ears alone, “I think a cup of tea will make you feel much better.” He summoned the woman waiting on tables, and asked for tea and a selection of pastries. Then he guided Mrs. Winslow to a seat by the window. She turned to him with anxious eyes, and he said only, “The rector will never forgive me if I don’t keep my promise. You shouldn’t have had to make such a visit alone.”

“My husband—” she began.

“Yes, it would have been difficult for him. But a friend, perhaps?”

He could see from her expression that she had few friends. He could understand why.

Their tea came, and the pastries. She let him pour her cup, and pass her the pastries, and as the occupants of the shop realized that there was to be no arrest or harsh interrogation to report to their friends, they lost interest. Mrs. Winslow nibbled a pastry, and then shyly reached for another. He realized it was a treat for her, that such outings had stopped long ago.

It was not until they had left the shop and he was walking toward her home that she answered the question he’d asked earlier.

“Daniel and Theo had a falling-out. Oh, it was years ago, Theo couldn’t have been more than nine or ten. Daniel was seven at the most. I don’t know what they fought about, but it couldn’t have been very serious, at that age, could it? Still, Theo gave Daniel a bloody nose, and afterward he came home terrified that the police would be sent for and take him up, that Tyrell Pierce would see that he was sent to Borstal. But nothing came of it, and Anthony told Theo later that Daniel claimed he’d fallen off Will Jeffers’s stallion, trying to ride him bareback.” She smiled at the memory. “I expect he was ashamed of being bested by Theo, but he was only seven, after all.”

“When was the last time your brother saw Daniel?”

“It was before the war. I’m sure of it. That fortnight when Daniel came back from France, Theo was still in hospital.”

“Did you see Daniel then?”

“Only once, and not to speak to.” She hesitated. “He’d just left the Misses Tate School, and it appeared that someone had hit him in the face, because there was a big red mark on his cheekbone. And he was angry. I did wonder how he came by it.”

They were at the corner of her street now, and she put out a hand. “If you won’t mind, I’d rather go the rest of the way alone. My husband keeps watch—”

He stopped, and she thanked him profusely for the tea and the pastries, then hurried on toward her door, as if acutely aware of how long she’d been away from home.

Hamish said, “A bluidy nose doesna’ lead to murder.”

“No,” Rutledge answered him silently. “If that was all there was to it. Theo Hartle may not have told his little sister the whole story.”

Still, it lent credence to the possibility that someone was erasing the worst memories of Daniel Pierce’s childhood. But what was more interesting was how Daniel had got that mark on his face.

He went back to the hotel for lunch, and found a letter waiting for him.

It was from Chief Inspector Cummins. Rutledge took it to his room and opened it.

Ian.

Thank you for the surprising contents of your parcel. It had not occurred to any of us to look for a flint knife. We were told that the wound was oddly shaped, and so we developed a list of foreign knives—African, Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern—and the theory was that in his travels, Wheeler had lived in a port where such souvenirs were available to buy or steal. Portsmouth, Southampton, Dover, London, and so on. We had one promising lead, an Oxford don, retired to Dartmouth, whose home was broken into while he was abroad and several objects from his Near Eastern collection were stolen. Alas, when he returned and inventoried what was missing, a selection of Yemeni knives, they didn’t match the dimensions of the wound. Your flint knife is a far more likely candidate. What more can you discover about its origins? Meanwhile, I shall ask a friend who is interested in such topics if he can detect traces of human blood on your find. His home laboratory must surely be useful for something other than mystifying his wife, family, and friends.

I must say, this is encouraging. But I absolutely refuse to let my hopes be raised again, lest they be dashed as so many others have been.

I must have intrigued you with my account of this unsolved mystery. I should have warned you that it was bound to cause sleepless nights and overwork one’s imagination.

And it was signed simply
Cummins
.

Smiling, Rutledge returned the letter to its envelope and put it in his valise.

Now if he could only have equal success in solving his own mystery.

M
r. Kenton, who owned the furniture works where Theo Hartle had been employed, came into the dining room of the hotel as Rutledge was finishing his luncheon.

He was a tall, stooped man with graying hair and spectacles. He stood in the doorway, looking around, and as the woman who served meals approached him, he asked her a question.

Rutledge looked up from his plate of cheeses just as she was pointing to him.

The man came over, introduced himself, and asked if he could join Rutledge for a few minutes, or if Rutledge would prefer to meet him in the hotel lobby after his meal.

“Yes, of course, sit down,” Rutledge answered, and signaled the woman to ask for a fresh pot of tea.

Kenton thanked him and said, “This business with Theo has been heavy on my mind. I come here reluctantly, you understand, because what I’m about to tell you is something I refuse to believe. Still, I’m no policeman, and if there is any possibility that I am right, then I have a duty to those who have died to talk to you.”

He broke off as the fresh pot of tea and a dish of biscuits was set before them. When the woman had gone away again, Rutledge said, “I appreciate your sense of duty. I shall look into the matter. I can’t promise anything, but I will respect your confidence as far as I’m able.”

Kenton appeared to be relieved. That was clearly what he had come to ask.

“Theo was a good man,” Kenton went on. “I don’t know how we’re to replace him. Steady, dependable. Amazingly gifted when it comes to working with wood. Well liked by the others in the firm. Such a loss. I’ve been asked to say a few words at his funeral.”

He paused, stirring his tea, as if it were the most important task of the day.

Rutledge said, watching his face, “I don’t think that’s what you’ve come here to tell me.”

Kenton met his gaze. “No. No, it isn’t. I don’t know where to begin, I suppose.”

“What had Hartle done that could be of interest to the police?”

He turned to the window, ignoring the question. “My mother had a companion for many years. She had an arthritic condition and was a regular visitor to the spas of Europe, looking for a cure for the pain if not the disease. When she fell ill at Würzburg, a young woman named Hilda Lentz nursed her back to health. When my mother recovered, she asked Hilda to come back to England with her. The idea of travel must have appealed to her, because she agreed. But instead of returning to Germany, she married the son of one of our friends, a man named Peter Hopkins, and they had three children. She continued to work with my mother until her death. And Hilda died of appendicitis a year or so later. She’d lost a child, a daughter, in childbirth, but her sons were treated more or less as members of our family. Carl Hopkins in fact came to work for me, because he has a way with machinery that’s invaluable.”

“What does he have to do with Theo Hartle?”

“Nothing. Everything. I don’t know.” He shook his head vigorously. “Carl was torn about the war, you see. His eyesight was damaged by a case of the measles, and there was no doubt that he couldn’t serve, when the war came. But his younger brother George joined the Army with the Eastfield Company. And Carl’s favorite German cousin—Hilda’s sister’s boy—hurried to join the German army. Carl considers himself English, but he was worried about his brother and his cousin. Neither of them survived. It wasn’t long after we heard about George that someone sent Carl an anonymous letter saying that George had been shot in the back while crossing No Man’s Land. The Army refused to confirm or deny the story, but the letter claimed that George had been shot because he had a German mother, spoke fluent German, and wasn’t to be trusted.”

George Hopkins. Rutledge remembered the name. He’d been one of the two Eastfield soldiers who died in the war.

“Go on.”

“When the Eastfield soldiers began to come home from France, Carl asked them how his brother had died, and in Carl’s view they were evasive. Well, apparently it was a night attack just as George’s commanding officer had told us in his letter. No one really knew how he died. Were you in the war? I can’t imagine that it’s a tidy business, attacking at night. I suspect the letter—which was posted from London—was meant to be hurtful, not true. Unfortunately, about this same time, Carl’s aunt wrote to him to say that his cousin had died of his wounds as an English prisoner, and she believed he hadn’t been given proper attention. It was understandable, she was upset, looking for someone to blame, but she told Carl that he ought to be ashamed of his English heritage, because the English had killed both George and his cousin. Carl withdrew into himself. Dr. Gooding gave him something to help him, because he walked for hours every night, unable to sleep. Thank God, early last year he got over whatever it was, came back to work, and seemed to be himself again. I can’t tell you how relieved I was.”

“Then why are you telling me about him now?”