A little girl was quietly playing outside one of the shops as he walked back up the slight incline to where he’d left his motorcar by the inn.
She was squatting by the shop door, with a small spoon and a chipped bowl, and she was earnestly scraping at the dust with the spoon and scooping up pebbles to put into the bowl.
She was three, perhaps four, with a knit cap and a coat a little too large for her. But what attracted his eye was what she was wearing around her neck, the string of beads drooping almost to the ground as she worked.
He stared at them. They were lapis, a particular shade of blue, and he had seen them somewhere before. Or something that reminded him of these.
Glancing in the shop window, he could see a young woman chatting with the shopkeeper.
It was safe enough in this village to leave the child alone outside.
He went down on one knee beside her and said after a moment, “You have a lot of pebbles in your bowl.”
“Peas,” she said firmly, correcting him.
“For your dinner?”
She nodded, continuing her scraping at the ground outside the shop.
“That’s a rather pretty necklace you’re wearing.”
“My brother give it me.” She looked up for the first time, and he could see that she was a pretty child with long-lashed blue eyes.
“Where is your brother?”
“In school.”
“Did he buy the necklace for you?”
She shook her head vigorously. “It was in a tree.”
“A tree?”
“He climbed down to get it.”
Down. Not up.
“Did he indeed?” Rutledge said softly. “How long have you had it?”
She dropped the spoon and held up four little fingers. “I was that many old.”
“Ah, your birthday?”
Nodding, she went back to digging.
The shop door opened, and the young woman stepped out. He put her age at thirty. “Hallo,” she said, frowning to see the man from London talking with her daughter.
Rutledge stood up. “Peas for your dinner,” he said, indicating the half-filled bowl.
She smiled. “I shall have to cook them.”
He returned the smile. “She tells me she recently had a birthday.”
“Yes, she turned four. And nearly made herself sick eating too much cake, poor love.”
“The necklace was a birthday gift from her brother?”
“Well, he’s only seven. He found it somewhere, and she took an instant liking to it. I persuaded him it was a perfect gift for her. It’s a cheap string of beads, no harm done if she loses it.”
As casually as he could, he asked, “I wonder where he found it?”
“He told me it was near the causeway. I expect a summer visitor lost it.” She seemed to be certain the beads were worthless. “Last summer it was an earbob. Pretty little thing someone had lost. I asked around, but nobody claimed it. A piece of broken pottery before that, and a rusted horseshoe.” She sighed. “He’s always bringing something home. The clasp on the beads was broken, but I tied the ends together with a bit of string. Peggy doesn’t seem to care.”
“Peggy seems to think he found it in a tree.”
Smiling, she said, “Yes, that’s her brother for you. He’ll make up a better story, if he can. But he always tells me the truth.” In spite of the smile, he could see that she was becoming impatient. “You’re the man from London? The Inspector?”
“That’s right. May I look more closely at the strand? Will she mind?”
“Here, love,” she said, putting down the sack she was carrying. “Can Mum see your beads?”
It took some persuading because Peggy had found a pebble she liked, and she wanted to show that to her mother instead. Finally, the woman got the strand off, pulling the child’s hair a little and getting an angry pout in return.
“I don’t know why you should be interested in them,” the woman said, handing the beads to him.
They were graduated in size, the largest bead in the center of the string, the smallest at either side of the broken clasp. And they were undoubtedly lapis. What was left of the clasp was surely gold. The softness of the color couldn’t be anything else.
“How long ago did he find these?” Rutledge asked.
“I don’t know. Just before her birthday. Last Tuesday week?”
After the body had been found. After the inquest, when Leslie had left.
“I had to wash them. They were that muddy.”
If they were found by the causeway, it was well away from the area nearest the stone that had been searched so thoroughly. A good forty or fifty yards?
There was nothing to connect these beads to the murder. He found himself asking, “May I keep these for the time being? I’ll give you a receipt for them, of course. But I’d like to find out more about them.”
“I don’t see why. It can’t have anything to do with the dead woman, can it? It wouldn’t have matched anything she was wearing. I helped the Rector’s wife clean her clothes.”
“That was kind of you. But I must be thorough, you see. I need to show them to someone in London.”
The woman was annoyed. “Peggy’s not going to like it. It was a birthday gift.”
Rutledge tried to think of a substitute that might please the child. “I’ll send her another strand from London, if for some reason I can’t return them. She prefers blue?”
“Lavender is her favorite color.”
He didn’t know where he was going to find lavender beads, but he agreed. “I’ll do my best.”
“Then go on, while she’s busy. I’ll have to tell her she lost them. She won’t be happy.” There was resignation in her face and voice. He thought that she wouldn’t have given the beads up to anyone but a policeman.
“Thank you. Your name?”
“Mrs. Alastair Johnson. Her name is Peggy.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Johnson.” He walked on briskly, listening to the mother trying to persuade her daughter to give up on hunting for peas. He had nearly reached the road that crossed the causeway and ended just before the inn when he heard a child’s wail behind him.
With a grimace, he continued walking. He rather thought the Johnsons’ dinner was not going to be a pleasant one.
But when he’d left the inn and was traveling back the way he’d come in the motorcar, he stopped and searched the area by the causeway for over an hour.
There was nothing left to find.
When he reached London, the first person he happened to meet, as he was starting down Oxford Street in search of a shop where he could buy lavender beads, was Kate Gordon.
“Hallo, Ian,” she said, smiling up at him.
She was alone. And she was—Kate. Her usual self. The rumors that had spread about him just weeks ago hadn’t reached her ears, or if they had, she hadn’t taken them seriously.
This was a meeting he’d dreaded, for fear she’d turn away in disgust. But she hadn’t. If anything, she appeared to be glad to see him.
He returned the smile. And then, taking a deep breath, he plunged into what had brought him to this part of the city. It would do no harm, surely? “Well met. I’m on an errand of mercy. I had to take a strand of beads away from a small child. They were evidence in an inquiry. I promised the mother I’d find something simple to replace them. Peggy likes the color lavender, it seems.”