“Did you report the fire? Would there be a record of it?”
The man looked away, more than a little sheepish. “I didn’t report it. I should have, yes, but no harm done, and there would be mountains of paperwork to see to.”
As a witness in a murder trial, this man would be useless when questioned by the defense. Rutledge counted to ten, then asked, “Was one of the women alone?”
“I expect one was. But then I was hurrying into the carriage, you see.” He set his glasses down, picked them up again, uncomfortable with so many questions.
“And the Chief Inspector didn’t come to collect her?”
“No, he wasn’t on the train. I’d remember him.”
“The woman who had hysterics. Who was she?”
“I’d never seen her before. She kept telling me she mustn’t get down in Marlborough, because her daughter would be waiting for her at her destination, and she mustn’t keep her waiting.”
“Did any of the people who got down that night have a return ticket?”
“I’m fairly sure no one did.”
He thought of another way to get at an answer. “Did Mr. Barlow have a fare the night of the fire in the carriage?”
“I expect he did.” He closed his eyes as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “It was a rare night when he didn’t.”
“Do you know any of the passengers that night by name?”
“No, sir. Not that night.”
“Did Chief Inspector Leslie ever question you about the train from London?”
“No, sir. I can’t think why he should have done.”
Rutledge gave up. The man’s memory was like a sieve. And so he put away the photograph, thanked the man, and left the station.
He swore as he turned the crank. Even if he could show that the dead woman had been on the train, there was no way to prove it without Mr. Barlow’s testimony. Speculation was not proof.
Before he got behind the wheel, he scanned the street in front of the station. There were no waiting cabbies nor a driver hoping for a fare. Not surprising. The board had told him that the next London train wasn’t due until late tomorrow afternoon.
The fire in the carriage. An accident, as the stationmaster had said, or intended as a distraction? But he couldn’t quite see Katherine, as he was coming to think of her, covering her departure from the train.
He was back to the ex-soldier.
The church clock reminded him that it was late. But he still had one more call to make.
The only person he really hadn’t interviewed as a potential suspect was Dr. Mason, and that was because he wasn’t sure the man could physically have committed the crime. Someone his age would have been at a distinct disadvantage trying to stab a healthy young woman. Surely she’d have fought, screamed. He couldn’t have smothered her cries and still wielded the knife so efficiently. The chances were, he’d have been scratched and bloody by the time anyone came running. Could he physically have dragged her body the distance to the ditch?
But as they left Marlborough behind them, Hamish disagreed. “If he were angry enough, he’d find the strength.”
“His house is closest to the scene. She could have come to Avebury looking for him. She wouldn’t have been a former patient. He didn’t serve in the war. But it’s possible she knew someone who had been his patient.”
“If she hadna’ come by bicycle, it was a verra’ long walk from Marlborough station.”
“Perhaps he met her at the station. Transport generally waited outside. Who would have noticed them together? An older man, welcoming his daughter home again? It’s not likely. But it’s possible. I need to be sure.”
“Aye, but who was she? And why should he ha’ wanted to kill her?”
None of his conversations with Mason had led him to believe the man had killed her. But there was the doctor in Shropshire—Allen—and Rutledge had had no doubts there, either, until he learned that there had been no mention of venereal disease in the report on that victim’s death. Knowing that would have alerted the police to a past that might have led to murder.
It didn’t appear that Leslie had treated Mason as a suspect. He was barely mentioned in the Yard report, and only then in his capacity as a doctor. If only for his own peace of mind, he had to question the man.
That done, he could face what that bit of stiffened ribbon and gray wool meant.
Hamish wasn’t finished. “Ye’ve got nothing to be going on with. Ye said so yoursel’.”
“I know,” Rutledge said as his headlamps picked out the dark road ahead. “But then how do I explain what I found in the cooker?”
“They will say it was the man who broke into the house.”
“That’s true. He won’t be here to defend himself but he’ll take the blame for murder. The inquest will conclude it was murder by person or persons unknown. Just as it had before.”
“Ye canna’ be sure he didna’ kill her. Ye canna’ be certain he didna’ come back to yon house afterward, and burn her hat because he’d no’ remembered it.”
“There’s still the valise. The crescent moon pin. Her purse. Where are they? And why Leslie’s house?”
Hamish said, “It’s no’ where anyone would look for a dead woman’s belongings. It was empty, he couldna’ ha’ known it belonged to a Chief Inspector.”
But Rutledge wasn’t keen on coincidences.
He was making good time in spite of the ruts in the road, and he was halfway to Avebury when another thought struck him.
If he went back to Scotland Yard and reported that it was very likely that Leslie was somehow involved, and he needed to question him, who would Markham believe if Leslie called Rutledge a fool and refused?
When Rutledge knocked at the door of the surgery, Dr. Mason squinted in the bright lamplight.
“Hallo,” he said with a smile. “Have you found her killer? Is that why you’re so late? Come in and I’ll offer you a sherry.”
Rutledge said, “I’m here to review the facts of that young woman’s murder. If I may?” And he made to enter the passage. He hadn’t intended to be abrupt. But seeing the doctor unshaven, his hair tousled from sleep, his nightshirt tucked unevenly into his trousers, he was rapidly having second thoughts. Still, murderers didn’t wear marks on their foreheads, like Caine, to identify their deeds.
Frowning, Mason stepped aside and took him into the chill front room, that looked as if nothing had been changed in it since his wife’s death. It even smelled stale and musty, having been shut off from the rest of the house for so long a time.
Mason didn’t bother to light the fire, but he did light the lamp by the window.
“Now then, what’s this about?” he said, and waited.
Feeling like a fool, Rutledge said, “Had you ever seen that woman before you were called to the ditch where she was found?”
“Never. I’m not so pressed for trade that I go about making my own corpses.”
“I’m serious, Dr. Mason.”
“And so am I, Inspector. Yes, I know, you must do your duty. So must I. I’ve taken an oath to do no harm.”
“And you haven’t heard from any of your patients anything that would lead you to believe she was coming here, to see you or anyone else in Avebury? A doctor, like a priest, hears what a man can’t tell his own family. Could she have been sent by a former patient, someone you knew, and Henderson didn’t?”