He had a very good point. But Rutledge quietly reserved judgment about Miller’s mother.
He said, “Thank you, Mr. Miller. You do understand we had to ask?”
“If my mother had killed Joan,” the sexton retorted harshly, “I’d have taken care of her myself.”
So much for the man who claimed to have put aside his feelings for his straying wife.
They left him there, still holding the drying greenery, one branch spread across the flagstones at his feet.
“He’s a deep one,” Constable Leigh was saying, once they were out of earshot. “I sometimes wondered if he’d killed Joan rather than let her go. But there was never any proof. And London’s a big town to be looking for one person.”
“If she’s there, the Yard will find her.”
Rutledge was just bending down to turn the crank when he saw a man in a dark coat walking up the steps of the Rectory.
“Rector,” Constable Leigh said quietly.
With the Constable at his heels, Rutledge cut across the churchyard in time to reach the side door of the tall, narrow brick house just beyond a second gate in the low wall. They followed the path around to the main door and knocked.
The Rector himself answered it, saying with a smile, “Mariah, is—oh, I’m sorry, I was expecting Mrs. Brooks. Constable. And this must be the man from Scotland Yard.” He held out his hand. “Ralph Ellis.”
“Ian Rutledge.”
“Come in, come in.” He opened the door wider, and stood aside to allow them to enter, then led them to the front room. A small man with an absent air, graying hair, and gray eyes, he had a barely perceptible limp.
It was like so many other Vicarage or Rectory parlors Rutledge had seen: dark furnishings, a hearth that was cold at this hour of the day, and an air of seldom being used. A flourishing aspidistra in a china pot sat on a table in the window, its luxuriant green leaves spreading across the table’s top, nearly covering it. It was a plant that, along with ferns, had been popular in Victorian homes and solariums.
Ellis looked around, then said, “Hmmm. We’d be more comfortable in my study, I think. I hadn’t realized how frigid it is in here. Scott would feel right at home, eh? No need to explore the South Pole.” He ushered them toward the passage again, and walked on down to another door, opening it and crossing to the cluttered desk. A roaring fire had made the room stuffy, almost stifling. He gestured to the chairs in front of the desk.
Rutledge took off his coat and put it with his hat on a table by the door before sitting down. After a moment Constable Leigh followed suit as Ellis apologized.
“I’ve forgot my manners. I was up all night with the proud father of a newborn, who insisted on wetting his son’s head until first light. I got him to bed at dawn, then fell asleep in a chair myself. The midwife found me there, snoring so loudly I was keeping the new mother awake.” He grinned. “I doubt it was that bad, Sally has a tendency to overdramatize, but she was right, I ought to have been in my own bed. And I walked in to find a note from my wife. She’s visiting the sick this morning. I haven’t even had my tea.”
Constable Leigh asked after the baby, and then Ellis said, “But you aren’t here about the child. It’s that poor soul in Simmons’s grave.” He leaned back in his own chair, and it creaked a little. “I wish I could help you there. But my bedroom is on the far side of the house, and I neither heard nor saw anything Tuesday night. The first I knew of anything wrong was the shout from the sexton. I’d just gone into the church, to be sure everything was as it should be for the funeral service. I came out the door, saw him pointing toward the grave, realized that he’d pulled some of the boards away, and wondered if someone’s cat or dog had managed to fall in. You can’t imagine my shock when I reached the grave and realized that it was a person—a woman.” He shook his head. “I’ve seen some terrible things in my lifetime, Inspector. But nothing to compare with that poor woman’s body, lying there. All I could think of was that she must be unbearably cold. And then of course, I realized that she was beyond feeling anything more on this earth. I knelt by the grave and prayed for the comfort of her soul.”
“You’ve never seen her before?”
“No. At least, I can’t remember ever having seen her. I’ve been in the church for twenty-three years. That’s a good many faces, to recall all of them.”
“Do you remember the sexton’s wife, Joan Miller?”
“No, it couldn’t have been her. I am confident that I would have recognized her. Surely you aren’t saying that Miller had anything to do with that young woman?”
“I must consider everyone in Tern Bridge.”
“I expect that’s so, myself included, but I refuse to believe Miller could be guilty of murder.”
“There were just the two of you, there by the grave?”
“Yes. I told Miller I’d stay with her while he went to find Constable Leigh, but he insisted that I go. He had to clear away the remaining boards, so that Allen—Dr. Allen—could reach her. I brought them back, and we’d just got her up out of the grave when Mrs. Branson walked by. Allen, thank heavens, had thought to bring a blanket to cover the body.”
Rutledge looked from the Rector to Constable Leigh. “There was no mention of a Mrs. Branson in the reports.”
“Well, no,” Constable Leigh said apologetically. “She’s at least eighty, and with time on her hands, she minds everyone’s business but her own.” He glanced at the Rector for confirmation.
“Yes, I did my best to stop her from coming too close to the grave, but she’s a willful soul, Inspector, and it’s hard to distract her when her mind’s made up. She could just see the face, the blanket had fallen away from it, and Mrs. Branson asked if the woman was dead. The Constable stepped forward and told her this might be a crime scene, then the doctor stopped his examination and finally talked Mrs. Branson into leaving. He warned her to say nothing, and to the best of my knowledge, she kept her promise not to mention what she’d seen. When she’d well and truly gone away, we got on with it. As soon as the doctor told us he was finished, we wrapped the body in the doctor’s blanket, and carried her to his motorcar, standing by the gate. Constable got in with him and they drove the short distance to his surgery.”
“Did you look around you, or see anything unusual?”
“To be quite honest, I didn’t think about that until the Constable and the doctor had left. But there was nothing out of place that I could see.” He shook his head. “I am used to deathbeds, Inspector. But not murder in my own churchyard.”
“Do you have any idea why someone would leave a body there?”
“Well, assuming she wasn’t one of our flock, I’d guess that her killer wanted to be sure she couldn’t be connected in any way with him. Or her. Although I’m not sure a woman could have carried her that far from the road. I did ask the doctor about the stab wounds. He told me that she hadn’t suffered. That the first wound would have killed her quickly, and the others were delivered just to make certain she was dead. But the attack wasn’t vicious—wild. Just deadly. That had been something that was worrying me, Inspector. I didn’t want to think of her surviving the attack, to die alone in that grave, unable to call for help.”