He could. Very easily.
As they moved on to the French doors, taking the servants’ stairs to the ground floor, he said, “It must have haunted him.”
“I expect that’s the right word. Haunting. His death most certainly haunted me for months afterward. The Major too was never the same after that. Closed in on himself, somehow. He didn’t confide in me, if that’s what you’re asking. Over the years I saw him frequently, but always in his capacity as commanding officer. We never talked in the personal sense. I only discovered his interest in navigation by accident. And I asked about his wife only because she never came to visit him. I’d wondered if she were an invalid perhaps.” She paused. “I did wonder, at the end of the war, if he dreaded going home. He said something in passing, that war had been his life for so long that he was afraid of civilian life. It was an attempt to be amusing, but I could tell that there was more truth than jest in his remark.”
Unwilling to go home to a woman afraid of her shadow and afraid of the world . . . Or was there more to the Major’s death?
When they had finished all the doors and were back in her sitting room, she asked, “You always come back to the Captain’s death. As if that was the beginning of everything. Even what I saw in my garden.”
“I don’t know yet where the beginning may be. And so I must look at all the possibilities. I continually ask myself why one of the men in the garden reminded you of Roger Nelson. Was it to frighten you into leaving the house? If so, it failed to accomplish that. If I were one of the two living men there, I’d begin to think of a better way to frighten you. Or dispose of you altogether.”
It was rather harsh, but he believed she needed to be aware of her own danger.
Her eyes were suddenly large in a pale face.
“You sound like Margaret, trying to frighten me into allowing her to stay in. But I can’t. I know this house, every sound, every smell, every difference. Having someone else to look after, to be sure she was safe, is more dangerous for me than being alone.”
Rutledge could understand that.
“All right, for the sake of argument—what is the most valuable item in this house?”
Without hesitation, she said, “The weeping Madonna.”
“If someone took it, he couldn’t sell it. Or display it. Or in any way that I can see, benefit from it.”
“Well, then, I’ve told you. The paintings. The silver. The heirlooms.”
“But what if there is something else that people might be after? Was it ever rumored that the monks had buried their most precious possessions here—the Mass silver—their horde of gold—hoping to return one day and retrieve them?”
Lady Benton laughed at that. “Surely we’d have found them, when my husband’s ancestors tore down the Abbey and built the house around the great hall. In the first place, there were never any rumors of that kind. The monks had a fairly good idea of what was going to happen here. They’d have moved everything far away—smuggled it back to the mother house in France—sold it, for all anyone knows.”
“Besides the Madonna, was there anything else here—a special crucifix, or candlestick—that was as famous? Bones that were said to have special powers of healing, drawing pilgrims?”
“You have quite a vivid imagination, Inspector.” She smiled at him. “I believe there was an inventory taken at the time of Dissolution. And if there was anything in particular that my husband’s ancestor wished to keep, he’d have seen it listed and taken steps to claim it. The only reason the Madonna is still here is that she’s too large to remove without arousing suspicion. The first thing anyone coming into the church would have looked for, was her. The Abbey was dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows. But the monks couldn’t take her with them. Or feared to damage her by even trying.”
He’d run out of possibilities.
“Still, someone must have waited—watched—until your light went out in the bedroom, and the drawn curtains were opened, knowing that you’d be looking down into the garden. A performance for one.”
She clasped her hands together, a sure sign that she was distressed. “You really are trying to frighten me.”
“No, drawing conclusions from what happened. We can guess that much. The why is the problem.” He paused, remembering what Hamilton had told him. “There was another incident. When the buildings were about to be torn down—or just as the work had started—several village boys had come out to the airfield at night, on a dare. And something frightened them so badly they still refuse to talk about what happened.”
“Oh. Yes. I’d forgot about that.” She smiled a little. “I do recall the fuss when their fathers went to the field to see what had frightened them. And of course they found nothing. I put it down to the boys already being overly excited about slipping out of the house and venturing so far. A hare could have jumped out of nowhere, and they would have seen it as a monstrous thing. And later, when they’d calmed down, they were too ashamed to tell anyone the truth.”
“Hamilton is convinced they saw something.”
“He wasn’t here at the time,” she protested.
“He wasn’t. That’s true. But his son still refuses to tell him anything. And what if that event is somehow related to what you saw? What if this isn’t the first time the Captain’s ‘ghost’ has walked? What if it is a pattern?” He meant it in the figurative sense, not the literal. That there might have been another, similar, incident. But Lady Benton paled in shock.
She rose. “I think you’d better go now, Inspector. I shan’t sleep a wink if you keep at me like this.”
“I’m not being unkind. You need to know what I know, to keep your guard up. That’s important.”
“Thank you. You’ve done that very thoroughly.”
He had no choice but to leave.
“Do you mind if I let you out the door toward the stables? I’d rather not try to close the main door on my own.”
He’d seen the housekeeper manage it, but he said nothing, following her into the small foyer where she unlocked the door for him.
“Thank you,” he said. “For giving me your time. As I learn more, I’ll keep you informed.”
“I appreciate that. Good evening, Inspector.”
She closed the door behind him, and he waited, smiling for her sake, until he’d heard the bolts drive home. Then with a wave, he went off down the walk to the stables, cutting around to the front drive.
He noticed as he went that the weather was changing. The few fair days were over, there were rain clouds gathering and he could feel the coolness in the air.
Mrs. Dunn was waiting for him outside the hotel. He felt a wave of pity as he noticed how tired and wretched she looked, cursing himself for not going sooner himself to speak to her.
“I just need to know,” she said diffidently, “if there’s been any word about my boy.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it. “We haven’t found a body. I have walked the length and breadth of the airfield, and I can tell you that there is nothing to indicate that anyone was buried out there. I have learned that the commanding officer during the war is dead, has been for some years. I can’t ask him what he must have done at the time to search for Gerald, whether he came to the conclusion that your son was indeed a deserter or that something could have happened to him that accounted for his disappearance. I have been inside the Hall, and there is no indication that anyone working there was responsible. I haven’t questioned everyone yet, but I shall, in due course. But so far, I can’t find any reason that would connect the Hall to his disappearance.” He added gently, “I have not forgot you.”