“She would do well to work with me, you know. If there are secrets she wants to keep, private matters that are best forgot, they’ll be safe with me. Not everyone will make that promise.”
“That’s enough,” Rutledge said, making certain that his voice didn’t carry beyond the man across the table from him. “I’d advise you to go before I lose my patience. You won’t like what happens when I do.”
Wilbur opened his mouth to argue, thought better of it, and rose, his tea untouched. But as he moved away from the table, he said viciously, “May I remind you, women are famous for changing their minds.”
Rutledge began to rise from his chair.
Wilbur turned and scuttled for the door.
Rutledge waited until the man was out of his sight before sitting down again.
Hamish said, “Ye’d best not turn your back on that one.”
Rutledge retorted silently, I’d like him to try.
A woman’s voice said at his shoulder, “Your guest is leaving without ordering?”
“I believe he is.” He turned to smile at her, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He gave her his order. He didn’t think she had overheard what was said between Wilbur and himself. “Do you know that man?”
The woman shook her head. “But I’m told he owns one of the tea shops. You wouldn’t know it, judging from the people who work there. Terribly nice. I like stopping in.”
Rutledge drove back to the Abbey, and when Mrs. Hailey opened the door, he asked, “Have you been annoyed by a man named Wilbur, hoping to buy the airfield, once it belongs to Lady Benton again?”
She stood aside to allow him to enter. “Oh, yes, indeed we have. I don’t know what he should want with what’s little more than a meadow. It’s not good for much more than grazing. Even the monks knew that. The last time he came I sent him away with a flea in his ear, for disturbing Lady Benton with his nonsense.” She glanced over her shoulder, to be sure no one was within earshot, and added, “What does she want with anything to remind her of the war? I ask you!”
“He called on me at the hotel, asking me to speak to Lady Benton on his behalf.”
“The cheek of the man,” she said in disgust. “Have you seen the circles under her eyes? I don’t think she’s sleeping at all. I’d like five minutes alone with whoever is behind this business, and tell him what I thought of him.”
Someone came up the stairs from the crypt, calling to her, and the housekeeper said to Rutledge, “She’s in her sitting room. You know the way.”
It was a day for visitors, but apparently there wasn’t a morning booking, for he found Lady Benton with gloves on, polishing a silver tray from one of the rooms. She looked up as he came in, smiled and said, “I mustn’t keep asking you for news.”
Rutledge shook his head. “Sorry. There is none. I keep waiting for whoever this is to show himself again.”
That alarmed her. “Do you believe there will be more—apparitions, or whatever it was?”
“No, of course not,” he told her quickly. “No, I meant, there’s a reason behind what happened, even if it’s no more than a prank someone thought up. And it will become apparent in time.”
“Well, we have enough troubles without that. We’re still shorthanded. One of the staff hasn’t come in. I’m wondering if she’s ill. But then she’d have sent word, wouldn’t she? It’s so difficult when you need every pair of hands. Will you be all right, wandering around on your own?”
“I’ll find my way. Do I need keys?”
She took a ring of keys off her belt. “These should be what you need. Come back at noon, and I’ll have Mrs. Hailey bring us a tray.”
He began with the unused bedrooms. The house, he thought, could sleep twenty or more guests, and in great comfort. Many of the rooms were of late Georgian style and hadn’t been redecorated. Those that were in current use in the last generations were early- and mid-Victorian.
More to the point, none of them appeared to have been used in quite some time, for a light layer of dust lay over the furnishings, showing no signs that anyone had been in the rooms in several weeks. Still, he could judge that they were all kept up—a tremendous effort for such a small staff.
He didn’t open the door to her room, but found her son’s, untouched, he thought, since Eric had gone off to war, except that it had been given more frequent care. As if Lady Benton saw to it herself.
He was just finishing the rooms for the butler and housekeeper, mattresses rolled up and nothing personal to be seen, when he heard Lady Benton calling, and realized that it was just after noon.
Rutledge joined her in the sitting room, where she had set out the food on a small tea table. There was soup, sandwiches, fruit, and a pudding, and as they ate, he told her his impression so far.
When the meal was over, he told her that he would like to finish his exploration, and she nodded. “I have an errand to run, I shan’t be long. If you need anything, let Mrs. Hailey know.”
He climbed the two sets of staircases back to the servants’ rooms, taking up where he’d left off. He had just finished that floor and was about to go up to the Elizabethan attics, tiny cell-like rooms where the servants of the day had lived, when he heard Lady Benton calling him again.
Turning, he went back to the main staircase. She was at the foot, looking up, waiting for him to answer.
“Oh—there you are! Could you help me, Inspector. I have a small problem . . .” She hesitated, a little embarrassed to ask.
“I’m coming down.” He joined her on the first floor, and then they went down the next flight as she explained.
“I went to Patricia’s. Well, neither of us is on the telephone, and I had Mrs. Hailey make up a basket to take to her in case she was under the weather. But there’s no answer when I knock. And I did wait, hoping she would call down to me, if she didn’t feel like unlocking the door. But there was nothing—”
She realized she was running on, and stopped.
“I’m worried, as you can see,” she went on sheepishly. “And I’m not really good at climbing in windows or knocking down doors.”
It was a house of women, widows all, so he’d been told . . .
“I don’t know that I’m good at knocking down doors,” he said lightly, to cover his own concern. “But we’ll raise her, or if not, I’ll go for the doctor. We’ll use my motorcar.”
“Yes, thank you!”
They went out the front door, collecting the food basket on the way, and he helped her into her seat before turning the crank. The drizzle had become a misting rain for the moment.
“Where do I go?” he asked, joining her.
“She’s just down the road, about three miles or so. Past that awful pub, and into the next village.”
He followed her directions, and at the outskirts of the village, she pointed to a drive going into a tall, Victorian house set well back from the road.
“It’s the Old Rectory, and her father retired here, when the new Rector came to take his place. She and her husband moved in after her father’s death.”
It was an attractive brick house, an avenue of flowering trees leading to the door. A turret with a pointed roof, very much in the Victorian style, rose to one side, and Lady Benton pointed to it. “There’s a music room on the ground floor, and her father’s study just above it. The third floor was part of the nursery.”