He got down and came around to open her door. “Where does Patricia sleep?”
“Her room faces the drive. At the far end of the first-floor passage. She couldn’t bear to sleep in the master bedroom, after her husband left for France. And he never came back. Artillery.”
“What’s her surname?”
“Oh. It’s Lowell. Patricia Lowell.”
Rutledge walked around to the side of the house, cupping his hands to call several times, but no one came to the window. Beginning to feel uneasy, he said, “Perhaps she’s out—gone in to see Dr. Wister.”
“She would have told Margaret or me, if she had done. And that wouldn’t explain staying away two days.”
“If she’s ill, she’s not able to respond. We’ll have to find a way inside.”
She had clearly been facetious about climbing in a window or knocking down a door. For now, Lady Benton said, “I’m really not sure—”
He turned to her. “I am sorry, but it’s best to make certain she’s all right.”
The front door was rather massive, and he was hesitant to break a window. But the kitchen door had several panes of glass in the upper portion of the door, and he used a trowel he found in a trug beside the door to break one. Reaching in, he fumbled for the latch, and managed to open the door.
“Stay here,” he said.
“No, she doesn’t know you, you’ll frighten her.”
“I’m serious, Lady Benton. Wait here or in the motorcar.”
She was already worried, but that frightened her. Licking dry lips, she said, “What’s wrong? What do you think is wrong?”
“I won’t know until I’ve looked.” And he stepped into the kitchen passage, closing the door behind him.
7
Rutledge quietly made his way through the ground-floor rooms. There was nothing in any of them—parlor, dining room, music room, sitting room—to cause any alarm. Just an emptiness, a silence, that worried him.
He went back to the main staircase, climbing just as quietly to the first floor. He could feel Hamish just behind him. How many ruins had they searched together, expecting trouble, weapons at the ready. He shook himself to dispel the memory.
The house was handsomely furnished, but heavily Victorian, and he found the bedrooms to be much the same. He looked into each one, careful to leave what he suspected to be Mrs. Lowell’s until last. Listening first for any sounds of movement inside, he raised his hand and knocked lightly.
There was no answer, and he called her name instead.
Silence.
Hamish said, “Ye must go inside.”
Rutledge expected the door to be locked, but when he tried it, it opened.
The bedroom was very feminine, soft colors and lacy curtains at the windows, a silk coverlet on the bed, and a stand beside it with silk flowers in a tall, silver vase.
Hamish grunted as Rutledge crossed the threshold.
The room was empty. The bed neatly made, no clothes on the chairs, nothing out of place. Just the way Patricia Lowell must have left it before leaving for the Abbey.
Tidy. Like the rest of the house.
No sign of a struggle, nothing to indicate when or why she wasn’t here.
He’d already looked in the other rooms. He was about to start on the attics, when Lady Benton called from the staircase.
“I can’t wait any longer. Is she all right? Do we need the doctor?”
Rutledge went to the head of the stairs. “She isn’t in her room. Or in any of the others I’ve looked into.”
“She’s not—?” she asked blankly. “But where is she?”
“I was just about to look in the attics—no, stay down there. I won’t be long.”
But he couldn’t find any sign of Patricia Lowell.
Coming back down to the main floor, he shook his head. “Nothing. How does she usually get about? Come to work?”
“She has a bicycle. They all do. If the weather is very bad, they don’t come to the Hall, or I come and fetch them in the motorcar.”
They searched the outbuildings, but there was only a man’s bicycle in the shed.
“Her husband’s,” Lady Benton said quietly. “It isn’t hers.”
They went back to the motorcar, standing beside it in the misting rain. He got his umbrella out of the boot, and opened it for her. Her face was pale but resolute as she said, “We must do something. This isn’t like Patricia.”
“Where would she go, if she felt ill and couldn’t manage the distance to the Abbey? To a friend’s house?”
“No, not when she was supposed to be coming to me. Or if there was some reason to go there, she would have let me know. Somehow.”
“She left your house two nights ago, on her way home?”
“Yes. And she’d told me she was taking flowers to the churchyard the next morning. I knew it was the anniversary of her husband’s death—I didn’t expect to see her until later in the day.”
He opened her door, and folded the umbrella as she got in.
Joining her, he said, “The churchyard? In this village or in Walmer?”
“His memorial is in Walmer. She wanted it there.”
Reversing, he turned back down the drive.
“What about the broken window?” she asked, looking over her shoulder toward the house.
“We’ll find a glazier. Right now, it’s best to find Mrs. Lowell.”
They drove in silence toward Walmer, passing the pub and then the Hall, finally coming into the village.
“Which church?” he asked.
“Where Roger is buried. Just there.”
He found a place to leave the motorcar, gave her the umbrella, and led the way into the churchyard. Lieutenant Lowell’s memorial stone was not far off the main path.
“She liked it here, in this churchyard. Even though it was farther away—just there.” Pointing ahead of them, she indicated the stone.
It was newer than those near it, clearly recent, with no lichen or moss on it.
“She intends to be buried there, her name added to the stone,” Lady Benton was saying as they crossed the grass to it. “Inspector—look. There aren’t any flowers here.”
They stood by the memorial stone, staring down at the empty grassy space before it.
Lady Benton, facing Rutledge, said, “I am at a loss.”
But he was not listening. Hamish, loud in the back of his mind, was saying, “She’s deid.”
Rutledge wasn’t ready to believe it. But he knew Hamish had to be right. It was the only explanation.
“Let me take you back to the Hall. You’re needed there, and I will begin the search for Mrs. Lowell. For all we know,” he went on, watching her expression as she went over the possibilities he himself was facing, “she might have been called away.”
“Don’t lie to me, Inspector,” she said quietly. “Patricia would never do such a thing. Something is wrong. Dreadfully wrong. For one thing, her bicycle isn’t in the stables where she keeps it while at the Abbey, I would have seen it when I went to my motorcar. And it isn’t at the Old Rectory. We looked in the little shed where she keeps it. She left my house riding it, she never reached the churchyard here the next morning, because there are no flowers by the memorial stone. She isn’t ill in her bed . . .” She stopped. “Who would harm Patricia?”