His words echoed Hamish’s but he spoke quietly, so as not to wake up anyone in the rooms above.
“There’s that cut on your head. Are you sure there was a bicycle? Or was it on your mind when you fell?”
Rutledge turned. He hadn’t bruised his ribs on grass. But he said, “I’ll know when I’ve described it to Lady Benton and her staff.”
He went in the hotel’s door and closed it behind him, then walked down the passage to the stairs. They seemed insurmountable, suddenly.
In the morning, Rutledge looked at his chest in the mirror as he was shaving.
A slanting red and blue line marked his ribs on one side. The knot above his ear had come down, although combing his hair just there reminded him quickly where it had been. But the cut on his forehead had stopped bleeding. It was small enough, he thought, not to attract attention, now.
He managed to dress, and at nine o’clock he was at the door of Wister’s surgery.
The man looked as tired as he felt.
“Come back at two. I have patients until noon.”
He drove instead to where he had stumbled over the bicycle. The pain in his ribs was not as sharp now, but it had not gone away.
Rutledge couldn’t be sure of the exact spot, but it didn’t matter—there was no bicycle to be seen in any direction. He found scuffed, bruised grass some forty yards from the pub, but even that might have been caused by any number of things.
Driving on to The Monk’s Choice, he knocked at the door. It was several minutes before Newbold came to answer the knock. He looked as if he’d had too much to drink, eyes bloodshot, his clothes rumpled.
“We’re closed.”
“I haven’t come to drink. Where were you last night?”
“You’re asking too many questions for a man who came here before asking for a room,” he said harshly. “Rumor says you’re police. The Yard.”
“And you can talk to me now or talk to me at the police station in Walmer. Your choice.” Rutledge’s voice was cold. Newbold tried to bluster.
“Here. Where the hell do you think I might be?”
“A woman was killed near here last night. Did you see or hear anything suspicious that might help us pinpoint where it happened, or how?”
Newbold blinked. “What woman? I don’t know anything about anyone being killed. I closed early. Toothache. Drank myself to sleep finally, took more than I bargained for to do the job.”
“There was a witness who said he heard men’s voices, arguing in the fog. Not too far from here.”
“Yes, well, I daresay it was someone angry about the pub being closed. There was banging on the door, calls for me to open. And I wasn’t having it,” he added sourly.
Hamish was saying, “Aye, he was drunk, ye can smell it on his clothes and his breath. But it was no’ his tooth that was troubling him.”
Nor was his jaw swollen.
“If the toothache was that severe, why aren’t you on your way to see a dentist this morning?”
“All the way to Chelmsford? And who’s to pay for it, if I get there? Whisky is a damned sight cheaper.”
He made to shut the door, but Rutledge stopped him.
“If I’d heard shouting outside my window at two in the morning, I’d have taken a look. Did you? And see more than you bargained for?”
Something shifted in Newbold’s gaze. But it looked more like fear than guilt. Yet not fear of Rutledge . . .
Newbold moved uneasily. “All right. I heard shouting in the night. But I didn’t go down or look out. Trouble on the road late at night? I mind my own business, and I don’t have to look whoever it is in the eye when they step through the door the next evening. Like it or not, that’s the truth.”
Rutledge considered him. He didn’t think Newbold had killed Patricia Lowell, the man hadn’t been in the war, and watching a woman slowly die would have taken more than simple lust or anger or even revenge. But it was clear he must know something. About the bicycle? But why that and not her death?
He left ten minutes later, unable to break the man’s stubborn refusal to admit to anything but hearing voices. Newbold clung to that account with a fierceness that had more in common with a drowning man clinging to anything that would keep him afloat rather than hiding a murder.
Whatever the man knew—or suspected—it would keep for the moment. It was more important to speak to Lady Benton before someone else brought her the news.
It was quiet on this Friday morning. The gates were closed, and he had to go round to the stable entrance.
There was a knocker, and he used it.
After a time Lady Benton came to the door. She was wearing men’s trousers, her son’s very likely, a heavy jumper, and a kerchief round her head.
“No tours this morning?”
“None is booked. I’m just as happy about that.” She gestured to her apparel and smiled a little. “I’m so sorry. The lady of the manor has been working in one of the rooms.” The smile faded. “The truth is, if I don’t stay busy, I’ll go mad with worry. Do come in. Do you have any news for me? About—?”
She had been covering her embarrassment about last night, running on without really looking at him, but now she stopped in midsentence, something in his silence warning her. Her gaze swept his face, then faltered.
“No. Oh, no.” Her hand over her mouth, she turned away but not before he saw the tears filling her eyes.
“It’s best to talk in your sitting room. Not here,” he said gently, and guided her with a hand on her arm to the door.
It was as tidy as ever, although breakfast dishes were still on a tray, and there was a work basket by the side of one of the chairs.
She sat down, clearly bracing herself. “Was it a motorcar? I’d worried about her bicycling home. It isn’t a busy road, but what traffic there is sometimes flies . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she regarded him helplessly, waiting.
Rutledge took the chair across from her. “It wasn’t a motorcar. We found her in one of the sheds on the airfield. It appeared to be a suicide—”
She shook her head vehemently. “No, not Patricia. She’d weathered the grief for her husband. She was herself again, cheerful and hopeful,” she told him firmly. “I refuse to believe she would do such a thing. She had a strong faith, she simply wouldn’t.”
He said nothing about the bicycle. This wasn’t the time. And she hadn’t asked how Mrs. Lowell had died. He didn’t want to tell her, unless she wanted to know. But he added, “If it wasn’t suicide, the only alternative would be murder . . .” Testing her.
She found a handkerchief and wiped at the tears. “I don’t—that’s hardly a comfort.” Steadying her voice with an effort, forcing herself once more to face and deal with the unthinkable, she said, “Who would harm Patricia? She’s—she had a little money, but she wasn’t rich by any stretch. There’s nothing to be gained by her death.”
“There’s the house. The property.”
“The Old Rectory? At her death, it was to go to the school she’d attended. In Surrey, I think. To be dealt with as they saw fit. She had no one else, and there was no money for an endowment. I know this because she asked me to be her executor.”