When he said nothing, she went on, her voice husky with grief. “I can’t wrap my mind around this! I can’t think beyond the news that she’s dead.” She sat there, staring at the tapestry on the wall. And he watched as she struggled to cope. As the unthinkable struck her suddenly. Turning to him, alarm in her eyes, she said, “You don’t believe—surely this has no connection with Friday last and what happened here.”
“I don’t know,” he told her truthfully. “We’re still looking into her death.”
Her voice was thick with the tears she was fighting to hold back. “Where is she now?”
“Dr. Wister’s surgery.”
“Yes. Of course. I should have thought—but when did you find her? This morning?”
He hesitated, knowing how it would strike her. “Last evening. After I left you.”
She colored slightly. “After I was frightened into hysterics by a horse. I was going to send down to the Home Farm today to see why there was one in that pasture. It’s for winter grazing, the grass is all used up.” Clearing her throat with a cough, she added, “How did you come to find her?”
Rutledge told her, keeping the worst to himself. She listened, then nodded. “I’m glad you thought to look there. I can’t bear to think of her, all alone, waiting to be found.” She straightened her shoulders. “Dear God . . .” as she fought for control. Finally, rising, she said, “I-I think I should like a cup of tea. Will you come down to the kitchen with me?”
He picked up her breakfast tray, and carried it down for her. While she was dealing with the kettle and the teapot, she said, sadly, “She was such a kind soul.”
“You told me once that she felt uneasy, passing the pub. Do you think there was anything to that? Or just a general unease?”
“The owner is not a particularly nice man. She said he leered. But as I’ve told you, he never said a word to her or approached her. Much as I dislike him, I don’t believe he’d harm her.”
But he’d been awake very late last night. Rutledge had watched his lamp put out.
“I’ve been thinking about getting a dog. I haven’t had one since Eric’s died just before he enlisted. But what am I to do with it when we have visitors? I can’t simply lock him in my bedroom all day.”
“You can build a run near the stables for days when there are tours. You’ll want one to protect you. Not a lapdog.”
“My staff will spoil it terribly, whatever breed I choose,” she replied wryly. Then, reverting to the death of Mrs. Lowell, Lady Benton sighed and added, “I shall have to notify Patricia’s solicitor. And stop in at the Old Rectory for her copy of her will.” Biting her lip, she looked at him. “Would you go with me? We can take my motorcar, then I’ll drop you at the stables before I run in to Walmer. I won’t keep you long.”
She offered him a cup of tea while she changed but he chose instead to walk through the rooms, thinking.
When Lady Benton came down again, dressed for going out, she found Rutledge in the sitting room. She had put a little powder on her face, to hide the ravages of grief, but her eyes were still red. He said, “You told me once that you had a rather troublesome visitor. In what way, troublesome?”
“He didn’t appear to be the sort of man who toured historic houses. And he asked questions that seemed out of the ordinary. How many people lived here now, how many rooms were in actual use, how many staircases there were. And he was always slow to keep up. When one of my staff—Mrs. Sutton, I think it was—asked him not to linger after the tour had moved on, he told her he’d paid for his visit and intended to make the most of it. It made the other guests uneasy, and Mrs. Hailey, who was in the next room and overheard the exchange, came to find me. I offered to return his money, but he told me he had no intention of leaving before the end of the tour. Rather aggressively, actually. And so I asked one of the gardeners to help him leave. You could hear the man cursing all the way to the outer door. It was very embarrassing.”
“He never came back?”
“No. Not to my knowledge.”
She collected her gloves and handbag, and started toward the door.
Going ahead to open it for her, he said, “Do you recall when this was?”
“It was after the airfield was dismantled. June? July? 1919.”
“Could you describe this man, do you think?”
“Absolutely.” She locked the outer door and he followed her to the stable yard. She was saying, “He was fairly tall—not as tall as you—with dark hair, cold gray eyes, and a scar down one cheek. The left one. A strong man, physically, but Bert, the gardener, was more than his match. The odd thing was, Patricia was just coming up from the crypt, and she thought the man who was waiting for our visitor in the drive seemed familiar. But she only saw him for the briefest moment.”
“Did you ask her to describe him? For future reference, if either man returned?”
“I never thought to ask. To tell you the truth, I had a feeling both men had been sent by that man, Wilbur. I told you, I think, that he’s been persistent.”
“Why would he try to disrupt a tour?” And yet the man was just the sort who might think of forcing her to sell, one way or another. With ghosts in the private garden . . . ?
“If word got around, and the tours fell off, I might be forced to sell the meadow.”
“Did Bert, the gardener, see the other man?”
“He must have done.”
“Where is Bert now? I’d like to ask him.”
“I’ve no idea, I’m afraid. I had to let the gardening staff go last year. and I don’t know where he might be now. So far we’ve managed, the staff and I, but it’s beginning to show. I’ll have to find new people soon.”
He had just turned the crank and was getting into his motorcar beside her when she began to work with her keys. Taking one off the heavy ring, she handed it to him.
“You ought to have this,” she said. “It was Eric’s—to the door we just came through. In case.”
He took it, added it to his own keys, and then started through the gate, which he’d opened earlier. He saw her scan the field for the horse, but it was empty, as usual.
“I must speak to Henry at the Home Farm. About the horse.”
“Do you think Henry had anything to do with it?”
“Oh, no. He’s sixty and hardly the sort to play practical jokes. Or put a mare in the wrong field.”
At the Old Rectory, he walked through the house while Lady Benton went up to Mrs. Lowell’s room to collect the will.
He could swear that no one else had been in the house since he and Lady Benton had searched it the day before. It felt oddly empty now, as if the personality of the owner had faded away with her death. Returning to the parlor, he went to look at the photographs on the round table by the window. They were mostly of Mrs. Lowell with her husband or her parents. None of them appeared to be more recent than 1914.
Hamish was saying, “There was nothing, ye ken, he wanted in the house.”
“Or he found it without disturbing anything.”
And then Lady Benton was coming down the stairs. He went out into the hall to meet her, and he could see that she’d been crying, but she held up a sheaf of folded papers.