“I so disliked going into her desk to find the will. She was such a private person.”
“Still, she knew you’d come for it, if the need arose,” he reminded her.
“Yes. There’s that.”
As they left the house Rutledge took advantage of the moment to ask, “Where did she keep her bicycle?”
“There’s a little shed out back. As I mentioned to Inspector Hamilton, I would have noticed if the doors were standing open. But they weren’t, they were closed.”
“What sort of bicycle did Mrs. Lowell ride?”
“She bought it at the start of the war, I think. I don’t know the name of the firm. She had one of the men at the airfield help her attach a basket to the handlebars.”
“Who was it? Gerald Dunn?”
“No, one of the other mechanics. I don’t think Private Dunn had arrived. The men kept coming in for nearly a month, before the squadrons were at full strength. Some were here before the buildings were even completed. That autumn was rather chaotic, if you remember.”
He did. England had been scrambling to keep the Germans from cutting off the French coast roads, the Expeditionary Force fighting to hold on as Belgium collapsed.
“What sort of basket?”
“A rather nice wicker one. And it had a blue ribbon woven into the side at the top. Her workmanship.”
Then he hadn’t imagined it after all. The bicycle had been there . . .
9
Rutledge waited in the stable yard until Lady Benton drove her motorcar out of the shed, then closed the gate after both of them passed through. She waved a hand in thanks, and started up the lane.
He followed.
In Walmer, he saw her motorcar again, outside a house with a solicitor’s plate beside the door.
Driving on, he went to look for the young woman who worked at The Salt Cellar. But he didn’t see her on the street or coming and going from the shops.
“Later,” Hamish told him. “When she walks down to the pub.”
Impatient to speak again to Wister, he went back to the hotel to leave the motorcar and then had a simple lunch. At five minutes before two, he was standing again outside the door to the doctor’s surgery.
He was drying his hands when he opened the door to Rutledge.
“There isn’t much to tell you,” he said, leading the way to a back room. There, Patricia Lowell lay under a sheet. “A blow on the head while she was still alive. And she was alive as well when she was hanged. Possibly unconscious, but alive. Cause of death, strangulation. She was hauled up after the noose was put around her neck, she didn’t kick that stool out from under her feet. There was no fall, to end it quickly.”
Rutledge said, “A cruel way for her to die. But this eliminates the possibility of suicide.”
“Yes. It does. A clumsy attempt at covering up a crime.” He crossed to the table and lifted a portion of the sheet. “The reason I believe she was unconscious is that I see no defensive wounds. That would be more consistent with suicide, of course. But then there was this.”
He dropped the sheet in place and crossed to a table where her clothes lay spread out.
“That’s the belt to the dress she was wearing. And look here, on the prong that closes it.”
Rutledge leaned forward. “It appears to be several strands of thread.”
“Yes. Picture this—she’s dazed or unconscious. He can’t leave her where she is—or he can’t take her just now to the shed, because it was still light enough for him to be seen with her. And so he puts her over his shoulder and carries her somewhere until it’s dark. And that belt buckle pulls a few threads from his coat.”
“It appears to be khaki. A uniform, then?”
“More likely an Army greatcoat. The thickness of the wool.”
Half the ex-soldiers wandering the countryside, looking for work, wore greatcoats from the war. They were warm.
“If she was taken somewhere, surely she would have regained consciousness before being taken to the airfield.”
“Yes, I’m coming to that. Her killer must have given her something to drink. Water, tea, I haven’t looked yet. And put something in it to knock her out.”
“Whisky?”
“Yes, that’s more likely to cover the taste. Laudanum, at a guess. Although one doesn’t wander the countryside as a rule with a vial of opiates in his pocket. Ready to give to a victim.”
“Unless,” Rutledge said slowly, “he’s still bothered by an old war wound to have something at hand to keep him going.”
“I agree. The khaki thread, the laudanum for a war wound. An ex-soldier?”
“Or someone still serving.” Rutledge shook his head. “Or just now demobbed. I need a list of men associated with the airfield.”
Wister ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not comfortable asking this. But do you think this is the first time he’s killed?”
Rutledge said, giving it some thought, “He was calm enough to carry out Patricia Lowell’s hanging. That would have needed a strong nerve.” He was already considering what he knew of that stretch of road, any buildings that a killer would have had access to. The pub? Farm outbuildings, sheds . . .
“Death is a part of life. But I hate to cut open the young. It’s somehow wrong.”
Rutledge looked across at him. “Yet you chose medicine.”
“I did. It was the war that cooled my joy in it.” He walked back to the table and stared at the sheet covering the body of Mrs. Lowell. “Such a pity.”
“It is. Thank you. Do you mind if I take her belt with me, along with that strand of thread?”
“No, not at all.” Wister hesitated. “Not to be a rumor monger, but should I have a look at you? I’ve heard you had a fall last night.”
Rutledge knew he should agree to be examined. But he said, “I’m all right. I’ll see a doctor in London if need be.”
“The cut on your forehead is all right. But let’s leave this poor lady in peace, and step into the next room. If you’re driving to London, you’ll be glad of a bit of tape.”
As it happened, Dr. Wister was right. Sitting for several hours behind the wheel of the motorcar, his ribs began to protest long before he reached London.
There were a number of ways to achieve what he wanted to do. The quickest way was to call on Haldane. And Rutledge was reluctant to leave Lady Benton for too long, just after Mrs. Lowell’s death.
He was even more reluctant to speak to Haldane.
The man lived on a quiet street in Chelsea, the door guarded by his manservant. Rutledge’s first impression on meeting the manservant—he was hardly a butler or a valet—was that he had once been Haldane’s batman and had chosen to remain with him once the war was over.
Haldane himself claimed to have been in the Foot Police, but it was more likely that he had been a high-ranking member of Intelligence. His contacts were too wide and too well placed to be those of a simple military policeman.
Rutledge had met him quite by accident in the course of an inquiry into a murder that had its roots outside England, where he himself couldn’t travel. He’d asked Haldane for information, and in a roundabout way it had been supplied. But Rutledge had been very, very careful not to draw on that source unless there was no other way of learning how the war and murder might have come together. And he could never be sure of Haldane’s help. Sometimes he was told blandly that Haldane was not at home.