“Who works for you at the farm?”
“My daughter and her son. And a lad from the next village over. He’s all right. Better than my grandson was, come to that.”
“Could it have been someone else, playing a prank?”
“I do hope not!” he retorted. “She’s a valuable mare.”
Rutledge thanked him, and went back to the lane, crossing over into the stable yard. He was careful as he made his way around the house to stay as close to the walls as the various plantings and borders allowed. He avoided leaving a footprint in the soft earth, keeping to the grass.
At each door he passed, he tried the keys on Captain Nelson’s ring, but none of them fit until he reached the terrace doors. There, as he began to insert a key into the lock, the door moved under his hand. He stood there for a moment, then pulled it wider. No one spoke—the room appeared to be empty.
He stepped inside.
This was a garden room, high ceilinged, with wicker furnishings and wrought iron tables. The wallpaper was a pale green, with painted trees full of painted birds and flowers. A welcoming room, bright in the late afternoon sunlight. There were lamps on the tables, and if the pale green drapes were open, there was a lovely view out across the private garden. A low shelf by one of the chairs held several books. He went to them and found that they were about famous English gardens, with sketches and drawings of each.
He returned them to the shelf and went to the tall double doors at the back of the room. On this side, the paneling was painted, with a tall great white egret facing each other on each one. The knobs were elegantly made wrought iron feathers.
When he opened them, he found himself in a passage, and decided not to explore farther. But the door facing him across it was ajar, and he looked in.
The large room was filled with glass-fronted cases full of leather-bound books. There were comfortable chairs and a desk in the center of the room, lamps on several tables, and a sliding ladder on railings that ran down each side, to allow access to the upper shelves. These, he thought, held the older, more fragile books. A map table stood against the far wall.
This then was why Captain Nelson had had a key to this door. As Lady Benton had said, he could use the library without disturbing her.
Then he went back the way he’d come, stepped out on the terrace, and while the doors were still ajar, tried the keys here as well. But there was no fit. He left the double doors as he’d found them, and had just stepped down from the terrace when the sound of voices carried to him from the garden room. Mrs. Hailey, he thought, speaking to one of the staff. He moved away quickly.
He finished testing the keys at the remaining doors, but whatever they were intended to open, the keys matched nothing here. It was more likely that they belonged to the long-vanished buildings of the airfield. Then where was the key Nelson had used?
Rutledge left the Abbey.
As he came to the junction where the lane met the road, he headed back toward The Monk’s Choice. He was still unsatisfied with Newbold’s answers.
He left the motorcar on the road and walked across the yard to the door. Intending to give no warning that he was coming. He’d raised his hand to knock when he heard voices.
At first they were indistinct, as if the speakers were in the kitchen. And then they began to move closer to the door. Rutledge could hear a man’s voice, gruff, angry—cornered. Curious to know who might be there with Newbold, he reached for the latch.
And a woman’s voice—lighter, demanding—stopped him.
He stayed there, listening, trying to pick out words. Leaning closer, he heard the woman say, “Mrs. Lowell was a friend!”
And the door opened in his face.
Rutledge and Lady Benton stared, speechless, at each other. And over her shoulder Newbold stood there in the dimness of the room, grinning.
She collected herself with an effort. “I don’t care to walk back to the Abbey. Do you mind taking me there?”
He’d believed that she was resting. God knew where she thought he was, although he’d been under her windows not a quarter of an hour ago, opening the terrace doors.
Rutledge said tersely, “Wait in the motorcar.” And stepped aside so that she could walk past him.
Without a word, her head high, shoulders squared, she did as he’d asked. But he watched her until she got in and took her seat. Then he turned back to the pub’s owner. The grin had gone, and there was uncertainty in the man’s face now.
Rutledge said, “Two nights ago, there were two men nearby with a bicycle belonging to a murder victim. Your light was on at the time. Tell me what you know about them.”
There was something in his voice—the officer on the battlefield—that reflected his anger, and Newbold backed up against the bar as Rutledge stepped into the room.
“I wasn’t awake. Whoever says I was is lying.”
“I watched the light go out.”
Newbold said, “I don’t know anything about that.”
“Then I’ll take you to London, to answer there. Turn around.”
Rutledge didn’t have his cuffs with him—they were in the motorcar standing across the road. But the man believed him.
“All right. Yes. I was awake. I told you before, I had a toothache. I don’t know anything about men and bicycles.”
“They were not fifty yards from this building. And they were quarrelling. And you were one of them.” He couldn’t be certain about that, but it was worth testing the waters. “When the other man walked away, you went inside, shut your door, and turned off your bedroom light. I want to know what became of that bicycle? It’s evidence in a police inquiry. If you don’t produce it, you’ll be held as an accessory to murder.”
Newbold nervously wiped his upper lip. “I never had that damned bicycle you want, only my own. I never touched this dead woman she was going on about. I don’t know who those men were. There’s been talk. I’ve heard it when there have been people here, drinking.”
“What sort of talk?”
The man shrugged. “That something is going on at the Abbey. People walking about in the night. Coming and going at all hours. Lights moving around the airfield. It’s unsettling. This is a quiet road, the men who come here to drink don’t want any trouble. I keep my mouth shut, my eyes closed.”
“Could you identify those two men quarrelling, if we take them into custody? I’ll know the voices again if I hear them. It won’t be long before I have the speakers.” Again, he was testing the man before him. But the question only served to make Newbold more anxious.
He said, “Here, I don’t need to do any such thing! I don’t want to find myself in trouble with my custom. I shouldn’t have told you what I did.”
“Then they were here—”
“You’re putting words in my mouth! I never heard anything that night. I’d drunk too much whisky, I was never out in the road, I was cursing my bloody tooth.”
Once more he refused to budge. But Rutledge was convinced that he knew something.
Hamish said, “Ye ken, he more afraid of someone else than he is of Scotland Yard.”
Rutledge thought that was very likely true.
But he said to Newbold, “If you don’t send me word when you see them again, you’ll be in more trouble with me than you will with two murderers.”