“When was this?” he asked abruptly.
Taken aback, Farmer said, “Let me see . . . A few weeks ago, I think. I try to help them if I can find them—they are often hungry and have no hope of work.”
“I should like to speak to Mrs. Trask.”
“But there was no one in the churchyard—”
“When did you look?”
“The next morning—before breakfast—when her son came pounding at my door.”
That was well before the Friday when Lady Benton had seen the ghosts in her private garden . . .
He finished his tea. “Will you come with me?” Mrs. Trask might very well speak more freely to her priest than to a stranger.
In the event, once started, Mrs. Trask was anything but shy with a Scotland Yard Inspector in her tiny parlor.
The cottage backed up to the churchyard on the lane that curved around the church and rejoined the main road several more houses along what was called Churchyard Lane.
She was not as old as Rutledge had expected. Seventy perhaps, but her blue eyes were alert, and she was very happy to talk to anyone who came to call. The question was, how good was her vision? She wore gold-rimmed glasses, and in the middle of the night, waking from sleep, she might not have had them to hand.
“Tell me about what you saw in the churchyard several weeks ago?” he asked after the introductions, an offer of tea, a monologue about her son having lived in London for a time and having considered joining the Met.
“But of course he doesn’t have the patience of a policeman. He’s more suited to railway work. That was, until the war took his leg. And now he’s the postmaster with a tiny box of a room in the General Store.”
“Does he live with you?”
“His house is next but one to mine. And much as I care for my grandchildren, I do sometimes wish he lived in the next village.”
Rutledge forced himself to keep a straight face. “Can you show me the window from which you can see the churchyard?” he asked.
She glanced at the Rector. “It’s my bedroom . . . Well, I’m not used to visitors asking to see it.”
“I should like to see the view you had when you noticed someone in the churchyard.” He turned to the Rector. “This is a police matter, I’m sure that makes a difference. Mr. Farmer can wait for us.”
Only partly mollified, she said, “Still . . .”
“Mrs. Trask, you might well have witnessed a felon lurking there,” he told her, “and you would not wish someone to come to harm because I didn’t have sufficient information to find and stop him before that happened.”
Mrs. Trask was nobody’s fool. She stared at him in horror. “You aren’t saying, are you, that he killed poor Mrs. Lowell?”
He swore to himself. “Early days, Mrs. Trask, but you must keep that to yourself. I am serious, I don’t want you to mention this to anyone and find yourself in danger as a consequence.”
“Of course I shan’t,” she snapped. “I can see that for myself. Come on, then, up the stairs with you.”
There were only two bedrooms at the top of the stairs, and instead of running side by side, with the staircase in between, they were back to back, one facing the street and the other facing the back garden, with the stairwell and a cupboard in between.
The room was as tidy as the parlor, with a bed, a small armoire, two chairs, and a washstand as its only furnishings. Drapes had been opened, allowing the morning light from a pair of windows to fill the room with brightness.
Mrs. Trask neatly stepped ahead of him to stand between him and the chamber pot discreetly set to one side of the washstand, and pointed to the windows.
“The moon was up, I could see clearly. The church clock had only just struck three, and there was someone moving about old Mrs. Thompkins’ tomb. He stayed there, he didn’t leave, and I went down to be sure my doors were locked, even though the churchyard wall stands between us. He was still there when I came back up the stairs. I watched for half an hour or so, but he didn’t move. I thought perhaps he was sleeping rough. And there was a little chill that night. Not that the dead could warm him.”
“Are you certain it was a man?” Rutledge asked her. She was right, he could see the table tomb from here. “Not a dog?”
She was affronted. “I may be seventy, but I’m not blind,” she told him sharply. “Even without my glasses. I can still tell two from four, and he had two legs. And before you ask, he had on trousers, not skirts.”
Hamish said, his voice seeming loud in the small room, “She’s a verra’ sound witness.”
And he was right, Rutledge thought. The woman’s gray hair covered a very clear mind.
“He was not there in the morning?”
“I usually rise with the sun, and he was not there.”
“You hadn’t seen him there before that night?”
“I draw the curtains most nights. But the moon was bright, and after I turned down the lamp, I decided to open them.”
Oddly enough, very like Lady Benton, she enjoyed the moonlit nights.
“Still,” she was saying, “I did look the next night, and there was no sign of him.”
“Did you report this to the police?”
“The nearest police are in Walmer. How was I to report to them? I sent my son to speak to Rector.”
She had done her duty.
He stood for a moment, looking out at the back of the churchyard, the table tomb clearly visible from here, the only one of its kind that he could see. And then he turned to leave. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Trask. I will look into it.”
Satisfied, she escorted him down the stairs, offered them tea again, but Rutledge told her that he must pay a visit to the churchyard.
On the way back to the Rectory, Farmer asked, “Do you truly believe there’s anything to this business?”
“Probably not, but I should take a look. Still, I would advise you not to mention my interest in it. Or even that anyone had noticed anything in the churchyard. It’s best.”
“Yes, yes, I understand.”
They walked in silence back to the Rectory, and Rutledge left Farmer at the house door, not wanting anyone else tramping about on the ground before he’d had a good look.
But whoever had been there, he’d left nothing behind, not a bottle, the paper from a packet of sweets—nothing.
There was the imprint of a boot some three feet from the table tomb, in the soft ground near an older, sunken grave.
Rutledge squatted there to take a closer look.
A military boot, meant for long marches, perfect for walking any distance, if they fit well enough that no blisters formed. The tread was well worn, especially on the inner side of the heel, as if the wearer had some problem with his leg. Other than that, the sole was ordinary.
Hamish said, “Ye canna’ know who walked here.”
It was true, but he had something to be going on with.
The road perforce passed the Old Rectory, and Rutledge pulled in. There was little hope of find a matching shoe print here, but he owed it to Patricia Lowell to try.
It took him two hours of scouring the ground around the house and then around the outbuildings.
And there, by the shed where Mrs. Lowell had kept her bicycle, was a faint heel print just inside the door. Someone—it looked like a woman’s boot—had stepped on the print, obliterating much of it. But not that distinctive wearing down on the inner side of the heel.