The Red Door

by Charles Todd

  Bowles had urged Rutledge to be careful in his handling of the Teller family. But if they were withholding information, he needed to know now.

  “I won’t listen to this,” Edwin said, getting to his feet.

  Rutledge said, “The only alternative, sir, is that someone came here for your brother and spirited him out of the clinic.”

  The consternation on the face of Edwin Teller was a reflection of his wife’s expression. Rutledge couldn’t tell whether they accepted the possibility or were shocked by it. But he was nearly certain that it had never occurred to them.

  Jenny said, “This is nonsense. I won’t listen to any more. We need to concentrate on what’s important now, and that’s finding Walter.”

  “There’s one other piece of business to attend to.” Rutledge turned from her brother-in-law to her as he spoke. “Give me a moment.”

  He went out to find Sergeant Biggin and retrieve the box.

  Returning to the room, he crossed to the table where Matron served tea to her guests and set the box carefully on the polished surface.

  Jenny’s gaze hadn’t left the box from the moment Rutledge came through the door with his burden. It was almost as if she had a premonition of what lay inside.

  Without a word, he removed the lid.

  He thought at first that Jenny was going to faint, and he moved to help her, but she shook her head and resolutely looked into the box. Edwin followed her, and then Amy looked over his shoulder.

  One glance was enough. Jenny’s gaze lifted to Rutledge’s face, and then she reached out her hand and caressed the cloth of her husband’s coat.

  “It’s not very clean,” she began, then stopped, as if afraid to hear why.

  “I must ask you to make a formal identification of the clothing. If you like, I’ll remove each item and hold it up for you.”

  “You needn’t do that,” she said huskily. “It’s Walter’s.”

  But he lifted out the coat, the shirt, and the trousers, all the same, along with a necktie.

  “Where are his shoes and stockings?” she asked.

  “We haven’t found them so far.”

  “Where did these come from?” Amy asked, moving to Jenny’s side and linking arms with her. “How did you find them?”

  “The clothing was in the possession of a costermonger near Covent Garden. He claims—I’m sorry, but I must tell you this—he discovered them neatly folded by the river not far from Tower Bridge. But no undergarments. And not his wallet. That can mean one of two things. That Mr. Teller is alive and still wearing them. Or they were taken away—or went into the river—to keep us guessing about what happened to him.”

  “No, that’s not possible!” Amy said. “It’s a trick. Walter was playing a trick on us.” She had lost her veneer of helpfulness, anger replacing it.

  Rutledge turned to her, surprised. “What makes you feel it was a trick?”

  “It—it stands to reason! Walter hasn’t killed himself, he only wants us to think so. So we’ll stop looking.” She was very upset. “Show me his body, and then I’ll believe you.”

  Jenny said, “Amy—”

  But she turned away. “I’m tired,” she said. “You mustn’t pay any attention to me. I’m just—tired.”

  Edwin had said nothing, staring at the clothing as if waiting for it to speak and explain itself. But now he said quietly to Rutledge, “Put those things back in the box where we can’t see them. You’ve made your point.”

  Chapter 11

  As Rutledge was refolding the clothing and settling it into the box again, Jenny Teller said thoughtfully, “The mission station in West Africa was by a river. I remember Walter telling us that he couldn’t wear his English clothing there—the damp ruined everything. And so he put them in a tin box and left them behind. He didn’t have a tin box just now, but he left his clothing behind as he was accustomed to doing.”

  Edwin said, “Jenny—don’t.”

  “No, I think it’s true. It’s oddly—comforting, somehow. It means he’s still alive. I’ve said from the beginning that he was.”

  Edwin swore under his breath and cast a glance at his wife. She was watching Jenny, a look of anguish in her eyes.

  Rutledge set the lid back on the box.

  “We don’t know what he might be wearing now,” he warned them. “The search will be all that much more difficult.”

  “I understand,” Jenny said. She took a deep breath. “He’ll come back when he’s ready.”

  Rutledge was halfway to the door when Jenny called to him, “There’s something I should tell you. I hadn’t before. It was very—personal, and Walter has always been a very private man.”

  He turned and waited.

  “Matron very kindly had a cot put in my husband’s room for me, so that I might stay with him. The night before he disappeared, I woke up because I could hear him talking. It was only a murmur, I couldn’t make out the words, and at first I thought he must be talking in his sleep. But then I remembered another time when I’d heard him doing the same thing. It was when he was writing his book. And he had come to a chapter that disturbed him—he kept putting off working on it, and I told him that he should just write—you know, like getting back on a horse after it’s thrown you. It might not be the best material, but it would be a start, and he could revise it when he was finished. And so he did. And it was that night I heard him talking to himself. Or to someone. I never knew for certain what it was.”

  “And you think there’s a connection?”

  “Yes. I think Walter has made his decision. I think he’s decided he’s going back into the field. There must be something that he feels he’s left undone, and what’s sent him away is that he doesn’t know how to tell me. Edwin and Peter must have guessed. It’s why they went looking for him where they did.”

  In the passage, Rutledge met Matron coming toward him. “There is no news?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “What do you have there? May I know?”

  “We’ve found Mr. Teller’s clothing. I brought it here for Mrs. Teller to identify.”

  Matron was silent a moment, and then she said, “But you don’t know yet that he’s dead? You haven’t found him? Mr. Teller?”

  “No. As I’ve just explained to his family, if he’s wearing different clothes, it will make spotting him all that much more difficult. And we don’t know what other changes he has made. Unless finding these by the river is an indication that he took his own life.”

  She said, “I think he wanted to die while he was here. But wanting something and having the opportunity to achieve it can be two very different things.” She gazed down the passage, the way she’d come. “I must tell you that I had the oddest feeling that Mr. Teller had lost his faith. Perhaps that’s what he’s trying so hard to find.”

  “His wife feels he’s made the decision to return to mission work.”

  “Perhaps that’s why,” she said, and walked away.

  Rutledge looked after her, considering her words. He was turning to go when he nearly collided with a well-dressed man just stepping out of one of the doctors’ offices, pushing an invalid chair. The woman swathed in shawls and a motorcar rug looked up and smiled at Rutledge, her thin, illness-ravaged face still attractive and sweet. He smiled in return and held the door for the man.

  From the clinic, Rutledge drove directly to Bolingbroke Street, intending to speak to Captain Teller before either Edwin or his wife could describe their conversation with Scotland Yard.

  Hamish said, “Do you believe what yon missionary’s wife told you?”

  “It could be true. It would explain many of the loose ends. For instance, why Teller is so insistent that he enroll his son in Harrow.”

  “But why take the boy fra’ his mother at sich a time?”

  And that was the sticking point.

  It might be well to have a word with the family solicitors.

  The house in Bolingbroke Street was a corner property, tree
s overhanging the tall fence that enclosed the back gardens, giving it privacy.

  When Rutledge knocked at the door, the maid who answered told him that Captain Teller was in the garden.

  He noted as he passed through the house to the study where French doors gave onto the garden, that it had been tastefully decorated, with an air of old money that was unmistakable. There were two or three landscape paintings of the Dutch school, and one portrait of a woman in a white gown with rich blue sleeves and ribbons. She was of another generation, and dressed for a ball, but her stance and her dark blue eyes, which matched her sleeves, suggested intelligence and humor. A half smile lurked at the corners of her mouth.

  When Rutledge stepped out onto the terrace, he could see Peter Teller sitting in a chair by the small pond, his left leg pillowed on a hassock.

  Captain Teller had stronger features than those shown in the photograph of his brother that Rutledge still carried. There was already a touch of gray at his temples, and his blue-gray eyes were bloodshot.

  For the captain was very drunk.

  “Who are you?” he demanded. “I told Iris I wasn’t at home today.”

  “Inspector Rutledge, Scotland Yard. I’m looking into the disappearance of your brother.”

  “Are you, indeed. Well, I hope you have better luck than we have had. Any news?”

  “Nothing promising.”

  As Rutledge crossed the lawn, Teller indicated the chair opposite him. “Sit down. It strains my back when I have to look up at you.”

  Rutledge took the chair.

  Teller went on, “I’m not usually drunk at this hour. The last three days have been hellish. I do my best, but sometimes the medicines my doctor prescribes can’t touch the pain. I’d have been better if I’d let them take the damned leg when they wanted to.”

  “Is there nothing more to be done?” Rutledge asked sympathetically.

  “The doctors have washed their hands of me. After two or three surgeries and endless treatments with heat and massage and the like, they can’t think of anything else to do. I’m told that I’m fortunate. The sort of treatments now available didn’t exist in the past. They took your leg, and you went home on crutches or a wooden limb. And that was that. But you haven’t come to discuss my leg, I take it.”

  “I’m hoping that you can shed some light on your brother’s disappearance, or if not, on his state of mind the last time you saw him.”

  Peter Teller was very still for a moment. Then he said, “His state of mind the last time I spoke with him was worrying. I said something to my brother Edwin about it. Walter seemed to have lost the will to live. I expect it was the thought of being paralyzed for the rest of his life. And I couldn’t blame him there. The doctors were doing damn all. Well, to be fair, they couldn’t tell what should be done. I think the consensus was some unknown disease. Or else Walter was losing his mind.”

  “Do you know how his will stands, by any chance?”

  “His will? Damned if I know. But I should think there would be the usual bequests to Mollie—his housekeeper—and the church, and the rest left to Jenny in trust for Harry.” He frowned, trying to clear his head. “Are you suggesting that we ought to be prepared?”

  “We found your brother’s clothing early this morning, in possession of a costermonger who claimed he’d found them neatly folded close by the river just south of the Tower.”

  “Good God,” Peter said blankly. “Is the man telling the truth? Or do you think something has happened to Walter? Did you speak to Edwin? What did he have to say?”

  “We’re not sure what to think,” Rutledge said. “That’s why I’m here. Why did your brother walk out of the clinic without a word to anyone? Why has he made no effort to reassure his wife that he’s alive and well? Has the marriage been a happy one? Or is it troubled?”

  “I—I have no answer to give you. There’s been a disagreement over Harry’s future, but it was bound to come at some point. In my opinion, Walter is wrong on that subject, but Jenny is Jenny—she’ll be angry for a time, and then find a way to cope.”

  “Where did you go when you left London to look for your brother?”

  “Where?” For an instant Peter Teller seemed to be at a loss. And then he asked, “Didn’t Edwin tell you?”

  “I had rather hear your version of events.”

  “Damn it, I’ve nothing to add to what he said. We went looking for Walter’s old adviser. He’d left Cambridge and moved to Scotland. It was a wild goose chase.”

  Which wasn’t what Amy Teller had told Rutledge.

  “Can you give me the direction of Walter’s solicitors? I’d like to speak to them.”

  Peter Teller moved so quickly he knocked his glass from the table at his elbow, and he swore, as the sudden movement hurt his back. “The man is still alive as far as we know. I think it’s obscene to read his will before he’s dead. I’ve told you, as far as I know, it’s straightforward. When you find his body, come to me and I’ll give you the name of the firm.”

  There was nothing more to be gained from Peter Teller. Rutledge thanked him and left.

  Walking back through the house, he encountered an attractive young woman with hair the color of honey and dark brown eyes. She started, and said, “Oh—I didn’t know we had guests.”

  Rutledge apologized, then identified himself.

  “Scotland Yard?” Her gaze shifted to the passage behind him, then back again. “You’ve—were you speaking to my husband?”

  Susannah Teller, then. He said, “I’ve just come from the garden.”

  “He’s a little—under the weather,” she told him. “I hope you’ll consider anything he said with that in mind.”

  What, he wondered, had she thought her husband might have said?

  “I would like to ask you the same questions, if you don’t mind. I’ve been put in charge of the search for your brother-in-law. Apparently you went to Cornwall on the off chance that he might be there.”

  “It was hardly an off chance, as you put it. His family had a summer cottage just north of St. Ives, and they often spent holidays there. The cottage was sold at his father’s death, but he might not have remembered that. He might have wanted a quiet sanctuary.”

  “Why? Why leave his wife to worry? If he’d recovered, why not take her with him?”

  She was watching his face. “We were trying to think where he might have gone. That’s all. Cornwall was a place of happy memories.”

  “What would you have done if you’d found him in Cornwall, confused and difficult to handle?”

  “I—I don’t believe I considered that possibility. I thought he might be grateful that someone was there, and come back with me without fuss.”

  Rutledge let it go. Whatever motivations the Teller family had had for going off on their own, they weren’t about to confide in the police. Until Walter Teller was found dead, there was no way to persuade his family otherwise.

  “Has Teller had a history of such disappearances?”

  “Good heavens, no! Nor has he ever been this ill, except of course for his bouts of malaria. That’s what was so worrying.”

  Was, not is.

  As if the solution was already known to them.

  Rutledge said, “Early this morning, the police discovered Teller’s clothing in the possession of a man who claims he found them beside the Thames.”

  “But he couldn’t have—” She caught herself and added, “Surely you don’t believe Walter drowned himself? I won’t, for one.”

  “Mrs. Teller, the man’s been missing for several days. Half of London is searching for him. And he’s nowhere to be found. Suicide, to put it bluntly, remains an option.”

  With that he thanked her and wished her a good day. But he had the strongest feeling that a good day was not in the cards for the Teller family.

  It had been a long morning. He changed his mind about going on to the Yard and instead turned toward Frances’s house.

  Rutledge had spent as much time as he
could spare from the Yard with his godfather. During the day, Trevor entertained the boy with the swans in St. James’s Park, the ravens at the Tower, and the giraffes at the Regent’s Park Zoo. And in the evenings, after the child had been put to bed, the two men sat in the garden, talking as they had once done before the war and the loss it had brought in its wake.

  Trevor had been a very fine architect before the death of his son had sent him into early retirement. He said one night, “I remember when your parents lived here in this house, and the parties they gave. Nothing elaborate, you understand, but we always enjoyed those evenings. Sometimes your mother would sit in the drawing room and play the piano while your father and I took our brandy out here after dinner. She was such a fine pianist. Your father was very proud of that.”

  Rutledge said, “I remember her playing. I wish Frances would use the piano from time to time. But it sits closed from one year to the next.”

  “Yes.” Trevor sighed. “Tell me about Frances. She hasn’t married. Was there someone in particular?”

  “I always thought she might marry Ross. But there was someone else she loved for a time. Nothing came of it. Nothing could. Lately there was another man who seemed to take her fancy. I thought she was in love with him. But she hasn’t mentioned him for some weeks.”

  “And what about you?”

  Rutledge moved uneasily in his chair. “I don’t think I’ve healed sufficiently from the war to think about marrying anyone.”

  “You aren’t still grieving for Jean, are you?”

  Rutledge looked away, watching the twilight fade to night. “No. I grieve for her, but not out of love. Out of sadness that her life wasn’t filled with the happiness she was searching for so hard.”

  “Yes, the war to end all war hasn’t turned out to be the blessing they promised us it would be. I look back at King Edward’s reign, and I think to myself, we were blissfully unaware of what was to come. Although there had been some talk about the Kaiser’s ambitions, no one took it seriously. I remember those days as sunlit and untrammeled by shadows.”