The Red Door

by Charles Todd

  And that was the irrefutable fact. As Hamish was pointing out, even if Teller had hated himself for what he’d done, even if he’d broken his own cane out of self-loathing, he’d surely have had the sense to take the head of the cane with him. Even the drunken Peter Teller was far from stupid.

  “Ye said yoursel’, it’s damning,” Hamish told him.

  He should have been satisfied. But he wasn’t.

  “Why did Cobb leave the rest of the cane for us to find?”

  “To protect himself, if suspicion fell on him.” Satterthwaite stood up, collecting his own cup, intending to wash up. “I’ve had hours to think, waiting for you to come back. Hours.”

  Fighting a rearguard action, Rutledge said, “And the box of letters?”

  Satterthwaite replied, “Cobb said he never touched them. He had no reason to do it, and he couldn’t have taken them home with him. Teller must have put them in the boot. We’ll have to ask Larkin if he could see the boot of the motorcar from where he was.”

  “No,” said Rutledge. “If she’d been alive, she would never have allowed that. Not her letters. She’d have fought him every step of the way.”

  “Even if she was disillusioned?”

  Satterthwaite scowled. “Then it was Cobb. Bound to have been. To hurt her more? Or maybe he wanted to read them. Who knows?”

  “You said Cobb was in Thielwald?”

  “I told you. I didn’t want him here. He’s safer there. And so am I.”

  “I want to see him.”

  “I know how much time you’ve given to this inquiry. I know how well you’d put together the case against Teller. I know how I’d said all along that no one here in Hobson would touch her. We were both wrong.”

  Rutledge kept his cup, reached for the Thermos, uncapped it, and poured himself more tea. Then he said, “All right. I still must speak to Cobb. I want to judge him for myself. Let’s go.”

  “Now? At this hour of the night?” Satterthwaite demanded as Rutledge drained his cup and handed back it to him.

  “I have to be back in London as quickly as I can. There’s Teller’s death.”

  They drove to Thielwald in an uncomfortable silence. Satterthwaite had said what he knew he must say. And Rutledge could think of no way to prove him wrong.

  Hamish, a third in the motorcar, his voice at Rutledge’s ear, was trying to make himself heard, but Rutledge shut him out.

  Concentrating on the dark winding road ahead, Rutledge tried to find holes in Satterthwaite’s arguments, weighing Teller against Cobb. He’d liked Cobb. He’d believed the man when he said that he couldn’t have killed Florence Teller. But then Teller himself had denied touching his wife. And that had rung true as well.

  The sky was just brightening as the rain clouds scudded away, already thinning enough to offer the promise of sun to take their place.

  Satterthwaite broke the silence. “A fair day . . .” And then his voice trailed off as Rutledge brought the motorcar to a halt in front of Thielwald’s police station. “I was thinking,” he went on as they got out. “If Cobb hadn’t walked out on her, I wonder if Betsy would have come to me. Even if she’d found a dozen bloody canes lying about in the barn. I think she’d have kept her mouth shut, and lived with a murderer, if it meant she could keep Cobb. After all, he’d rid her of her rival, whatever the reason behind it. Still, in the end, he’d have been brought under her thumb with the threat of exposure. That’s in her nature, to want to rule the roost. And he might have killed her then, to escape.”

  “The only surprise is the fact that she didn’t wait longer than she did, on the off chance that he might come back. Now he’s out of reach for good.”

  Rutledge went to the boot and took out the pieces of cane, wrapped in an oiled cloth. Changing his mind, he left them there and led the way to the door.

  The sleepy constable on duty picked up the lamp on his desk and showed them to the cell where Cobb was sitting on the edge of his cot, his head in his hands. From the drained, empty look in his eyes as the door swung open and he saw Rutledge standing there, it was evident he’d not slept since he’d been arrested. He got slowly to his feet, and in the light from the constable’s lamp, Cobb’s eyes gleamed like those of a trapped animal.

  Rutledge had seen that look before—nearly as often in the innocent as in the guilty. That fear of things getting out of hand, of wanting to fight back when flight was no longer an option, and that blindingly helpless feeling of knowing the odds are set against you because the evidence is overwhelming.

  He was prepared for argument, for Cobb appealing to him over Satterthwaite’s head, expecting the man from London wouldn’t know Hobson or its people as well as the constable did.

  Instead Cobb said, “Am I to be taken to London, then?” The words came out more harshly than the man intended.

  Rutledge said, “That hasn’t been decided.”

  “You’ll have to find another home for Jake, you know,” he went on, striving to conceal the anxiety that had kept him awake.

  “He seems to prefer women.”

  “There was no one else in the house with them year after year. It’s not surprising. I’d have had to win his trust. Or not. But I’d have kept him,” he added wistfully. Then with a spark of his old self, “He didn’t get along all that well with my mother-in-law. My mother-in-law heard him speaking once and swore I was in that house somewhere. Florence told me that.”

  A thought struck Rutledge. Peter would have known the difference between Jake’s voice and his brothers’ . . .

  “What do you have to say for yourself, Cobb? You swore to me you hadn’t killed her. You told me you wanted to get your hands on the man who did.”

  “I never expected Betsy to turn against me,” he said. “Not that I blamed her. But it was a stab in the back, all the same.”

  “You walked away from her and your marriage.”

  “After great provocation. It was that or strike her back. All I can do is wonder how long she’d have kept that cane’s head hidden, if I’d stayed. Or begged to come home again.” It was what Rutledge himself had wondered.

  “Why did you keep the head of the cane?”

  “I didn’t. If I’d found it, I’d have come to the police.”

  “Then how did it wind up among your tools? Your wife has sworn in her statement that she’d found it there.”

  “I don’t think it bothered her to swear to a falsehood. She was that angry. At a guess, the knob came from Mrs. Blaine, Betsy’s mother. She found the body. If she’d seen the cane and realized that the head was gold, she’d have taken it. She’s like a magpie. Always had an eye for herself, or anything to her advantage. She’ll offer to buy Florence’s land. See if she doesn’t. I hope Teller tells her to go whistle up the wind.”

  “All the same, it was interfering with the scene of a murder.” He paused. “Peter Teller is dead.”

  “What? How? By his own hand?”

  “We don’t know yet. Early days.”

  “My God.” Cobb shook his head in disbelief. “She’d have been a widow after all. As for the cane, I wouldn’t have kept it, gold or not. There’s blood on it. Constable Satterthwaite made certain to point it out.”

  “We’d like to ask you one last thing. What became of the rosewood box with Mrs. Teller’s letters in it?”

  “I wouldn’t have taken them. What good were they to me? But they meant a lot to her. It would be like taking Timmy’s photograph. A cruelty.”

  “What else was in that box? The deed to the house?”

  “How do I know? I never saw the contents. Only her reading a letter to Jake.” He frowned. “Even my mother-in-law saw her reading them. She thought it was a love letter from me. And didn’t I get a flea in my ear! But I could look her in the face and tell her it wasn’t true. The only time I’d ever written Florence Teller was when Timmy died, to tell her how sorry I was over his loss. I doubt she kept it.”

  Into the brief silence, he said to Rutledge, “You haven’t a
sked me if I killed her. Only what I had to say for myself.”

  “Did you kill Florence Teller?”

  Beside him he could feel Satterthwaite stir and then be still again.

  “I did not. If I hang, I will tell the hangman I never touched her.”

  “Then who did? Teller?”

  “He must have done.”

  Rutledge turned away.

  The constable holding the lamp said, “Will that be all, then?” He shifted it to his other hand, preparing to close and lock the cell’s door.

  “No. Not yet.” Rutledge walked away, through the gloom of the station and out into the cool morning air.

  Satterthwaite’s silent accusation, as if Rutledge had betrayed him, kept him from thinking, and the beaten spirit of Lawrence Cobb, feeling his own sense of betrayal, clouded the issues.

  And what were they? A dead woman. A broken cane with blood on the knob. A missing box of letters. Those were the facts, irrefutable, and the evidence must encompass them or it was faulty.

  It was also a fact that Teller—or someone—had driven away around the same time Florence Teller was murdered. And Larkin, a walker, was a witness to that. The cane was a witness as well to Peter Teller’s presence. If he’d been chary with information about his regiment while living here in Hobson, he’d never have left that at Sunrise Cottage in his absences. It hadn’t been there for the killer to find ready to hand, until Teller himself brought it.

  Teller—or Cobb? Where did the truth lie?

  He walked on up the street, shops still closed, the milk van making its rounds, the sound of clinking bottles off in the distance, a crow calling from the church tower down another street, and wheels somewhere clattering over cobbles. A dog trotted up behind him, sniffed in his direction, and trotted on, looking for company. A cat in a house window silently meowed at him as he passed.

  Go back to the evidence.

  Hamish said, “It hasna’ changed.”

  And that was true. It hadn’t altered. Going back over it was fruitless.

  Rutledge swore.

  He needed a night’s sleep, to clear his mind. But there wasn’t one in the offing.

  Hamish was right. The evidence was the same. What was new?

  The cane’s head had been found. Peter Teller’s regimental crest on it showed that Peter had been in Hobson, at Sunrise Cottage, on the day of the murder.

  But that was all it showed. It couldn’t speak and identify who had used it.

  Cobb’s words came back to him: She found the body. If she’d seen the cane and realized that the head was gold, she’d have taken it. She’s like a magpie . . .

  And Satterthwaite’s voice: Mrs. Blaine reached for the paperweight, and I had to push Cobb back to the only cell.

  After that, his own: What else was in that box? The deed to the house?

  Cobb again: She’ll offer to buy Florence’s land. See if she doesn’t.

  He could hear Mrs. Blaine threatening to wring Jake’s neck, because he didn’t talk, he only made a terrible racket.

  Hamish said, “Aye, it wasna’ the letters.”

  Rutledge turned on his heel and walked briskly back to the police station. He found that Satterthwaite had brought chairs to the cell door, and he and Cobb were staring at each other like mastiffs circling each other looking for a weakness.

  Rutledge said to the Thielwald constable, “Handcuff him. I want to take him with us.”

  “Back to Hobson?” the constable said.

  “Where?” Satterthwaite demanded.

  “Just do it,” Rutledge told them. “I’ll be in the motorcar.”

  And he walked away.

  His mind was on Hamish. Cobb in front, Satterthwaite in the back. And then both of them could watch Cobb.

  The two constables emerged from the station with Cobb between them.

  “This is most irregular. Sir?” the constable was saying.

  “It’s all right. He’ll be back within the hour. Front, Cobb. Sit just behind him, Satterthwaite.”

  They did as they were told. One look at Rutledge’s face, and none of them was willing to risk argument.

  They drove in silence out of Thielwald to the road for Hobson, and then took the turning for Sunrise Cottage.

  “We’re going back to the house?” Satterthwaite asked.

  Rutledge didn’t answer, his mind on what was to come.

  When he drove past the cottage and turned into the rutted lane to the Blaine farm, Satterthwaite said, “Here, you can’t call on her at this hour!”

  “She keeps a dairy farm. She was up milking at four.” Drawing up at the front of the house, he said, “Cobb, stay here. And keep watch.” He strode up to the door and knocked. “Let me do the talking,” he told Satterthwaite.

  “If you’ll just tell me, sir—”

  But the door was swinging open, and Mrs. Blaine was standing there, a basket of eggs under her arm.

  She stared at them suspiciously. “Inspector. Constable. I was just about to candle the eggs.” Then she saw Cobb in the motorcar, and said angrily, “What’s he doing here? He’s a dangerous man.”

  “If he’s smart, he’s doing precisely what I told him to do,” Rutledge said. “May we come in?”

  She was still blocking the door, but she said now, “I’ll tell you flat out I found it hard to believe he was a killer. Just shows you, doesn’t it, that you can’t be sure about people, however well you think you know them. And so I shall say at the inquest.”

  “This isn’t about Cobb. I’ve come to tell you that the parrot does talk.”

  Her eyes widened, but she said only, “We heard it. It said good night to Lieutenant Teller.” She stepped aside. “You’d better come in, then.”

  “Thank you.”

  They followed her through to the kitchen where she set the basket of eggs to one side of the sink, then turned to face them.

  “There’s a witness who heard the bird exclaim ‘No. No. No.’ in some distress. We’ve come to believe that this was the moment when Mrs. Teller turned from her assailant and tried to escape.

  “A witness?” Mrs. Blaine asked warily.

  “The person who is presently caring for the bird.”

  “Did it mention a name?” She waited, her eyes on Rutledge’s face. “It would know Cobb. He was always there. Couldn’t stay away.”

  “You found the body. Is that correct?”

  “I told you—I was off to market and I often asked if there’s anything Mrs. Teller needed. That’s why I saw her in the doorway.”

  “After she’d been dead for what? Two days?”

  “It’s you and the constable there who said two days. I couldn’t tell.”

  “You brought Jake here, to keep him safe, is that correct?”

  She was more comfortable now. “Yes. Poor thing, someone had to have mercy on him.”

  “But you were prepared to wring his neck when you discovered he couldn’t name her killer.”

  “I—who said he could name him? It was you, wanting to take him to London with you.”

  “You found the body. You’d taken Jake without telling the police. What else was there? Did you see that the cane had a heavy gold head? And did you think the rosewood box might hold more than letters? That the deed to the house might be in there as well? After all, there were no heirs.”

  “Here!” she exclaimed. “You can’t prove any of that. Except that I took the parrot out of pity for it.”

  “There’s no one else who would have taken the box. She was alive when Peter Teller saw her, and she would never have given the letters up—”

  “Peter—but I was told he was dead.”

  “But he was there that day. It was his cane you picked up. And he owns the house with the red door, now that his wife is dead.”

  Her face flushed. “If it was Teller who came back, why didn’t he stay? Why did he leave? I don’t believe you.”

  “I don’t know the answer to that. Still, he must have spoken to Florence. She mus
t have turned him out. Perhaps she decided that she preferred Lawrence Cobb after all.”

  “She did. Betsy—”

  She stopped.

  “Betsy asked her?”

  “I was about to say—”

  “Mrs. Blaine. Was it you or your daughter who murdered Florence Teller?”

  Satterthwaite’s breath came out in a hiss, but he said nothing.

  “Murdered her? It was that husband of hers, I tell you. You’ve seen the proof.”

  “I don’t think it was Cobb. Teller came to see his wife, and she sent him away. Or he said what he’d come to say and left. We’ll never know. And someone came along just after that. Was Mrs. Teller sitting on her step crying? Or standing at the door looking as if she’d seen a ghost? Someone stopped. A woman. And misunderstanding what was said when Florence was asked what was wrong, one of you suggested she go back inside, and as she turned, one of you picked up the cane her husband had dropped in his own shock and grief, and struck Mrs. Teller with it, then panicked and left her there.”

  “There’s not a word of truth—”

  “And then,” he went on inexorably, “when no one found her, you had to be the one to call the police. You couldn’t wait any longer.”

  “It’s Cobb—”

  “Cobb didn’t have the box of letters. Teller didn’t have them. That left you. Which means you went inside that house, stepping over the body, to see if Cobb was in the back weeding. And because he wasn’t, you helped yourself to the bird, to the box where you knew Mrs. Teller had kept her personal papers, and then the head of the cane, which was gold. Putting it all together, I can see now that it was Betsy who killed her. And you went there as soon as she told you, to make sure there was no evidence against her.”

  Mrs. Blaine, fighting for control, said, “I’ll tell them in the courtroom that you’re a filthy liar, that you came here from London and couldn’t see your nose in front of your face. I’ll tell them that because I did a good deed, you want to blame me, to cover up your incompetence. They won’t like you when I’ve finished with them, and they won’t believe a word you say.”

  “Betsy thought it was Cobb, didn’t she, who had brought Florence Teller to tears? She didn’t wait to hear all of it. She acted in a fury.”