A Fine Summer's Day

by Charles Todd

  He began with Rachel Barclay and found her at home in a fashionable part of Wells where old money still lived. The house was handsome, and the maid who answered the door wore a uniform so well starched that it gave the impression she was imprisoned in it.

  He told her his name but not his connection with the Yard, and a few minutes later, when he was shown into the sitting room where Rachel Barclay had been writing letters, she frowned on seeing him.

  “I fear you have the advantage of me. Are you a friend of my father’s? I don’t believe we’ve met,” she said quite coolly, rising.

  “I doubt that we have,” he answered equitably. “I’m from Scotland Yard, Miss Barclay. I’m looking into a murder that occurred recently, not far from Wells.”

  “I don’t see why this requires you to call on me.”

  “Because it appears that you can provide proof that Mr. Simmons was with you on the evening in question,” Rutledge said, meeting bluntness with bluntness. And he gave her the date of Tattersall’s death.

  He’d expected her to be surprised.

  Instead she stared at him with distaste and said, “If you are asking me if he got himself drunk later that night, after I had turned down his proposal, the answer is, yes, he was here.”

  “You were a witness to his drinking?”

  For the first time she appeared to be taken aback. “Most certainly not.”

  “Then a member of your family witnessed this fall from grace? Your father? Perhaps a brother or a cousin?” he inquired, his voice polite, his face giving away nothing. But he thought he already knew the answer to his question.

  “Of course not,” she snapped.

  “You are, perhaps, clairvoyant?”

  At that she flushed and walked across the room to the bell pull. “I will ask you to leave now.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t. Not until you’ve answered my question. This is a murder inquiry, Miss Barclay, not a temperance meeting. However disgusting it may appear to you that a man who has just asked for your hand in marriage should go out and drink himself into oblivion, you must tell me how you came to know he’d done such a thing.”

  Flushed and angry, clearly not accustomed to being told what to do, she said, “I shall tell my father how you have behaved, Mr. Rutledge. But to answer your question, I was informed by a friend, who felt I should be aware of the true character of the man who had so recently asked me to be his wife.”

  Rutledge smiled. “Ah, yes, the man who found him in that condition. Inspector Holliston. Thank you, Miss Barclay. I can find my own way out.”

  He turned on his heel, leaving the room and nearly colliding with the maid who was hurrying to answer her mistress’s summons. She begged his pardon and rushed on in the direction of the sitting room.

  Inspector Holliston had overstepped his authority by using information he’d collected in the course of his duties to further his own interests. Rutledge found himself wondering if Holliston had also broken into the solicitor’s chambers in search of any damaging information he might find there.

  His next stop was the bank on the High Street, where he learned from the assistant manager that Mr. Simmons’s accounts were in good order and had not been overdrawn at any time.

  “I was told that he had a problem with gambling. Perhaps the horses?”

  The assistant manager, a short heavyset man called Jenner, laughed. “I daresay any number of our clients may make small wagers from time to time, but these don’t show up in their accounts. It’s usually in notes and on the spur of the moment. I can tell you as well, since it’s on this list you’ve given me, that the accounts of Mr. and Miss Tattersall are also in good order. While their trust is administered by London through Simmons and Simmons, the income is paid into an account in our bank, enabling them to withdraw such monies as they may need for their personal use.” He peered again at the list that Rutledge had. “Mr. William Barry, clerk at Simmons and Simmons, has been saving toward his retirement, and everything is in order there. He lives frugally—a widower with grown children—and takes one holiday a year, traveling to Lyme Regis where he has a cousin.”

  “He doesn’t visit his children?”

  “They come to Wells, it seems. He was saying not long ago that they appear to like coming home, that they enjoy the quiet here. His daughter lives in London and his son in Manchester. Metropolises compared to Wells.”

  “And Mr. Holliston?” Rutledge gently pressed.

  “He has his income as a policeman of course, but also a small legacy from his mother. He tries to live within his means.”

  Hardly the suitor that Miss Barclay might prefer. But Holliston had successfully blackened Simmons’s character in her eyes.

  Thanking Mr. Jenner for his time, Rutledge found a small pub where he ordered his lunch at the bar. Moving on to a table, he began to organize what he’d just learned.

  Holliston had not directly accused Simmons of being involved in the death of Mr. Tattersall, but he had most certainly suggested it was possible. But how had the story that Simmons was an embezzler reached Tattersall’s ears?

  Or perhaps it was the other way around. Inspector Holliston had seen the letter that Tattersall had written, asking Simmons for an accounting of his stewardship. A letter never sent. And Holliston had seized the opportunity to interpret Tattersall’s request as suspicion.

  On the other hand, Tattersall’s might well have been the largest account that Simmons administered. He couldn’t afford to lose it, either financially or from the standpoint of his reputation. Which made Simmons suspect if Tattersall was murdered before the man could make accusations public or move his business elsewhere.

  But Rutledge favored the view that if the trust was withdrawn from Simmons and Simmons, it might make the solicitor a far less eligible suitor for Miss Barclay’s hand. It might even level the playing field in the rivalry. And once started, whispers spread. Of Simmons’s gambling, of his possible misappropriation of funds to pay for it, even of his drunkenness. Whether they’d reached Tattersall’s ears, or his letter had offered Holliston the chance he needed to ruin his rival, there was no way of knowing.

  He finished his meal with a plate of cheeses, and then walked back to the police station.

  Holliston was in a meeting, Rutledge was told, and would be available shortly.

  In another five minutes a tall, well-dressed man strode purposefully out of Holliston’s office and passed Rutledge without a glance.

  Holliston had followed him to the door, and his face changed as he saw Rutledge waiting.

  “I didn’t know you were here. Otherwise I’d have let you speak to Mr. Barclay and explain yourself. You’ve been harassing his daughter.”

  “Nothing of the sort,” Rutledge said breezily. “I’ve been asking her to help the police with their inquiries.”

  “I don’t see how interviewing Miss Barclay could possibly help with your inquiries,” the Inspector retorted, an edge to his voice. Clearly, whatever Barclay had said to him had stung. “Tattersall wasn’t killed until very late. Simmons left the Barclay house shortly after nine-thirty.”

  “I’d like to read for myself the letter that Tattersall wrote to Simmons but never posted.”

  Holliston frowned. “It’s in the file. Constable Hurley must have told you the contents.”

  “The letter, if you please.”

  Holliston turned and went back to his desk, glancing through the files in his current box, and finding the one he wanted. He opened it, thumbed through the contents, and pulled out the letter.

  Rutledge read it through quickly, then a second time.

  The pertinent passage was very different from what he’d expected.

  I shall ask you for an immediate accounting of my affairs. I feel that you are not properly administering them as I would like, and I shall make my suspicions known to London. I have requested on at least two occasions, in writing, that you consider purchasing shares in the Republic of Colombia mines owned by Gower and Healy fo
r our portfolios, but my understanding is that you have failed to do so. This is contrary to our agreements, and I will have an explanation for this dereliction of duty on your part.

  Hardly an accusation of embezzlement, but an angry request to explain the solicitor’s actions.

  Rutledge had seen the advertisements for Gower and Healy in the financial pages of the Times, although he hadn’t read them. They appeared to claim that a new vein had been discovered in the Minero River region and was calculated to produce the finest stones of the last two centuries. Shares were being offered to finance the costs involved in mining them.

  He knew very little about mining emeralds and even less about the Republic of Colombia, but as a policeman Rutledge was well versed in schemes that promised vast fortunes for the gullible investor. Whether the emerald mine was one of those he couldn’t say, but Simmons was well advised not to allow his client to act rashly.

  He handed the letter back to Holliston, who stood there behind his desk, his expression wooden. Looking at his face, Rutledge realized that the Inspector had found Tattersall’s letter and read only the pertinent parts to Constable Hurley and Dr. Graham, leaving them with the impression that the solicitor was guilty of mismanaging funds.

  “You’ve been running a quiet campaign with an eye to discrediting Simmons,” Rutledge told him then. “Your personal affairs are none of my business, but ruining the man’s chances with Miss Barclay is abuse of your authority.” Rutledge was curt. “In my view, you and Miss Barclay deserve each other, but what you’ve also done is muddy the evidence regarding Tattersall’s death. I’m going back there now, to do what I can to sort out truth from fallacy. Any further use of your position for personal gain and you’ll find yourself reduced to rank of constable, if not dismissed from the police altogether.”

  He turned on his heel, leaving Holliston standing there. It wasn’t until he reached the outer door that he heard the man call his name, but he didn’t turn. And Holliston didn’t follow him.

  Returning to Stoke Yarlington, Rutledge sought out Constable Hurley and asked if there had been any strangers in the village in the past weeks.

  Hurley was just finishing his tea, and he wiped his hands as he considered the question.

  “I don’t think there’s been anyone of late. Not since early June, and that was an itinerant peddler selling ribbons and lace and the like. He didn’t find the ladies here very eager to buy, and he moved on. Short man, graying hair, missing a tooth in front. I don’t know that he had anything to do with the Tattersalls. He wasn’t likely to call at their house. His custom came mainly from young girls and a few of the younger maids he encountered on the street.”

  “No one else. Not someone passing through who attracted little attention to himself?”

  “If there was, I never saw him, nor did anyone mention him to me.”

  So much for that line of questioning. He went back to Tattersall’s sister.

  Rutledge asked her much the same questions that he’d put to Hurley, but she was unaware of anyone who might have shown an interest in the house.

  But when asked, Mrs. Betterton said, “I was leaving one night about a week before Mr. Tattersall’s death, and there was a man some twenty yards from the gate, repairing his bicycle tire. He didn’t look up as I came round the house and walked down the path. It was getting on toward dusk, but I’d stayed late to hang the new curtains, helping Miss Tattersall get them to fall just right. I haven’t thought twice about the man since then. He seemed to be just an ordinary sort.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “He was wearing coveralls and a blue shirt. Middling tallish, as far as I could tell, and slim. He didn’t strike me as the usual run of beggars, and so I didn’t give him a second’s thought. I did notice the bicycle appeared to be new, and thought what a pity it was he’d already had a flat.”

  “Did you see his face?”

  “He was wearing a cap, and bending over the tire, putting on a patch. I walked on into the village, and he didn’t pass me. I expect he’d been heading the other way.”

  He turned to Miss Tattersall. “Did you or your brother see this man?”

  “No, Inspector, I expect we were having our dinner. It was rather late that night because of the curtains, and my brother was anxious to dine.”

  “Did you make the curtains yourself?”

  She gave him a withering look that said he knew little about such matters. “No, certainly not. I ordered them from London, and when they came, I thought it was not impossible to hang them myself, rather than have someone in to do it. My brother never cared for people traipsing, as he put it, through the house.”

  Which brought Rutledge back to Bob, the handyman.

  It was Mrs. Betterton who told him where to find Bob.

  He lived in a small stone cottage down a narrow lane that crossed a little stream. There was a wood just beyond the cottage, and the ground rose on the far side of the stream.

  Bob was in the kitchen of the cottage, apparently staring at the walls when Rutledge was ushered in by the woman who had called herself “Bob’s wife.” She was a few years younger than her husband, a pretty woman who had retained her looks into middle age.

  Bob by contrast had the broad shoulders of someone who had been a laborer all his life, and strong, square hands.

  He looked up as Rutledge came into the room, saying, “Who may you be?” in an irascible voice with a heavy Somerset accent.

  “Dear, he’s a policeman, come to speak to you about Mr. Tattersall, I should think.”

  “I’ve already spoken to two policemen, Hurley and that fool from Wells. What does this one want?” He addressed his question to his wife, all the while watching Rutledge.

  “I’m from London, Mr. Bryant. Scotland Yard to be precise. I’ve taken over the inquiry into the death of Mr. Tattersall. I was wondering what you could tell me about that day and whether or not you have any suggestions about who might have wanted to see your employer dead.”

  “I didn’t live in his pocket,” Bob retorted. “I cut his lawns and took care of his flower beds and pruned the bloody shrubs and trees.”

  “You had worked for him how many years? In all that time, you never formed an opinion about Mr. Tattersall, or speculated on his activities?”

  “Twenty-some years, I expect. More like twenty-five. And it wasn’t my place to form opinions or speculate. I was there to see to the grounds and argue with him when we disagreed on the most sensible way of doing that.”

  “Did you argue over anything else?”

  “No. Nothing else was my responsibility.”

  “Will you continue to keep the grounds, now that he’s dead?”

  “I don’t see any reason not to.” He looked at his hands, at the earth caked under the nails and the calluses on his palms. “Miss Tattersall has said nothing to the contrary.”

  “And I don’t expect she will. Who did you see loitering around the grounds one day?”

  Bob frowned. “I never saw anyone hanging about. Who says there was?”

  “Mrs. Betterton saw someone repairing his bicycle tire, just outside the gate to the path. Did you see him?”

  “Here, I never did. If she says I did, she’s lying.”

  “I’m asking if you saw him,” Rutledge replied patiently.

  “No. I start work at seven, leave just at four twice a week. Those were the terms that old fool and I agreed to, and then he set about trying to change them every chance he got.”

  “That’s not fair, Bobby, dear,” his wife put in. “He was very good to you, and he even paid the doctor’s bills, when you hurt your foot.”

  “Was the injury severe? Did it require stitches, laudanum for the pain?” Rutledge asked Mrs. Bryant.

  “My heavens, no,” she answered, smiling. “Dr. Graham put a plaster on it and that was that. But Mr. Tattersall insisted he go back to be sure it’ud healed properly.”

  “He disliked me and I him,” Bob said stubbornly.
r />   “Then why did you work for the man?” Rutledge asked, letting his impatience with Bob show.

  “I needed the position. Besides, I thought, given his age, he’d leave me to it. Old fool that he was.” But there was something in his voice that belied his words, a lack of force, as if he’d said such things for so many years he couldn’t retreat from his position. As if, underneath the gruffness, there was a feeling of loss he didn’t know how to deal with.

  Rutledge glanced at Mrs. Bryant. She was watching her husband with fondness in her gaze and some sadness as well. As if she too knew how much he was hurting.

  “And you know of no enemies or anyone who might wish this man dead?”

  “I’ve told you. He was a difficult man to deal with. His enemies might be legion—but I know nothing about them.”

  Mrs. Bryant said, sadly, “He never bothered anyone. Why should he have enemies? Why should anyone want to kill the poor soul?”

  Which was the question he carried with him as he left.

  If Bob had wanted Tattersall dead, he could have taken the pruning shears to him, or a hammer, any time in the five-and-twenty years of employment. An overdose of laudanum was not the sort of weapon he’d have used. Indeed, how would he know how much was an overdose? It was Mrs. Bryant who would see to such things. But he called in at Dr. Graham’s surgery to be sure.

  Rutledge spent the next several hours interviewing Tattersall’s neighbors, seeking out the vicar of the little church, and speaking to the postmaster in the tiny booth set up in the greengrocer’s shop.

  The vicar put it best. “There has to be a reason for killing, isn’t that true? I don’t think Mr. Tattersall ever raised his voice to anyone, with the exception of Bob Bryant. And then it was more a game than anything else. He was never unkind, and if there were parishioners in need, I’d find extra money in the poor box that week, left there anonymously, but of course I could guess where it came from. He worried about his trust, for fear he’d outlive it, and so he watched it carefully.”