The red door ir-12

by Charles Todd

  "Did he have a cane? Or some sort of tool in his hand-did you see him toss anything into the motorcar, like a box?"

  "I don't know-no, actually I do." Larkin squinted, as if bringing back the scene in his memory. "He was empty-handed when he went to crank the car. But if I'd seen a cane, I wouldn't have been surprised, given the problem with his legs."

  "Describe the Rolls, if you will."

  "Black, well polished, 1914 Ghost, touring car. Rather like the one you drove up in, save for the color."

  And very like the one Edwin Teller had just driven away in.

  Hamish said, "Do ye believe the lad?"

  All things considered, Rutledge thought he did. Larkin needn't have come forward, for one thing. He'd already disappeared into the landscape. But sometimes cases turned on unexpected evidence like this.

  "Where are you studying?" Rutledge asked, curious.

  "Cambridge," Larkin answered and named his college. "Which is why this was a walking tour and not two weeks in Italy. I couldn't afford it," he added with a grin.

  "Did you see anyone at the house? A woman? Or notice that the house had a red door?"

  "I never saw the door. No one was in the kitchen yard. I don't know about the front garden. There was the hedge, you see. Nearly as tall as I was."

  Rutledge turned to Hadden and Satterthwaite. "Anything else?"

  They had no further questions. Rutledge thanked Larkin and told him he could go. And then he said as Larkin reached behind the desk and lifted his haversack, "Would you mind if I looked in that?"

  Larkin slung it off his shoulder and said, "Help yourself. Mind the dirty wash."

  But there was nothing in the pack that could have been used for a weapon. And nothing that could have come from Florence Teller's house. Only spare clothes, a tarp for wet weather, a hairbrush, a toothbrush, a comb, a block of soap, a razor, a book on English wildflowers and another on birds, a heavy bottle for water, and a small sack of dried fruit, biscuits, sweets, and a heel of cheese. Nothing, in fact, that a walker shouldn't have, and everything he should.

  Hamish said, "He could ha' left behind anything he didna' want you to see."

  It was true. But the very compactness of the haversack, intended to minimize weight and maximize comfort in a small space, didn't allow for extras.

  Rutledge nodded, asked for his address at Cambridge, and when that was done, thanked him again. Larkin went out the door.

  "What do you think?" Inspector Hadden asked, echoing Hamish.

  "I'll ask the Yard to be sure he's who he says he is. But I expect he's telling the truth."

  "Was it Teller coming home?" Satterthwaite asked. "If it was, he has money now. I never thought he did before. He had enough that he wasn't looking to live on Florence's money from her aunt. But not rich."

  "A good point," Rutledge acknowledged. "Pass the word to keep an eye on Larkin while he's in the district. He might be able to identify the driver, if we find him."

  Turning to Satterthwaite, Rutledge said, "Did you look at that hedge around the front of the house? If I wanted to rid myself of a murder weapon, I might consider sticking it deep in there. It's thick enough."

  Satterthwaite said slowly, "No, we did not. Under it, yes. But we'd have seen anything in the branches, wouldn't we?"

  "It won't hurt to have another go at it."

  By the time they reached Sunrise Cottage, clouds were building far out over the water, and Satterthwaite, scanning them, said, "Looks like this fine weather is about to break. I'm glad the service was dry."

  Rutledge agreed with him. But he thought they had another hour.

  They searched the hedge carefully, together pulling at the thickest parts of it and then letting them fall back into place. Inch by inch, they worked one side and across the front. As they came round to the corner closest to the house, Rutledge had to step into the hedge to make it easier to part the thick branches there, and grunting, Satterthwaite pushed and shoved at them. Rutledge nearly lost his footing and caught the constable's shoulder to steady himself. He turned to look down.

  The earth under the hedge was thick with last winter's fallen leaves and possibly those of winters before that. They formed a light bed perhaps a good inch or so deep.

  Cobb, the schoolmaster, had told Rutledge that since the war, there had been no one but his nephew to help with the farm. And this was proof of it.

  "What's the matter?" Satterthwaite asked as Rutledge knelt to run his fingers through the damp and rotting mass.

  He had to dig deep into the soil below, but it was loose enough and damp enough for him to wedge his fingers behind something there.

  He found what he was after and pulled it toward him. He could hear the constable's indrawn breath as he realized what was coming to light.

  Not a walking stick as the doctor had first suggested, but the remains of a Malacca cane. Rutledge stood up with it in his hands.

  Although filthy, with leaves still clinging to it, it was not an old and rotting thing. It had been hidden here fairly recently, buried just deep enough that a policeman searching among the sparse hedge trunks close to the ground would have seen only what he expected to see-the carpet of leaves. But someone had taken the sharp end and used it to thrust the length of the cane out of sight well below that layer.

  "If I hadn't felt it under my sole, I wouldn't have thought to dig," Rutledge said, running his hands along the wood, gently brushing off the debris.

  "There's no head," Satterthwaite pointed out.

  The head had been broken off, and the smooth dark red shaft was still raw where the wood had been splintered.

  "It would match the wound in Florence Teller's head-or at least the murderer thought it might." He frowned. "It wouldn't be easy to snap off the head. Rattan palm canes are very strong. There must have been a weakness-where the cane had dried and cracked around the knob that served as a handle."

  "Why leave the rest? Why not take the cane and throw it off a bridge far from here?"

  "The killer wouldn't have wanted to be seen with it in his possession."

  "But if he brought it here-"

  "Yes, that's the point. But it only became a weapon once Florence Teller was killed. Before that it was simply someone's cane."

  He looked around. The tidy bit of lawn, the flowers on the path, the step and the street door… They hadn't been disturbed.

  Hamish said, "The step."

  It was a long, rectangular slab of stone, smoothed to serve the doorway. Rutledge walked over to it and ran his hands along the edge. Someone could have shoved the head of the cane under the slab, and with the force of anger or of fear, managed to snap it off. Brush the earth back again, where the head had dug in, and who would notice what had been done. If the police hadn't found the cane, the slab of step would hold no significance. Someone, having just killed, had taken the time to think through what to do with the weapon.

  That was an interesting look into his state of mind, whoever he was.

  Rutledge began to sift the earth very gently through his fingers, moving aside a plant and reaching down under the stone. The head of the cane wasn't there. He hadn't expected it to be, but he'd had to be sure.

  He was just smoothing the earth back into place when Hamish said, "There!"

  Rutledge stopped. There was nothing he could see at first, and then he recognized what was caught in the roots of the pansy.

  It was not as big as a toothpick. Just a fine splinter of wood, like the proverbial needle in a haystack. It was, in fact, more like a needle than anything else, one that had been held to a flame and tarnished.

  He dug it out carefully, blew away the earth that smothered it, and put up his hand for the broken end of the cane that Satterthwaite was still holding.

  There was no match, of course, but there was no doubt that it was the same wood.

  Satterthwaite said, "It was savagely done."

  "He'd have liked to hit her a second time, I expect. One blow was not enough to satisfy hi
m. I wonder why? Because she died so easily? Or would her battered head give him away?"

  "The walker. Larkin."

  "I doubt it. The only thing taken was a box of letters."

  "I wonder where the head of the cane might be? Was it valuable, do you think? Larkin indicated he had no money to speak of, this summer."

  "He might have found the cane here, and stolen the head. But that would be after the murder, and her body would have been lying here in plain sight. Still-" Rutledge turned to stare beyond the gate, in the direction of Thielwald. "It's just as well we're keeping an eye on him." He returned to the cane in hand. "It will be a miracle if we ever find the rest." It must have been distinctive, he thought, this head. They were usually ivory or gold, with initials or a figure that could easily be identified and therefore was equally damning. He wondered if Edwin Teller would be willing to describe his brother's cane.

  Teller's motorcar? Teller's cane? But none of these was proof of murder. Only that he was here on the day that Florence Teller died. Or one of his brothers was here…

  "The man in the motorcar. He didna' have a cane when he left," Hamish pointed out.

  "But we don't know if he carried one with him when he arrived. For all we know, he found the body and panicked."

  He'd spoken aloud.

  Satterthwaite said, "The man in the motorcar? That could be. He didn't have the casket of letters either."

  "What if he'd already put them in the boot? He might have returned to the house to destroy the cane."

  "True enough. I'd sworn we'd searched that hedge carefully."

  "I'm sure you did. But not the ground below it. Only for something caught in it." Rutledge put the splinter of wood carefully away in his handkerchief and then dusted his hands.

  Looking up at the sky, at the heavy dark clouds drawing closer, he said, "We'll be caught yet." Turning to Satterthwaite, he said, "Did you sift the ashes in the stove? In the event anything was burned in there?"

  "We did. And nothing came to light. Of course, it might not have, if there were no hinges on that box. Or clasp. It'ud burned right up. But that would take time. In my mind, he took the box with him."

  "All right then. I think we should be on our way to Hobson, before that storm gets here."

  As it happened, they had only just reached the police station when the dark clouds, heavy with rain, rolled in on their heels. Satterthwaite thanked Rutledge, and said, "You're staying the night?"

  "I want to take the cane to London as quickly as I can. I'll see that you know what we found out."

  "You think the answer is in London then? One of those brothers."

  "I don't know," Rutledge told him. "But you and I have run out of suspects here. Let me try in London."

  Satterthwaite grinned. "You'll drown before you get there." And he made a fast dash for the door of the station just as the first heavy drops of rain became a raging downpour.

  Backed with wind, it was a cold rain for June. And it followed Rutledge nearly as far as Chester. He ran out of it there and considered staying the night another fifty miles down the road. But his mind was busy with new directions, and he was in a hurry to test them.

  Chapter 22

  Edwin Teller drove through the night after leaving Hobson, intent on getting as far from Hobson as possible. They had discussed stopping halfway, as they had done coming up. And he had overruled the idea. London was home, it was sanctuary. It was not on the north road, where every mile was a reminder. At home he could forget.

  Amy was asleep in the seat beside him, and he felt more lonely than he could ever remember feeling in his life.

  He had done the right thing, attending the services for Florence Teller. They had all tried to dissuade him, Amy and Susannah and Peter. He hadn't asked Walter's opinion. It wasn't important to him.

  Given the circumstances, he wasn't sure why he had felt such an urgent need to be there. She wasn't what the others called her-the woman. As if she had no identity that mattered, someone who had caused more trouble with her death than she had ever caused in her lifetime.

  Florence Marshall Teller. He whispered the words, and the night wind whipped them away. Florence Marshall Teller.

  He recalled reading somewhere that as long as someone living still remembered one's name, one was never truly dead.

  Florence Marshall Teller.

  Beside him Amy stirred, then settled herself again without waking. He envied her.

  He thought that of all of them Inspector Rutledge had understood his need. A member of the family-even if she had no family to call her own and was only a Teller by marriage. There was a dignity in that. And something in the policeman's face as he stood by the graveside reflected what he himself was feeling, that she had deserved better.

  He didn't want to remember that plain house on its windswept knoll. He didn't want to think about the plain wooden coffin, and the plain little churchyard. It had made him want to lash out at all of them, and tell them the truth. But it would have hurt too many people. And so it had had to be buried with her, next to the boy she must have loved beyond bearing, alone as she was.

  Edwin shook his head, trying to clear it and concentrate on the road ahead. His duty to the family.

  That meant all of them. Divided though his loyalties were, the duty remained, and he would say nothing. He would go to his grave in silence if need be. But if he did, he would carry it on his conscience beyond his last breath.

  God bless you.

  Florence Marshall Teller…

  Chapter 23

  Rutledge reached London in the small hours of the night and went to his flat to sleep.

  He was in a quandary over the cane. Peter Teller, of course, would deny any knowledge of it. But Edwin would have made the journey back to London in easy stages and would reach Marlborough Street tomorrow at the earliest.

  Walter Teller, then.

  Leaving London for the trunk road, he caught sight of Charlie Hood again, this time walking briskly along the pavement, head down and buried in his thoughts. Rutledge pulled over and called to him.

  Hood turned around, stared at Rutledge for a moment, then placed him. Reluctantly he came toward the motorcar, saying, "You don't have that man's murderer in custody, do you?" There was a mixture of emotions in his voice. Fear uppermost.

  "Not yet. I don't think he's killed again."

  "No. He's lying low somewhere, I'll be bound. He didn't expect to stir up a hornet's nest, now did he?"

  "Do you know a Walter Teller?" Rutledge asked, still trying to place that vague sense of having seen Hood before.

  "Teller? Should I? Is that what you're calling the boy?"

  "We still don't have a name for him. I have a feeling the one he gave me was not his."

  "Stands to reason. He was committing a crime, wasn't he?"

  "Is your name Charlie Hood?" Rutledge countered.

  "It's as good a one as any." Hood straightened up. Then he said, "Watch yourself, mate."

  With that he walked off, ignoring Rutledge, who called to him to come back and finish the conversation. Turning a corner, Hood was quickly out of sight.

  Hood had heard something, Rutledge thought. In that secretive telegraph system that tied the poor and the wanted and the running together, and no policeman knew the key.

  Hamish said, "He answered the question aboot Teller wi' one of his ain."

  "So he did. I'll give you odds he and Teller crossed paths." He considered that. "When he gave his account of the Bynum killing, he was coming from the direction of the Abbey. I wonder if Teller slept there. Or if it was in another church."

  And then he swore. In his pocket was the photograph of Walter Teller that Jenny Teller had let him borrow to help the police find her husband. He had carried it with him, first to use, and then to return to her. And he had not yet kept his promise. He could have shown it to Hood. Who knew what name-if any-Teller had been using while he was invisible in London?

  People behind Rutledge were sounding th
eir horns, telling him to move on. He did, for a moment, consider returning to the Yard, but by the time he could send anyone to search for Hood the man would have been lost to sight again.

  He drove on to Essex, and found Teller deadheading his roses after the night's rain.

  Teller looked up when he saw the motorcar coming up the drive and straightened, as if preparing himself for what was to come.

  Rutledge left the motorcar on the drive and walked across the lawns toward the roses. "They've done well this year," he said.

  "You haven't come all this way to praise our roses."

  "No. But they reminded me that Lawrence Cobb had put one in Florence Teller's grave. I think he was in love with her."

  Teller's face tightened. "I don't know a Lawrence Cobb."

  "No, that's probably true. Did you know a Charlie Hood? No? Then can you describe the cane that your brother Peter uses for his leg?"

  "His cane?" The swift change in direction caught Teller unprepared.

  "Yes. Was it ash, by any chance?"

  "As I remember," Teller said, frowning, "it was Malacca. I've seen it so often, to tell you the truth I don't heed it anymore."

  "The knob at the end?"

  Teller was wary now. "Ivory, I think. A Gorgon's head. Why?"

  Was he lying? Or telling the truth? It was hard to read his face.

  "We have reason to believe it was a cane that killed Florence Teller. We found part of it in the hedge surrounding the front garden. I haven't seen your brother using his of late. Instead, he struggles to get around without one."

  "I suspect he's trying to wean himself from the use of it."

  "I doubt that. From the type of wound he suffered, I should think he will need a cane for the rest of his life."

  "That may be-"

  "It's likely," Rutledge said harshly, "that he used that cane to kill Florence Teller. His motorcar was seen outside the house that same day. We've found that cane. And we have a witness who can describe both the driver and the vehicle."

  Teller said, "Peter would have no reason to kill the woman. What's she to him?" He went back to the roses, his face turned away.