by Charles Todd
“Of course I can’t put a name to him. I’d have told Chief Inspector Leslie straightaway if I’d known who it was. It would have sent him to prison. I’d have been safe then.”
He hadn’t meant his remark literally, but she had taken it in that sense.
“We’ll have no chance of stopping him if everyone keeps a small piece of the puzzle to himself, thinking that it won’t matter all that much if the police aren’t told. Hoping that somehow they’ll find it out without his help. A very comforting way of avoiding doing one’s duty in something as nasty as murder.”
Her lips tightened. After a moment she snapped, “It’s not a piece of the puzzle, as you put it.”
“But how can you be the judge?” he asked quietly.
He thought he’d lost her, but then she started to speak again.
“I don’t sleep very well, I haven’t since my husband died. Sometimes I read at night, sometimes I knit until I’m ready to sleep. That night I came down to the kitchen to heat a little milk, to see if that would make me drowsy. I didn’t bring a lamp down with me, I can find my way even in the dark. When I’d finished the milk, I went back up to my room and paused to look out my window. I often do, even when I don’t wish to. Those stones have always made me a little uneasy, although my husband loved them. He was born here, you see, they had always been out there. He was used to them. For me they’re—I don’t quite know. But sometimes I’ve wondered if the builders who put them up all those centuries ago are ever drawn back to them. Or the dead from the barrows out on the plain. Not ghosts, you know. I don’t believe in ghosts. But I found it hard to believe that they could bear to see what they’d built changed so much.”
He listened patiently now, letting her get around in her own fashion to what had disturbed her.
Taking a deep breath, she continued. “I’ve never seen anything, not in all these years of looking. It was reassuring, in a way. My husband would have laughed at me, if he’d known.”
Picking at the wool of her skirt, she said, “That night it began as a pinprick of light. I saw it coming from out there where the barrows are. Silbury Hill and the others. Just a pinprick.” She looked away from him. “You’ll call me a silly old woman. But I couldn’t turn away, I felt as if I’d been turned to stone myself. And it grew larger. Ever larger, and it moved from the road to the grass, and across the grass to the stones. And then it went out. I dropped the curtain I’d been holding open, and went quickly back to my bed. And I stayed there until the sun was well up.” She paused. “Later I heard the news. About the murder. I didn’t know what to make of that when they told me where she was found.”
“Did you know—afterward—what that light actually was?”
“No. I didn’t want to know. I’d let that superstitious nonsense rule my thinking, and all the while a woman was being killed. Could I have stopped it? I don’t see how. But the thought that I hadn’t tried was horrifying to me.” She shook her head, looking inward, not at Rutledge. “Still. At the same time, in the back of my mind, I couldn’t rid myself of the possibility that she was a sacrifice against any further desecration of the stones. More nonsense, but I see the stones differently from anyone who was born here. They’re strange, unsettling. They don’t have such things in Kent, where I was born. How could I confess to feeling that? With Constable Henderson sitting there, big as life, hearing every word?” She shuddered. “The whole village would have learned about it, and they’d think I was out of my mind. Mad. A mad old woman. But I’m not.”
“You have told me now.”
“Yes, but you’d already guessed something. And my conscience wouldn’t let me lie again.” She smiled uneasily. “You think me a fool, don’t you?”
“Was the pace of the light slow, as if someone was walking—leading a procession or the like?”
“No, it grew larger rather quickly. Faster than a man can walk. That’s why I was so—so confused.”
“And you didn’t hear anything? The trotting of a horse? A motorcar?”
“In the first place there was only a single light. Hardly a motorcar. And as for a carriage, there was no sound. Not hoofbeats, nor the rumble of the wheels over the ruts. It was a quiet night, and sound carries. That’s why I was so—so certain.” She hesitated, then added, as if asking for forgiveness, “It wouldn’t have changed anything. It wouldn’t have told Chief Inspector Leslie who had done such a terrible thing.”
“It could have told him how the killer had come here. And from which direction.”
“I don’t see how it possibly could do that,” she countered, frowning. “You’re just trying to make me feel guilty.”
“The killer came from the direction of the Down. Not up from the church—nor down from the inn. Not even along the ancient avenue. And he was probably riding a bicycle. With a torch to help him find his way.”
“But where was she, then? Was she already here? Waiting by the stone? I didn’t see her bicycle. And he didn’t leave it behind. How could he have taken both bicycles away with him? After—after what he’d done? That would be awkward, impossible. No, I don’t see how.” Her voice rose a little with her anxiety.
“It wouldn’t have been awkward at all,” Rutledge answered, thinking through it. “If they’d come together on the same one. Not if it was a tandem bicycle.”
6
“I haven’t seen one of those since I was a girl in Kent. My uncle bought one, but my aunt refused to get on it. And so he took me up instead.” Mrs. Parrish shook her head. “Where would such a thing have come from? Besides, the ground is so uneven here, no one rides for pleasure. What must it be like at night?”
“Is there one in Avebury?” he asked, struck by how adamant she was.
“I’ve lived here for forty-two years, and no one in the village has ever owned a tandem bicycle. I mean to say, where would you ride it, even if you bought one? Up and down the causeway road perhaps, but anywhere else the ground isn’t smooth enough for a pleasant outing. Besides, they don’t manage very well with only one person pedaling.”
Hamish, speaking for the first time since Rutledge had come through Mrs. Parrish’s door, said, “She doesna’ want to believe it wasna’ spirits.”
Rutledge thought that Hamish might well be right. Frightened as she was of them, even though she’d called them nonsense, the light somehow justified all her fears, gave the spirits validity.
“That’s just it, they didn’t come from the village, did they? The two people on the bicycle. They would have to come from wherever it was kept.”
She still wasn’t convinced by the time he’d left. But he thought some of that was lingering guilt. If he was wrong about the bicycle, she needn’t feel she had kept important information from the police. And oddly enough her defense of her fears had deepened them. If there had been a bicycle, then there had been interlopers. The body had proven that. And she had gone to bed, done nothing to prevent the killing. Because she was afraid.
“What will happen to me?” she asked as she followed him to the door. She was anxious again. “I’m still in danger. I shouldn’t have told—but you made me feel so very awful.”
“Did Chief Inspector Leslie interview you a second time?” That hadn’t been in any of the notes. He’d have remembered. “Asking you anything more about that night?”
“He seemed satisfied with my statement,” she said. “And I made rather a point of staying out of his way, since I couldn’t help him.”
Rutledge prepared to leave. “Thank you, Mrs. Parrish. I’ll keep what you’ve told me in confidence. For the time being. That should keep you safe enough.”
“Yes—yes, that’s very kind of you.” She nodded, eager now to shut the door behind him. Certain that the sooner he was gone, the safer she would be. “Good night, Inspector.” He had barely crossed the threshold before she was closing the door and shoving the bolt home. Locking out the night.
Rutledge turned and looked across the field. There was hardly any light from the village h
ouses, or even from the inn. The stones were ominous, undefined shapes. He could see why Mrs. Parrish feared them, having had to look out at them all her married life. No streetlamps like those in London to bring familiarity to the dark. And out of that darkness had come that single beam of light.
She wouldn’t have seen it from her parlor. Or here by her door. Upstairs, at her bedroom window, however, it would be clearly visible, growing larger as it approached. And her husband hadn’t been there to tell her it was nothing. She had had to cope with the sight on her own.
Satisfied, he walked down the path to the street and turned toward the inn.
When he got there, Dr. Mason was impatient to order, only asking if Mrs. Parrish had been helpful.
“Yes, she cleared up a question or two,” Rutledge answered easily, reaching for the other menu. “She closes her curtains at night.”
His room looked out on the back of the inn, and in the first light of morning when he got up and was dressing, he could see more stones. It pointed up how vast the circle was, just as Dr. Mason had said. He wondered as he shaved how many people in this village felt as Mrs. Parrish did about the megaliths. And told no one.
After his breakfast, he went out to the motorcar and drove through the village, looking toward the church and the manor house gardens before retracing his route and leaving by the causeway where he’d come in.
He spent the better part of the day exploring the nearest villages, the ones that Chief Inspector Leslie himself had called on. And then he went farther afield, from Winterbourne Monkton to Chiswell to East Kennett and nearly as far as Marlborough, stopping at the local police stations to inquire about a missing woman and to ask if anyone in the parish owned a tandem bicycle.
There were no fresh reports of missing women of any age. There was no new information at all. Conscientious men, village constables assured him that they would have passed it on to Henderson, if they had learned anything useful.
As for tandem bicycles, he was told about seven of them. Rutledge spent several hours tracking down each owner.
Two of them belonged to older couples who had used them in the early days of their courtship, but had relegated them to a shed after the first of their children was born. In each case he walked with the man of the house out to the shed. And in each case, they were still there, the seats a haven for mice and the chains rusted. A bicycle shop had another two on display inside, but not in the shop’s windows.
“Not much call for them,” the owner told Rutledge. “Not since the war. I’ve had this pair since 1915. Always had it in the back of my mind to give one of them a try, but my wife isn’t enthusiastic.”
In Winterbourne, the greengrocer’s twin daughters owned a fifth, and Rutledge was shown it in the back passage of the shop, where it was kept.
“The girls are in Derby, visiting their grandmother.”
“Has anyone, a friend perhaps, borrowed it recently?”
“No, they don’t care to lend it out. The seats are adjusted for their height.”
“Here, in this back passage, anyone might have access to it.”
“I lock the rear door every evening when I close up the shop. I’d have known if it went missing.”
“Do you know of any others?” He was nearly out of names.
“Can’t say that I do. Long before the war there was a man and his wife who owned one. You’d see them come down the road now and again. Sometimes they’d stop at the tea shop before pedaling back home. In fact, that’s where my twins got the notion of having a tandem. They used to run out to watch them when they were passing by. And once the couple stopped and let my girls have a ride. They were six, and wanted their own tandem straightaway. My wife put her foot down. Not till they were twelve, she said.”
“Any idea where they lived? Was it nearby?”
“No, if I remember aright, they came from the neighborhood of Marlborough. I did hear that they’d died. We hadn’t seen them for a while, and so I asked around. Miss Mott, at the tea shop, said she thought the house was left to cousins.”
“Did you ever see the cousins ride this way?”
“No, never did.”
“You don’t recall the couple’s name?”
“Blakely? No, that’s not it. You might ask at the tea shop. Miss Mott’s sister is still there.”
Rutledge did, walking down to the small shop. The owner, calling from the kitchen, said, “Oh, you must mean the Nelsons. Such lovely people. Yes, they lived in Stokesbury. We went to her funeral, we felt we needed to go, you see, to support Mr. Nelson. And I’m glad we did, he died soon after her. Sad, really.”
“Who owns the house now?”
“Um—it’s been some time. I don’t think I remember their names. Or perhaps it’s Nelson as well. They were related. We met them at the funeral, and I’m glad they’ve kept the house. Mrs. Nelson was so fond on it. Of course I haven’t been there since. Nor seen that charming bicycle.”
Drying her hands on a towel, she came around from the back. She was older than her voice had sounded, perhaps mid-fifties.
“Could you tell me how to find the house? I’ll be driving that way. Perhaps the owners kept the bicycle as well.”
“It’s been years—such a pretty house, the way the drive curves in by the steps, and of course the two urns. There were petunias in them that summer. You can’t miss it. Down Courtney Street, I think it’s called.”
He thanked her and left. But her directions had been quite good, and he found the house on his own, without having to speak to the local Constable about it.
It was not as large as he’d expected. Still, it was a three-story Victorian, brick with stone trim, set behind a tall hedge. And a clutch of tall brick pseudo-Elizabethan chimney pots with decorative rims adorned the roof. The drive made a circle in front of the house, just as the tea shop owner had described, and there was a pair of stone urns on either side of the three shallow steps up to the door. There was nothing in them at this time of year, but they were deep enough to hold a handsome display.
He found himself thinking that the house must be quite attractive in summer.
He knocked at the door, but there was no answer. As he was leaving, the woman in the house across the street was standing in the walk to her own door, arms tightly crossed over her chest as she tried to ignore the cold wind.
“Looking for the family, are you?” she called to Rutledge. “They’re in London at the moment.”
“Are they indeed?” he answered. “Do they come down often? Recently?”
“I expect he did. I noticed a light one evening, but when I walked over the next morning, to ask if they were staying and needed anything, no one was at home. I haven’t seen them since.”
“When was this visit? Do you recall?”
But his questions were making her uneasy. “I can’t say.” She looked away, down the street.
“They own a tandem bicycle, I’ve been told. I was looking to buy it.”
“I don’t remember it. But then we’ve lived here only since the war. It could be out in one of the sheds, but I’d not go in search of it if I were you. Not if they’re not at home. No one said anything about selling it.”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” he said, smiling as he thanked her. But she waited there in the cold wind until he had driven away. She was still there as he turned the corner, as if she didn’t trust him not to trespass.
The seventh and last tandem belonged to the Rector in the next village. When Rutledge stopped to ask about the bicycle, he found Mr. Steadman standing on the steps of the Rectory, admiring a patch of early daffodils that had a single bloom. He looked up as Rutledge drew up before the door, and smiled.
“Good afternoon. Are you looking for me, perhaps?” He gestured toward the gold trumpet of the small bloom nodding in the corner of the porch. “Spring is coming, whatever the calendar may say. I find it gives me hope to remember that.” A slender man with white hair, he had an unexpectedly deep voice that must have rolled thro
ugh the church when he spoke.
“I understand you own a tandem bicycle. I was looking to buy one.”
“The chain is hopelessly broken, I’m afraid. It wouldn’t do you much good. But there’s a shop in Marlborough that might have one for sale. I’m so sorry you’ve come all this way for nothing.”
“I just stopped in Stokesbury. They also have one, I’m told, but no one is at home. Use it often, do they? If not, perhaps he’d be willing to sell.”
“I’m not that well acquainted with the present owners, but I did know their cousins. They often rode that bicycle, even into their fifties. On pleasant afternoons we’d play chess, Mr. Nelson and I, while our wives did a little marketing. And I’d often see them out and about on a fine day. She died first, and he followed soon after. They were that close. No children of course. I don’t know when the present owners might be coming down. I’d offer to take a message, but I’m sure you’ll have found what you’re looking for elsewhere, long before they open the house again in the spring.” It was a very courteous way of washing his hands of any duty.
“No, no message. But thank you for volunteering to pass it on.” Something the Rector said caught Rutledge’s attention. “They don’t live here year-round?”
“I’ve heard they expect to retire there one day. It’s a fine house, we’ve dined there many times when the Nelsons were alive.”
“What is the present owner’s name?”
“I must apologize there. I only met them at the funerals. Lovely couple, much younger than my wife and I.” There was an undercurrent in his voice.
In other words, the new owners hadn’t kept up the acquaintance. And the Rector—or his wife—had been disappointed about that.
He nodded his thanks and walked back to the motorcar.
All the known tandems had been tracked down. Some were in such a state of disrepair that they couldn’t have been borrowed, and others were well accounted for, with the exception of the Nelsons’. And no one had said anything about a policeman inquiring about tandems recently. Rutledge had to assume that Leslie hadn’t stumbled on the possibility of one having been used.