innocence-or guilt? Rutledge found that she had brought out the protective streak in him, and he couldn’t be sure whether it was for her own sake or Hamish’s that he felt bound to do his best for her.
There was confusion and emotion in his mind fraught with his own bitterness, his own loneliness. It was, he thought, forcing him to think without the clarity and objectivity he tried to bring to every investigation assigned to him.
Hamish, God damn it, was right “And where was your objectivity in Cornwall-or Dorset?” Hamish demanded. “Where was your clarity then? Those women touched you too. How can you be sure it is Fiona and not you who’s on trial here!”
Rutledge had no answer.
Rutledge stopped in Winchester long enough to bathe and change his clothes and then found his way to Atwood House.
It was a small manor house built of mellow stone by a sure hand in the 1700s. The architect had set it on a knoll that offered splendid views to the south and an old grove of trees to the north, offering privacy and a barrier against cold winds. A stream meandering through the property was lined with wild roses, thick with hips now. Rutledge could see a pair of swans swimming regally on a pond created for the rowboat tied to a post. Someone had opened out the stream to fill the pond, and created a lovely effect at the bottom of the western gardens, a mirror of the sky that barely rippled as the swans floated above their own images.
The drive swept him up to the Georgian front with its dressed stone and pedimented windows. He got out of the car, nodding to the gardener trundling a handbarrow filled with spades and hoes and trimmers across the lawn toward the drive, and walked to the door. A brass knocker, which looked to be a more modern copy of an earlier iron one, clanged mightily as he let it fall.
After a proper passage of time, an elderly butler answered the door.
Rutledge identified himself and asked to speak to Mrs. Atwood.
The butler, noting his crisp collar and the set of his suit across his shoulders, said, “I’ll ask if Mrs. Atwood is at home this afternoon.”
He led Rutledge to a coldly formal room and left him there for nearly seven minutes. The walls, sheathed in blue silk, shimmered in the light from the long windows, and the French chairs that set off the white marble of the mantel were arranged for elegance, not comfortable conversation. There was no carpet on the floor, and on closer inspection, the walls as well as the fabric covering the chairs were worn. But over the mantel was a wonderful painting of the view he’d seen coming up the drive. It was a younger time, the trees were not yet mature, there were sheep grazing the smooth lawns, and the house did not have the patina of age, but the serenity was there, unchanged.
The butler returned and conducted him down the passage to a sitting room that also showed wear. Well- worn chintz, a faded carpet on which an elderly spaniel slept noisily, and an air of comfortable, genteel shabbiness told him that the house had suffered much use during the war and had not yet reclaimed its former elegance. But the windows faced the pond and the stream, framing the view and bringing in the soft light of afternoon. It was peaceful.
Mrs. Atwood was standing by the empty hearth as he came in. A pale woman in every sense, slim and willowy in pastel green, pale of hair and eyes and skin, as if all the color had been washed away in the long, careful years of family breeding.
He discovered very quickly that the character had not been washed away.
She said with graciousness that was backed by steel, “I have spoken to-um-a Sergeant Gibson. There is nothing more I wish to say to the police.”
“That’s quite possible,” he answered. “Sergeant Gibson was here as a duty. I have come as an emissary of Lady Maude Gray.”
Something unexpected stirred in the pale blue eyes. They were the color of faded lupines, hardly differentiated from the white surrounding them. “I have not heard from Lady Maude in some years.” Her voice was neutral, giving nothing away.
Hamish, silent until now in the shadows of Rutledge’s mind, said softly, “She doesna’ care for yon Lady Maude… ”
Making a note of it, Rutledge answered, “It isn’t surprising. She quarreled with her daughter. I cannot say she regrets that quarrel, but she has come into information now that has disturbed her. It’s very possible that Eleanor Gray is dead. How and where she came to die we don’t know. I am doing what I can to find answers.”
Surprise flared in the long face. “Dead! But your sergeant-”
“-said nothing about that. Yes, I know. On my instructions.”
He let the silence fall and gave her time to digest his curt answer.
“I don’t see how I can help you. I haven’t seen Eleanor since the middle of the war. I thought-Humphrey and I were quite convinced she’d gone to America when she couldn’t take up medicine here. It would have been so like her!”
“Why should she choose to go there? Did she have friends-someone who might put in a word for her?”
“As a matter of fact, there was someone.” She hesitated and then added, “I called Alice Morton after Sergeant Gibson left. She was in school with Eleanor and me. But her husband is an American-he’s at the embassy here. His brother John is a professor at Harvard. He’d written to Eleanor once, in the spring of 1916, at Alice’s request, laying out opportunities she might wish to consider over there. Alice told me John had never had a reply. Eleanor hadn’t contacted him at all.” Mrs. Atwood shrugged lightly. “She was always strong-minded. She might not have wished to be beholden, even to a friend.”
“Why did you call and ask about Miss Gray? If you hadn’t tried to find her for three years?”
Mrs. Atwood was disconcerted by the direct question. “I-I don’t know why. Not really. It was just-I wanted to be reassured, I suppose. We don’t often have the police asking about an acquaintance. It was-only that.”
Hamish demanded, “Was it?”
After a moment, Rutledge asked pleasantly, “Tell me about the last time you saw or spoke with Eleanor Gray.”
He had made his hostess uneasy. From reticence she had moved to explanations and now apology. “I’m sorry, there isn’t much to tell. Not really. She was to come down for the weekend and bring a friend. But she telephoned to say she’d changed her mind. The young man had more leave than she’d thought, and she wanted to go to Scotland with him.”
“I wasn’t aware that her family had a house there.” He deliberately misunderstood her.
“No, of course they didn’t! It was the pipers, you see-” Breaking off, she started again. “Eleanor was eager to do what she could for the wounded. I found it rather-depressing-being around them. But she did her best to try to cheer them. Brought in singers, performers, that sort of thing. She became convinced that hearing the pipes might encourage the wounded and help them endure their pain better. Perhaps remind them of the courage they’d shown at the Front.”
“She went to Scotland to find them?” Again he subtly twisted her words.
“No, no, you don’t understand. She arranged for pipes and drums to visit the manor houses that had been turned into clinics or hospitals. We had about twenty officers ourselves, broken bones generally. She invited the pipers here first, to see what the response might be. And it brought the men to tears. They were so buoyed up! It was amazing. She had two young officers with her who had helped find the pipers. Both were Scottish, and both were quite taken with Eleanor. I thought she rather liked the dark one. She was upset when he went back to the Front.”
“Do you recall the names of these men?”
“Good gracious, no, not after all this time. I do remember that the fairer one spent a considerable part of his day in our stables. The horses were gone, of course, but it was the construction that interested him. The stonework was eighteenth century, and he admired it.”
“And the other officer? The one Eleanor Gray seemed to like?”
Mrs. Atwood frowned. “His father was something in finance. I can’t tell you what it was. We were so crowded, and there was so much happening. I tried to be polite, but the truth is, I barely listened.”
“Please try to remember.” It was a command sheathed as a polite request.
She shook her head. “It was so long ago. And you can’t imagine what it was like, the house at sixes and sevens, things packed away in the attics, no room to entertain. Though we did make an effort when we had fewer
