sure.'
'Will you tell me why, when you know?'
'Yes. I'd like the answer to that myself.' Rutledge sat by the fire in Hensley's office, the toothpick in his hand.
If all the world thought Harry Ellison was dead and had been buried in London for all these years, no one would have set up a hue and cry over the fact that he had disappeared.
And it was in keeping with Mary Ellison's character that she would rather have her husband decently interred than for her to be gossiped about in Dudlington as a deserted wife.
Hamish said, 'She went to the wood two nights ago.'
'Yes, she wanted to be sure I hadn't found her husband. She let me believe it was Emma she thought I was searching for, which was clever of her. I believed her, even pitied her. What matters now is that all alone, in the dark of night, she'd ventured into Frith's Wood. She wasn't afraid of it because she hadn't been brought up in Dudlington and taught to fear it. That much she and Constable Hensley had in common. It's not surprising that she'd see the wood as a place to rid herself of her husband's body.'
'Aye, but how did she lug him there?'
'I don't know. He may have been alive when he got there, but already feeling the poison. If she was capable of killing him, she could surely think of an excuse to lure him there to die.'
There was a sound at the door, and he looked up, palming the toothpick so that it couldn't be seen.
Meredith Channing stood there, her face grim.
'I came back,' she said simply. 'I'm not the coward I'd hoped I was.'
He laughed. 'I'd take you to lunch in Letherington if I thought it wouldn't start the gossipmongers talking.'
'I'm hungry. And not particularly worried about gossip. For that matter, you look as if you'd be better off out of Dudlington. What's happened?'
'If you wanted to kill your husband, how would you go about it?'
'I didn't kill him, if that's what your policeman's brain is telling you.'
'No. I'm not accusing you. I'd like to know how you would go about such a thing, if it were in your mind.'
She walked toward the window that gave onto the street, her back to him.
'Women don't care for bloody scenes. It's easier to use poison, if you aren't there to watch him die. I should think that would be the most difficult part. Watching.' She turned back to him. 'I don't like being drawn into your brutal world, Ian.'
Had it been his brutal world that had decided Elizabeth Fraser not to welcome him back to Westmorland? He hadn't thought of that. But she'd had a taste of just how unspeakable murder could be. For the first time since he'd received her letter he could sympathize with what must have been a difficult choice for her, and in turn respect it.
Hamish said, 'Aye, you wouldna' care to see her hurt.'
And it was true. Taking a deep breath, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, he brought his mind back to Meredith Channing.
'I'm sorry,' he said as he shut the toothpick into a cabinet behind the desk and got to his feet. 'I didn't intend to make you a part of it either. Lunch is still on offer. I'll just tell Mrs. Melford that I won't be in.'
He left a note for her, when she didn't answer his knock, then brought around the motorcar for Mrs. Channing. As he held the door she stepped into the vehicle and found a scarf in her pocket to put around her hat.
When he turned the crank, he heard Hamish telling him he was unwise. But she was right, he needed to be away from Dudlington for a few hours. Yet he couldn't stop himself, as he got in behind the wheel, from looking up at the bedroom windows where Emma Mason had slept. Luncheon was roast ham and potatoes, with boiled cabbage and a flan. It was the best the Unicorn Hotel could produce, but Mrs. Channing didn't complain. Instead she talked about her life in London, making it seem amusing and interesting. She'd been born in Somerset, she told him, and hadn't gone to the city until her marriage but learned to live there without too much homesickness for the West Country. She never spoke of her husband directly, as if talking about him was still painful.
Rutledge listened, interjecting comments now and then, but a good part of his mind was elsewhere. How does one prove that poison was used-and where were the bodies of Beatrice Ellison and her daughter, Emma Mason? Not in the wood, surely-he'd searched too carefully to have missed them.
But their murderer had learned, perhaps, from her first experience, not to rely on such a public place.
In the house, then-somewhere.
He came back to the present when Hamish whispered, ' 'Ware!'
Mrs. Channing was sitting across the table from him, an amused look on her face.
'I'm sorry-' he began, embarrassed, and then realized it was the second time he'd apologized to her that day.
'Do you treat all your guests this way?' she demanded. 'I've asked you at least twice if you'd pass the salt.'
He had the grace to laugh as he handed the silver saltcellar to her. And then his hand stopped in midair.
It would be so simple to put something in the sugar bowl or saltcellar. So easy to abstain, one's self.
'What is it?' Mrs. Channing asked, watching his face.
As he gave her the saltcellar, he shook his head. 'Remembering something, that's all.'
But she was holding the saltcellar as if it might bite her, staring down at it with loathing before she set it aside unused. 'Yes,' she said slowly. 'It would work, wouldn't it? Or the almond paste between the layers of a favorite cake. And then you could dispose of what was left without a worry. In the back garden under a pot of geraniums. Even burning it up in the stove, although the smell would be sickening.'
A five-year-old child would never suspect that her mother had just killed her father. Death was loss, hard enough to understand.
Folding her napkin, Meredith Channing sat back in her chair, as if her appetite had fled.
'Small wonder you haven't married,' she told him, then saw the look on his face and remembered what Maryanne Browning had confided to her about his engagement. 'I'm so sorry! That was not called for. I was simply about to say that of all the men I've ever dined with, you're the first to put me off my food.'
Her attempt at levity fell flat.
He thought, It's going to be impossible to prove. But if she shot Hensley, the killing hadn't ended.
The hotel receptionist came to his table and said quietly, 'Inspector Rutledge?'
'Yes?'
'Inspector Cain has been looking for you and saw your motorcar in the hotel yard. There's been an urgent telephone call from Northampton. I'm to tell you that Constable Hensley is dying, and you're to come at once.' Mrs. Channing insisted on driving with him. 'If you must stop in Dudlington before you go on to Northampton, you may be too late. There's nothing I can do, but I don't mind waiting until you know whether this is true or not.'
'Why shouldn't it be true?' he asked, stepping into the motorcar beside her.
'Telephone messages can be contrived. As I remember, there are some very lonely stretches just south of Dudling- ton, open pasture rather than houses. A perfect place for an ambush.'
If his nemesis could hide in the open land of Beachy Head, he could hide along the roadside as he did in Hertford, and wait for the motorcar to come by.
'No. That puts you at risk. If the shot kills me, I'll lose control of the wheel. You could die in the crash.'
'I could have died nursing those poor soldiers with the Spanish influenza too. Or on the crossing between Dover and Calais. I could have been one of the nurses who went down with the Britannic. I'm not afraid. And someone else in the car with you might deter him. Who knows?'
She reached into the rear seat to lift up the woolen rug that he kept there, and Rutledge stopped breathing for a heartbeat as she seemed to have trouble retrieving it. Almost as if Hamish had held on to it, he thought. But she said nothing as she finally brought it between their seats and proceeded to spread it over her knees.
That, as he knew too well by now, was no proof that she hadn't sensed a presence there, just that she had chosen not to speak of it. For the moment.
