'That was what astonished me, you know. She didn't generally call on me. But she said she was here to donate fifty pounds to the church fund. It was an unexpected gift, but one we need rather badly. When I started down the steps to thank her, she told me to go on and finish what I was doing-which was searching out a pair of gloves, though I hadn't said anything about that.'
'She didn't speak of an emergency?'
'Not at all. It was afterward that someone shouted for me to come at once. I'm sure she'd been gone for, oh, a good five or six minutes. I'd been thinking how best to use the money, enjoying the prospect.'
But she hadn't gone very far, Rutledge found himself thinking. She must have looked in the kitchen and the laundry to see if Hillary Timmons was in the house. 'Have you seen her since?'
'Now that was the odd thing. She came just this morning to ask me about a pot of chutney she'd left on the table in the hall a day or so ago, not wanting to disturb me while I was convalescing. Sadly she never mentioned the donation to the church fund. I wish I'd remembered it and brought it to her attention.'
'Chutney?' Rutledge asked, feeling his heart lurch.
'Hillary found it there on the hall table and set it in the pantry. She didn't know where it'd come from, but she thought I did. So when Mrs. Ellison asked me about her gift, I blurted out that it was delicious, and I thanked her profusely. I was too embarrassed to admit I had no idea what she was talking about.'
'Towson-'
'She went on to say she wondered if it hadn't gone off. She even suggested bringing me another pot. White lies do have a way of coming back to haunt you. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. How was I to tell her I'd never seen it, couldn't return it if my life depended on it? All I could do was assure her it was of excellent quality.'
'And so you found it and tasted it as soon as she'd gone.' It was the sort of thing he was sure the rector would do, to make good his white lie.
'Good heavens, no! I asked Hillary if she'd seen it, and she told me where she'd put it. I don't care for chutney, you see, and so I told the girl she could take it home to her family.'
'Rector. Will you take me to Hillary Timmons's house? I want that pot of chutney.'
'I'll ask her for it tomorrow, if you like. I wasn't aware that you were so fond of it.'
'You must take me there now!' He was on his feet, standing in the doorway, urging the bewildered clergyman to follow him.
'But I don't understand, why shouldn't Hillary enjoy it? They're not very well off, you know. I don't particularly like taking it back, as if I'd found someone else to have it. You've only to speak to Mary Ellison. I'm sure she'd be happy to give you your own.'
And he was just as certain that she would not. 'All right, first we'll look to see if Hillary already has taken it. If she has, we'll go directly to her house.' He was firm, but when Towson didn't move, he started down the passage to the kitchen. Reluctantly the rector limped after him.
'You must tell me-what's wrong?'
'I don't know. Where's the pantry?' Rutledge asked, opening the door to the kitchen. It was warm and cheerful, and he remembered standing in Mrs. Ellison's kitchen, feeling like an interloper in her private world.
Towson went to the pantry, running his finger along pots of jam and honey and preserved plums. A man with a taste for sweets…
'Ah, this must be it. Perhaps she forgot to take it. Or doesn't care for it after all.' Relieved, he picked up a small jar with a square of white linen over it, tied around the mouth with a silver ribbon. 'Hillary did mention the silver ribbon. She thought it quite elegant.'
'I'll buy her the finest chutney in London and have it sent to her. But I must take this with me now.'
'Very well.' But Towson was still doubtful, his eyes on the pot. 'I'd be happier if this didn't come to Mary Ellison's ears. I'm still hopeful of that fifty pounds.'
The rector saw Rutledge to the door, looking out at the light drizzle that had begun to fall.
He said, 'I'm grateful that you helped me piece together part of what had happened the day I fell. It was like a hole in my mind, the sort of thing that people must feel after a seizure or an apoplexy. It's rather frightening, you know.'
'I'm sure it must be.' In truth, there had been a time when Rutledge hadn't been able to remember the war ending. He hadn't expected to see it, in fact for the last two years of the fighting in his mind he had been prepared to die. Only he hadn't. The appalling realization that he had lived in spite of what he'd done in the trenches blotted out everything else. The guilt of surviving, when so many around him had died, was insupportable.
His men that day had been equally shocked at first, the silence overwhelming as the guns that had fired so frantically all morning stopped their battering. And then neither jubilation nor relief followed, just a numbness that gradually filled with the knowledge that now they could go home. Rutledge had given them their orders, as he himself had been ordered to do, saw to their safety-and after that there was nothing, a blank space of time. The next thing he was aware of, he was in a clinic in England, with no understanding of how he'd got there or why. He'd feared those missing weeks. Feared what he might have done. And not even the doctors could give them back to him. It had taken him more than a year to do that, and a night in Kent when it had all come rushing back.
Towson was saying, 'I'm sure the rest will come. In time. If I don't press too hard.'
'I shouldn't worry too much about it,' Rutledge agreed.
'Middleton tells me I might actually have had a seizure…' There was anxiety in his voice now, put there by a callous murderer who had used this man's goodness to bring him down.
'No. You'll realize that when you remember.'
Towson smiled. 'Has anyone ever told you that you're a kind listener? You might have gone to the church, rather than the police, you know.'
Not with the blackness in my own soul, Rutledge answered him silently. And then with a wave, he pulled his hat down against the rain. Rutledge carried the chutney in the palm of his hand, close to his coat as he walked back to the constable's house.
He couldn't take the chutney to Inspector Cain. He didn't trust the man to have it analyzed properly. Particularly if Cain learned it had been made by Mrs. Ellison. A wild-goose chase, he would complain. Another attempt by an outsider to point a finger at a woman of impeccable reputation in an effort to solve a murder he'd not even been sent to Dudlington to investigate. Inspector Kelmore on the other hand had no ties to Dudlington. And his people were capable and trustworthy.
That was the best solution.
He went into the house, something gnawing at the edges of his mind.
Hamish was silent, no help at all.
After standing there for a moment, Rutledge turned back to the door and went out to the motorcar. The drive to Northampton seemed to take longer than usual. Rutledge glanced from time to time at the pot of chutney in the seat next to him.
Was it only his imagination, or was it somehow sinister, malevolent?
Time and a good laboratory would tell him the answer to that.
Inspector Kelmore was out of his office when Rutledge got there, but Sergeant Thompson took the little pot with its silver ribbon and held it gingerly between his thumb and forefinger, as if expecting it to blow up in his face. 'I'll take it down straightaway, sir.' He sniffed the air. 'Do I smell smoke, sir?'
'There was a fire in Dudlington. I helped to put it out.'
'And what shall I tell Dr. Pell to be looking for?'
'I don't know. Arsenic? At a guess.' He told the sergeant where the chutney had come from, who had given it to the rector, and why he'd brought it to Northampton, leaving out only his concerns about Inspector Cain.
'Someone gave this to the rector?' Thompson shook his head. 'What's the world coming to, sir!'
'I'll be at the hospital, if you need me.'
'Very good, sir. I hope you find the constable resting comfortably. The last bulletin we had was that his fever has risen. I don't think they believe he'll make it. Worst luck.'
Rutledge found Matron in her office and sat down across from her desk, his mind shifting directions as he said, 'How is Constable Hensley?'
'No better. A little worse perhaps. He's not always conscious, now.'
Rutledge swore to himself. 'It's important that he recover.'
'We're doing all we can, I assure you, Inspector. But there is a limit to what medicine can do.'
