on to the next cottage, where he'd seen a woman's face at the window on his earlier visit.
She opened the door only, he thought, because after he knocked he stood there waiting.
Through the crack she said, 'Yes?' As if he had come to sell brushes or produce from a barrow. He couldn't see her face clearly. But he could tell from her eyes that she was frightened.
'My name is Rutledge. I'd like to speak with you.'
'You were here before. Who sent you?'
'Sent me?'
'Was it my husband? He only sends someone if there's bad news.'
'I can't bring you bad news,' Rutledge answered her quietly. 'I don't even know your name.'
'It's Cathcart,' she answered him. 'Maria Cathcart.'
'I'm sorry if I frightened you, Miss Cathcart-'
'It's Mrs. Was and still is, whatever he may tell you.'
'Mrs. Cathcart. I'm here to ask if you recognize the man in a sketch I'd like to show you. Would you mind if I came in? I'll only stay for a moment, I promise you.'
Grudgingly she let him in. The cottage was obsessively neat, as if she had nothing better to do than keep it that way. House-proud? And yet she didn't seem to be the sort of woman who would do her own cleaning. As if she came from different circumstances than he found her in here. Tall and slim, tired and afraid. It was the only way to describe her. The circles under her troubled blue eyes indicated sleepless nights.
She didn't ask him to sit down. Instead she said with some anxiety, 'Show me this man's face.'
He opened the folder and held it out to her. She didn't take it, just glanced at the sheet of paper inside, seemed relieved that it was not the person she'd been expecting, and said, 'Mr. Partridge, I think. I don't know him well. But I daresay that's him.'
'He's been away for some time. Do you have any idea where he might have gone? Or why? Or with whom?'
'I'm not his keeper, nor is he mine,' she answered him.
Rutledge said, 'Did he have family? Friends who came to call? You can see his cottage well from your windows. You might have noticed who came and went.'
'I might have,' she agreed. 'But I didn't. He was of no concern to me. I doubt we said good morning more than a dozen times all told.'
'You never saw anyone at his door?'
'Once when I was in my garden I saw a young woman come to his door. But if he was in the house, he didn't answer her knock. And shortly afterward she left.'
'What did she look like?'
'A well-dressed, fair-haired young woman. I couldn't see her face. I made no effort to try. It had nothing to do with me.'
Was this the same woman Quincy had seen and assumed was Partridge's daughter?
'How long have you lived here, Mrs. Cathcart?'
'For fifteen years, this June.'
'Which means you were living here when Mr. Partridge first came. Do you remember when that was?'
'Of course I remember. It was during the war. The spring of 1918.'
'And he made no effort to be friendly with his neighbors?'
'He was polite. We all are. But we have no desire to befriend one another.'
He wondered why she lived here, alone and with no interest in her neighbors.
'And so there's nothing more you can tell me about Mr. Partridge that might help us find him or learn what's become of him?'
'I have no idea what he did with his time or where he went when he wasn't here. I've told you.'
'We have reason to fear he may be dead.'
She heard him but seemed untouched by the news. 'I'm sorry to hear it,' she said, but it was perfunctory, good manners coming to the fore. 'I've answered your questions. Good day, Mr. Rutledge.'
Rutledge accepted his dismissal, but said on the threshold, 'Did you know-or hear-what Mr. Partridge did for a living?'
'He appeared to be unemployed. That's all I can tell you.'
Rutledge thanked her and left.
He went back to Quincy's cottage and knocked again.
This time the man came to the door and stepped aside to let him in. 'Making the rounds of the neighborhood, are you?'
'In a way,' Rutledge answered him. Dublin got up from a pillow by the fire and stretched before eyeing Rutledge with suspicion. 'I see you're still feeding Partridge's cat.'
'She doesn't bother me, nor I her.'
Rutledge opened the folder. 'Is this Partridge?'
Quincy looked at the sketch. 'Yes. Yes, it is. You've found him then. If that's what you came for before.'
'We think we might have, yes. He's dead. His body was lying in an old ruin, left for the caretaker to stumble over. There's a possibility that he was murdered.'
'Good God!' He seemed genuinely shocked.
'Did he have enemies, that you knew of? I gather you knew him better than most.'
'First of all, I'd like to know why you're here asking so many questions,' Quincy said, drawing back and letting Rutledge close the folder.
'I'm with the police, you see. Inspector Rutledge, Scotland Yard.'
'So your interest in the White Horse was all a ruse.'
'No, I am interested in it. I always have been. But in other things as well.'
'I see. This is now an official inquiry. My neighbors won't care for that, I can tell you!'
'Why not?'
'You know very well why not. We all have something to hide. Perhaps not murder, but something that to us is just as powerful.'
Lepers all, indeed. 'Perhaps you'd like to tell me what it is you must hide.'
Quincy laughed. 'I didn't kill Partridge. That's what I can tell you. The rest is none of your business.'
'Besides the care of the cat, what did you talk to Partridge about?'
'My birds, if you must know. Oh, you've seen them in the other room. I'm no fool. But he was curious about them, and wanted to know where they had come from.'
'I'd like to see them.'
'Oh, yes?' He crossed to the inner door and flung it open.
Rutledge stood there, stunned.
Hamish, in the back of his mind, was speechless.
Rutledge had never seen such an array of birds-all of them dead, yet perched on twigs or railings or stones, like so many toys that with a turn of the key would dance and twitter and sing, to please a child.
Every shape and size, blazing with color and their eyes sparkling like shoe buttons in the light from the windows, they seemed to watch Rutledge.
'I have every right to them, you know. I brought them back to England under a license.'
'Were they alive then?'
'No, of course not. I spent years collecting them. I think I was slightly mad at the time, certainly I wasn't fully in my right mind. It had become an obsession, you see. To find them and capture them and mount them. It gave me something to do, a reason for living. That's a keel-billed toucan over there. Next to him is a fiery-billed tro- gon. You should see them flying about the trees. And that's a rufous motmot. The chestnut one just there, with yellow in his tail, is a Mont- ezuma oropendola. The little green one is a red-headed barbet. That's a resplendent quetzal, with the long tail, and the bigger blue one is a white-throated magpie-jay. The Jabiru stork is just behind it. And the very small ones are hummingbirds. Marvelous little creatures. My favorite is the little snowcap, the purple one with the white head. We don't have them in this hemisphere. A shame. You see them dart about flowers like tiny fairies, wings beating so quickly you glimpse only a blur, and when the sun catches them, they're like tiny jewels. I'm told that the Inca kings wore cloaks made from their feathers.'
