Rutledge found a small pub for his noon meal, and sat there over his pudding, thinking about Parkinson and the cottage in Berkshire. So much made sense now. The fact that the cottage had no touches of personal warmth-it was not Parkinson's home, this house in Wiltshire was. And his disappearances.
Hamish said, 'To his wife's grave? You ken, ye thought of that before.'
'Deloran probably had the churchyard watched for all we know. And going there would have bolstered Deloran's theory that Parkinson was still grieving. Wherever Parkinson went, Deloran couldn't find him, and that was the trouble.'
Hamish said, 'It's verra' likely that he went away to torment Delo- ran.'
'It wouldn't surprise me that he was just being bloody-minded, rebelling against being watched, showing the War Office that he was clever enough to outfox them all. A cat-and-mouse game, to worry De- loran.'
Rutledge considered another possibility-that when Parkinson couldn't stand his own company any longer, when the walls of the cottage were closing in, he might well have needed to be around people. A crowded train station, a Wednesday market, a theater. Somewhere safe to remind himself he wasn't going mad.
It was dark when he reached The Smith's Arms. Rutledge left the motorcar in the yard, then walked down to Wayland's Smithy. It was a far better place to leave an unwanted body than an abbey cloister in Yorkshire.
Who had decided that it was time Parkinson should die? That's what it all came down to. Not where the body was left, but who had chosen to end one man's life now. It was useless to speculate, but who had become the bedrock of the case.
The heavy stone slabs that had created this ancient tomb caught his attention, and he thought about the numbers of men it would have taken to build this place for a dead chieftain or priest.
We spend our energies in different ways, he thought, standing there. How many aeroplanes and tanks and artillery caissons had it taken to end the Great War? Not to count the rifles and helmets, respirators and machine guns, the number of boots, the tunics and greatcoats and the tins in which we had brewed our tea or the casings of the shells fired. A nation's fortune surely, greater than any man possessed in the centuries since this tomb was new and raw and the dead shut into it was still honored by those who had carried him here.
It was depressing to think about.
There was always a new weapon, something to kill greater numbers of the enemy than the enemy could hope to kill on one's own side. Parkinson must have been more than a pair of hands in the work he was doing on poisonous gases. Men like Deloran wouldn't have wasted an hour's thought on the whereabouts of a minor chemist who carried out tests and wrote reports. The housekeeper had said that Parkinson was pleased with something new that would help end the war sooner. Had he left with that work unfinished or at a critical stage?
If that had been the case, someone would have moved heaven and earth to get Parkinson back into the laboratory as quickly as possible.
Had he discovered a conscience when his wife died and decided that he was finished with what had always been his life's work? Had he been frightened by the man he'd become, and walked away?
Rutledge brought to mind the face in the sketch, and tried to probe behind it.
All he could find was an ordinary man, despite what he had done in his laboratories, nothing in his features to mark him, nothing that could have caught one's eye on the streets of London or Canterbury, nothing that would reflect what this person had chosen to do with his life. Neither evil nor good, just a man with no calluses on his hands and no scars, no means of telling him from a half-dozen others his size and weight and coloring.
Then what had happened to him if he was so ordinary?
Rutledge turned back toward the inn and asked Mrs. Smith if he could have his dinner brought to his room. After eating it by the window, he went on sitting there in the darkness even after the yard was silent and the road in front was empty.
Trying to picture Jean's face, the sound of her voice, the touch of her hand, he found it was difficult. He had loved her, or believed he had, and grieved for what might have been when the engagement ended.
Now, with her death, a door had closed. She was the last link with the bright summer of 1914, and happiness, and a world that was going to be his to grasp.
After a while he got up and readied himself for bed without lighting the lamp.
He had expected to lie there awake, listening to Hamish in his head. In the morning, he would go to the cottages and find out who might have wanted the death of one Gerald Parkinson, or if they had wanted to kill Gaylord Partridge.
Instead he'd drifted into sleep without dreams.
Best-laid plans have a way of going astray.
Someone was knocking on his door before the first light of dawn had penetrated his room, summoning him urgently.
He fought his way back from a deep sleep and answered.
Smith said, his voice husky, 'There's been trouble at the Tomlin Cottages. You'd best come.'
16
Rutledge dressed swiftly, asking questions as he worked. But Smith knew nothing more. In the lobby he found Slater standing there, pale and agitated. 'What kind of trouble?' he asked the smith. 'I don't know. I heard a cry. And after that, nothing.' 'From the Partridge cottage?' 'There? No. Please hurry!'
Rutledge went at once into the yard and Slater followed, going to the bonnet and bending to turn the crank with his massive hand. Smith was calling after them, 'Shall I come as well?' 'Not yet. You may be needed later.'
He got behind the wheel, and Slater slid into the other seat, a hulking shadow in the light of the innkeeper's lamp. 'Which cottage?' Rutledge asked. 'Mr. Willingham's. Number Three, just above Mr. Partridge.' The old man, then.
They drove the short distance to the cottages in silence, but Rutledge could feel the anxiety in the man at his side, and reaction setting in.
'I didn't investigate,' Slater said as the cottages came into view. 'I've never heard anything like that. I fear there's murder done, Mr. Rutledge. Sure as God's above.'
'Can you be certain he wasn't calling for help? Taken ill suddenly in the night-a fall?'
But he knew it must be more than that, to frighten Slater so badly. Slater walked the night and was of a size that brooked no interference. It wasn't fear that had shaken him, it was something closer to a primordial response to horror.
Slater said nothing, hunched in his seat, willing the motorcar to move faster.
They arrived at the cottages soon enough, and Rutledge left his motorcar beside the smith's door, rather than destroy any tracks or other evidence nearer Willingham's.
He reached for his torch, closing his eyes from habit because it was in the rear where Hamish sat. Groping he found nothing, and then suddenly his hand touched the torch, as if Hamish had pushed it nearer. He flinched, then gripped the cold metal, turning toward the cottage.
The windows were dark, the door closed, nothing to mark forced entry, but the question was, did Willingham lock his doors of a night or leave them off the latch?
Rutledge started toward it, and Slater made to follow him. Rut- ledge held up a hand. 'No. Wait until I call you.'
Slater argued, 'You may need help. I'm stronger than you.'
Rutledge said, 'Then better to be outside than in.'
The door was indeed unlocked. Inside, Rutledge's torch seemed to pierce the darkness like a spear. He moved it without moving himself, until he had a feeling for the furnishings and the shape of the room. It was very similar to other cottages he'd been in, but the placement of chairs and tables was different.
The sitting room just beyond the door showed no signs of disturbance. A rug before the hearth, a chair to one side, a shelf of books on the other. A small table by the window, with two smaller chairs, and a footstool by the winged chair under the lamp. An empty glass rested on the stand next to it, with a book open beside it.
The kitchen, tiny even by cottage standards, was tidy, but a stack of plates and cups stood waiting to be
