don't count him a friend, you understand. He's not convinced that Brady is our man. He favors poor Slater, telling me that he'd not be predictable in taxing situations. Miller says he grew up with one such and there was murder done because of a misunderstanding that got out of hand. I can't say that I agree. I've never seen Slater violent.'
'That leaves you, Singleton, and Quincy to be cast as murderers.'
Allen smiled. 'I daresay I'm not in Inspector Hill's sights, given my health.' The smile faded. 'What's become of Mrs. Cathcart? I haven't seen her today. Has someone looked in on her?'
'Yes, she's fine. She was enjoying breakfast earlier.'
'Is Partridge dead, as Brady claimed?'
'Yes, I'm afraid he is. But under rather different circumstances than Willingham's murder. It will take some time to learn what Brady's role was in his death. If any.'
'I must say, I'd have not thought it of Brady. He was a weak man, in my view, troubled by his drinking and whatever it was that brought him here to live.'
Rutledge prepared to take his leave, watching Allen's face sag with fatigue, one hand clutching the arm of a chair with white-knuckled fingers.
Allen was saying, 'I'll tell you something about Partridge. For what it's worth. I wouldn't have, if there was a chance he was still alive.'
Rutledge waited.
'I don't think that was his real name. I'd seen him at a party in Winchester several years ago, and although we weren't introduced, he was pointed out to me as one of the people doing some sort of hush- hush work for the government. There were a number of important guests at the dinner, and he seemed to know most of them. I never asked him about this, partly respecting his privacy and partly because I heard later that he'd fallen from grace and was in bad odor with the government. You can imagine my surprise when I looked out my door one morning and saw him walking down the lane. He was calling himself Partridge then, but for the life of me I can't remember how he was called at the party. Something similar, but I'd have remembered Partridge if it had been that. It's not a common name.'
'And you said nothing about this to anyone else?'
Allen responded with irritation. 'I told you. I respected his privacy.'
'Later on, did you tell the friend who'd first pointed this man out to you that you'd seen him here in Berkshire?'
Allen's face flushed. 'Only because I thought it might reassure him that all was well. I was in Winchester to see my doctor when I ran into him.'
'How long after that did Mr. Brady come here to live?'
'A month, possibly less. There can't be a connection. I'd have sworn they didn't know each other.' But Allen was no fool. 'You aren't trying to say there's a connection, are you? That word spread, and that's why Brady came here? I refuse to believe it.' But the dawning realization was shattering. 'If your charge is true, why did the man wait so long to kill Partridge? Answer me that?'
'Brady's dead, and there's no way we can ask him.'
Allen said again, 'I refuse to believe my casual comments had anything to do with Brady or the murder of Partridge.' He stepped forward, forcing Rutledge to move back outside the door, and shut it with firmness.
'That was how Martin Deloran found his missing scientist,' he said to Hamish as he walked back the way he'd come.
A chance encounter, a remembered name and face, a chatty reference in a conversation, and somehow the news had reached Deloran's ears.
Hamish said, 'Ye ken, Parkinson knew as soon as the watcher came, but didna' understand how it was that he'd been found.'
'I'm sure of it.'
He stopped to tap at Miller's door in Number 7.
This time to his surprise it opened. 'The police have been and gone. I've nothing to say to you.'
Rutledge said, 'I happened to call on Miss Chandler, and she asked to be remembered to you and to Mr. Allen.'
'Kind of you. Good day.'
But Rutledge had his hand on the door to prevent it from closing. 'I've also come to ask if you knew Mr. Partridge well.'
'No one here knows anyone well. I thought you'd have learned that by now.'
Rutledge studied the man. A thin face, hair graying early, a sturdy build. He could have been the conductor on a streetcar or a clerk in a shop. Middle-class with an accent that didn't betray his roots, one cultivated to win him a better position in the marketplace, but not completely natural to him. It was his eyes that were interesting. They were what many would call hazel, but the dominant color was a golden green and oddly feral. And they were guarded, as if someone else stood behind them, a very different man from the one the world saw at first glance.
Inmates of prisons sometimes had that shuttered look, surviving as best they could in a place where they were afraid.
Rutledge said, 'Every cottage has windows. And there's nothing to see except the horse on the hill and the comings and goings of your neighbors.'
'I don't watch from my windows.'
But he had, like the others, and now he denied it, as the others had done. What was his secret?
Had he embezzled funds at his place of business? Or been passed over for promotion and lost his temper? Allen had called him a timid man, and Slater had said he was evil.
There was something here, something that Rutledge, an experienced police officer, could feel in the air.
'You saw nothing the night that Willingham was killed? Or on the night when Brady must have disposed of Partridge's body?'
'I didn't see anything when Willingham was killed. Thank God I was asleep. As for Partridge, I don't even know what night that was. But I can tell you that it was about three days since I'd seen him-he used to walk over to where the trees start and stand there looking up at the horse-when I heard the motorcar come back. It was close on three in the morning, and I was having trouble sleeping. I got up, thinking I might have a cigarette, and I stood there at the window watching someone open the shed door and then drive the motorcar inside. As a rule, Partridge shuts it straightaway, but this time I didn't see him walk around to the door as he usually did. The shed door stayed open.'
'And in the morning?'
'The shed door was shut and all was quiet. I thought perhaps he'd slept in, after a long drive. I never saw him again.'
When Rutledge didn't comment, Miller hesitated and then added, 'The next night Brady went there to Partridge's door, knocked, and went inside. He stayed nearly an hour, and then hurried back to his own cottage. My guess at the time was that Partridge had been taken ill, but nothing came of Brady's visit.'
Rutledge said, 'No one else has given me this information.'
Miller laughed harshly. 'Even Quincy must sleep sometimes. I seldom sleep the night through. It's become a habit with me now.'
Hamish said, 'The truth? Or what ye want to hear?'
Rutledge considered his answer, both to Hamish and to Miller.
Miller added to the silence, hurrying to fill it again, 'As far as I know, Mr. Brady didn't have anything with him when he left the cottage.'
'And you'd be willing to swear to this under oath at the inquest, Mr. Miller? I wish I'd been told earlier, while Brady was alive.'
A flicker of emotion passed across Miller's face. 'You never came to ask.'
'I was here several times. You failed to answer your door.'
'Yes, well, these things happen.' He waited with expectancy, as if he thought this time the man from London might leave.
Rutledge thanked him and went back to his motorcar.
